Abstract
The success rate of new products and services can only be increased by a consequent orientation to the customer benefit: the benefit drives the buying decision! The identification and communication to the customer benefit is often very difficult especially in the area of service design. This paper presents a methodology which helps identify systematically the customer needs and the relevant customer requirements and how to define on their basis the functional requirements for product or service development. The approach is based on the Theory of Axiomatic Design and expands it by a component for the systematic identification of customer benefits and requirements. An example taken from the service industry helps to illustrate the successful application of this approach.