When you recognise that your customers need you to change aspects of your business, it is very easy to react without really understanding the outcomes that they need. It is important to understand the basis of their call to change before taking action:

• Understand customers' perceptions
• Identify the root cause of the problem.

The first question that needs answering is whether there is a problem or whether your customers perceive there to be a problem.

Our perceptions can be mistaken. We perceive that supermarket A is cheaper than supermarket B, although this might not be the case. Supermarket A may have used better marketing, highlighted offers more effectively and developed its low cost image through advertising more successfully. A customer perception may be that you don't offer a service that they want.

If it is a service that you do actually offer, the real problem is that you are not communicating your offering effectively. Clearer signage, leaflets, layout or consistent messages from staff are needed to resolve this problem. Whether perception or reality, there is still a problem; the difference in the outcome is your response to it.

Customers do not buy the features of a product: they buy what the product can do for them. The same is true for services. Taking a step back from the detail to allow you to find the outcome customers want will allow you to avoid expensive mistakes. In some cases the cause may be straightforward. If people want your prices to be more competitive they want to save money.

However, some situations may be less clear. Customers who move to a pharmacy providing a delivery service may really only want the convenience of the pharmacy opening half an hour later or have more room to get into the pharmacy with prams and shopping. Re-profiling staff hours to allow you to stay open later or reorganising the shop may provide low cost ways of meeting this customer need without the expense of providing a delivery service.

Focusing on the outcomes required by your customers rather than the service offered to customers will present more options for you to meet your customers' needs.

There are a number of key market research elements that should be undertaken for a pharmacy business. These include customer feedback, market surveillance and sales data: