[hagtech]

Ok folks, I'm enlisting the aggregate power of all your brains.  Answer the following question, relative to hi-fi:

Customers want to be?

• Satisfied with their purchase.
• Comfortable and reassured regarding product reliability, customer service, resale value.
• Emotionally moved.
• Envied by their friends.

Any more?  What are the top 10?  If you think this is either stupid or obvious, then don't answer.  It's just a marketing survey to keep me on the right track. 

jh

[JohnR]

I expect the answer will be very different for DIY and fully-built customers. I assume you are asking about the latter?

Also, I suspect that the answer will be different again for web-buying customers and store-type customers. I don't mean that as a knock on anyone, just that people who prefer to do their research on the web will probably think about the purchase differently than people who go to stores to listen and ask questions (even though they might subsequently purchase online because it's cheaper).

Anyway, one factor that you may have left out is that people don't want to take a loss if they make a bad decision. Or even just change their minds. There is a thread on this going on somewhere around here...

I would vote for your second option. Most people don't have the knowledge, money, or time to just buy and resell equipment until they are happy. I've done that and frankly regret it. I guess that's why I'm a DIYer now Even so, I have to be careful where I put my $$.

[PatOMalley]

1 Comfortable and reassured regarding product reliability, customer service, resale value.
   which equals - Satisfied with their purchase.
   which equals - Emotionally moved
n/a Envied by their friends.

your products are pitched to the DIY crowd so tallking about the avenues of support is important. Reliability follows support. The only addition I would add is making pictures of wiring and the internals of the equipment tediously exact. Photos with graphics showing connection points realting to PCB and partslist. This makes it "fool proof" for fools like me. The pictures you provide with the manual are low quality now. I had to look up pictures on the web of other builder's and DIY being what it is those pictures varied. I know that others have had an easy time building and admittedly I am learning but the clearer the manual the more room for 'satisfaction'.

[MaxCast]

I think
2+3+4+5 (best they have heard given a budget) = the first dot.
So I guess I want to be a satisfied customer.

[ohenry]

I think the second bullet is most important to me.  I always think, "How soon is this going to be obsolete?"   Therefore, things having timeless quality with upgrade potential usually get my vote.

[Befuddled]

First, foremost, and always..... emotionally moved. It's why I love live music, why I play music, and why I listen to music. The nuances are the music, and the emotion. That is why the equipment for replication of the original performance is often expensive.....but... if I found a piece of equipment that caused more emotional involvement for me, even a cheap piece of junk in someone elses opinion - that is what I would listen to. Music can make me sad, happy, reflective or joyous - that is why I listen. For an example - Tony Rice plays an old Martin guitar once owned by Clarence White. He struggles and fusses constantly during a performance to keep it in tune because it is so finicky. He plays it instead of unlimited choices in other guitars because the guitar is so expressive it is magical. He doesn't just have the option of striking a note, he has an infinite number of ways to sound the note. His choices are the life in music. That is also why Stradivarius instruments are so desired. I want to hear those choices.
Joel

That Martin is so valuable that Tony seldom takes it on tour. I'm lucky to live close enough to where he can drive and he sometimes brings it. I've sat less that 10 feet away and heard it. In a masters hands it is a moving experience.

[kfr01]

As a prospective customer? 
#2 + some third-party reassurance that the product is a solid performmer for the price.
For example, for me, John Atkinson's Stereophile "Measurements" conclusions go a long way. Something like, "this is a fine amplifier with low distortion numbers and was soundly engineered."

Once I know that, I can buy.  Once I buy, then I hope to be emotionally moved and satisfied. 

Once I've bought?
#1 and #3. 

[Frihed91]

My Top 5

1.  How does the music sound to me?
2.  How does the music sound to my wife?
3.  What does it cost?
4.  The company that made it.
4.  The guy who sold it to me.
 


My wife only cares about the sound.  She lets me worry about the money.  Looks don't matter.  Most of the products I buy are made by small companies and I can talk with the president/designer, like Audio Note, Blue Circle, Mapletree, Audio Vector, and soon McAlister.

[Cobra2]

I do sometimes sell surplus diy equipment, and notice; it has to be a known name construction, or based on one ,
-the name also need to be known by "high-enders".

Arne K

[analog97]

I like Hagtech because:

1. a real engineer designed it
2. quality ingredients
3. better than stuff at 10x the price