30 Non-Obvious Values Customers Will Pay More For

What does “customer value” mean to you? You might think of money first. Perhaps you offer a quality product at a fair price, or maybe your prices are even lower than your competitors. But is value truly equivalent to price, or do customers seek something else?

What Customers Really Value

Research indicates that for some purchases, the ability to enhance the buyer's reputation or reduce their anxiety plays a significant role (according to Eric Almquist of Bain & Company).

Eric Almquist, a partner at Bain & Company, has spent 40 years studying how customers make purchasing decisions and has developed 30 "elements of value." Conceptually, this model resembles Abraham Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs."

Maslow argued that humans are driven by an innate desire to satisfy their needs, starting from the essential (safety, warmth, food, rest) to the emotional (self-esteem, altruism). Like the "Hierarchy of Needs," Almquist's model classifies consumer value elements into levels, with subjective and social values at the top and functional, less significant but more objective values at the base.

There's a common belief that people can't satisfy higher-level, emotional needs until basic physiological ones are met. However, Maslow believed in different models of need satisfaction. For example, an athlete may prioritize the goal and the emotions that come with adrenaline over safety. Similarly, a shopper might consciously pay more for a well-known brand, ignoring similar models from less prestigious manufacturers.

Elements of Value

There are two variations of the model — for B2C and B2B companies. At the top of the B2C model is self-transcendence, i.e., the feeling of one's own significance, while at the B2B companies' peak, this value transforms into improving the organization's or its customers' future, increasing social responsibility and the significance of the company itself.

However, the difference between them is not so clear, so let's consider a model suitable for both types of companies, dividing the 30 universal elements into four groups:

1. ⭐️ Social Impact
2. 🧘‍♀️ Life-changing
3. 😂 Emotional
4. ⚙️ Functional

The More, The Better

Companies that score high on four or more elements show more stable revenue growth: according to research, such companies demonstrate revenue growth four times higher than companies that have developed only one of the thirty elements.

Successful entrepreneurs understand what makes their company different from competitors and, over time, work on new elements, entering new markets. Typically, each new element attracts a new group of buyers and increases the loyalty of existing customers.

However, not just the quantity, but the significance of the elements matters. The more emotional elements at the middle and top levels are harder to measure and assess and more challenging to implement, but they deserve the most investment and form what is called brand value.

To determine which values to develop for your business, consider the industry, demographics, and cultural aspects.

Here are several techniques that can help you look at your product in a new way and see its features and advantages.

Value Hunting

You can continuously improve the elements forming the core value, as well as add elements to expand the value proposition, without revisiting your products or services.

Next, you'll find three strategies for working with value elements, which we'll explore using an online finance management course as an example:

👉 Refining Existing Values
First, identify the key elements most important to your industry. For the course, these might include:

Hope: the feeling that the course will help achieve financial goals

Self-actualization: acquiring new knowledge, possibly a profession

Income increase/Earning money: the course will help generate passive income

Risk reduction, including financial: not losing already accumulated money, protection against inflation

Communication: interacting with other people (other course participants)

Informed: understanding financial management issues

How are these values reflected in the product, its marketing materials? And how do competitors sell them?

👉 Developing New Values
You can work through each of the 30 indicators, asking questions sequentially:

How can our product help customers using this element?
For example, take the value “Access”: can we not just sell the course but also provide access to a private investors' community?

If we add this element to our product, will it attract new customers?
If we create a private community and give access to course participants, will it help attract a new audience and increase sales?

Choose all the values that are somewhat applicable to your business. Once you've identified a set of elements, brainstorm with your team to discuss all ideas and determine which elements to focus on first. Pay special attention to values that are easy to develop and that you believe can significantly impact the outcome.

👉 Turning Disadvantages into Advantages
Identify which of your offering's disadvantages can't be eliminated and find values to outweigh them.

Suppose we can't create an investors' community. Maybe then you can give the buyer the opportunity to feel like a finance expert, issuing a prestigious certificate upon completion of the training (value “Belonging”)?

Other examples:

The shelf life of milk that spoils faster than competitors can become an advantage when talking about healthy eating.

Or, the inability to ensure factory quality and uniformity of products in a craft workshop can become valuable to a customer who chooses design aesthetics and individuality.

Remember, the more a company focuses on social impact and inspiring elements, continuously improving the value proposition — the higher its revenue and the stronger the love of customers. Companies focused only on developing functionality and pricing lose in the competitive race.

We've also implemented it in the 🦄 Unicorns Club profiles so that a startup can easily highlight the values of their solution using this framework.