Career · Lesson Plan
Determining Customer Needs and Wants
Loyal customers come from meeting their needs — but first you have to know who your customers are and what they want. This customer-service lesson shows students how businesses build a picture of their customers using demographics, buying behavior, and trends, and the tools (marketing firms, databases, surveys) they use to gather that information.
For Teachers
Lesson at a glance
- Topic
- Career
- Grade Level
- Grades 9–12
- Resource Type
- Lesson + Worksheet
- Estimated Time
- 45–60 minutes
- Format
- Lesson + activity
- Materials
- Printable lesson, activity sheet, whiteboard
What Students Learn
Learning objectives
- Explain why knowing your customers matters
- Describe demographic and buying-behavior information
- Identify trends that affect what customers want
- List ways businesses gather customer information
- Connect customer knowledge to loyalty
Materials
What you’ll need
- Printed lesson and activity (one per student)
- Pencils
- Whiteboard
Key Terms
Vocabulary
- Customer needs
- What a customer must have from a product or service.
- Customer wants
- What a customer would like to have.
- Demographics
- Facts about customers like age, gender, and income.
- Buying behavior
- Patterns in how and what customers purchase.
- Market research
- Gathering information about customers and the market.
- Loyalty
- A customer’s tendency to keep buying from a business.
For Teachers
Lesson plan
Estimated time: one 45–60 minute class period.
Lesson sequence
- Who are your customers? (12 min). Why a business needs a picture of its customers.
- Demographics & behavior (15 min). The information that picture should include.
- Gathering data (13 min). Marketing firms, databases, and surveys.
- Activity (10 min). Students profile a business’s likely customers and needs.
Assessment
Assess the activity for a sound customer profile and reasonable needs and wants.
Discussion
Discussion questions
- Why does a business need to know who its customers are?
- What is the difference between a need and a want?
- What demographic facts matter, and why?
- How do businesses gather customer information?
- How does knowing customers build loyalty?
Printable Lesson & Activity
Determining Customer Needs and Wants — Lesson & Activity
A printable customer-service lesson on identifying customers and determining their needs and wants through demographics, behavior, and data.
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