Satisfying both a customer's needs and preferences is required for success in the marketplace, but there are a number of distinctions between the two. Needs served are the attributes a product or service must have in order to be considered by a customer. You can compare this to an analogy of a poker game where the player must ante up the "table stakes" in order to participate in the game. While an organization must have a sharp focus on fulfilling customer needs, this does not necessarily in itself guarantee success. You are likely to have competitors who can also fulfill the customer's basic needs in attached to the particular product or service. Preferences are ultimately what will determine the buying decision if there are multiple competitors that have satisfied the basic need. Preferences are also product or service attributes but the customer will generally trade off some of these for others that they consider more important. In order to be successful you must determine which of these preferences is most important to the customer and out- perform the competition on these.

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