Understanding Your IT Service Provider

Abstract

Several studies have found that SPOs need to know and understand their customers to better serve those customers. There is a difference between knowing who the customer is and understanding the customer. Knowing the customers typically means identifying who they are demographically, assessing what content they are reading and what business they do, and so on. Understanding the customer means knowing their interests, problems, objectives, governance, business and people behaviors and preferences, why and when they buy a service, how they buy, how much money they have, and what they think about you and your competition. I know of several SPOs that address these topics effectively because their goal is to increase their business and to gain a larger IT market share. They do everything required to make this happen.