Framework
The five types of customer needs
Functional, emotional, social, latent and anti-needs
A framework of the five kinds of customer need to look for in a needs analysis. Functional needs are the tasks people must get done. Emotional and social needs cover how they want to feel and be seen. Latent needs are the ones customers can't name yet, found by watching behaviour and workarounds. Anti-needs are what they want to avoid. Use it to plan interview questions and to tag findings. Koji's AI interviews can probe for each type with follow-up questions.
Where this appears
What's in this framework
- Functional needs: What the customer needs to do: send an invoice, find a product within budget, book a meeting across time zones.
- Emotional needs: How they need to feel: in control, confident, professional, that their time is respected. Often unstated.
- Social needs: How they want to be seen. It explains why people pick a premium option when a cheaper one would do the job.
- Latent needs: Needs they don't know they have yet. Found by watching what people do, where they struggle and what workarounds they built.
- Anti-needs: What they want to avoid: friction, complexity, data sharing, interruptions. As useful to design for as the rest.
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<a href="https://www.koji.so/visuals/five-types-of-customer-needs-framework"><img src="https://www.koji.so/visuals/five-types-of-customer-needs-framework/five-types-of-customer-needs-framework.png" alt="Framework of five types of customer needs: functional, emotional, social, latent and anti-needs, each with a short example of what it covers" width="1080" height="1080" /></a>
<p>Source: <a href="https://www.koji.so/visuals/five-types-of-customer-needs-framework">The five types of customer needs</a>, Koji</p>
