Why, using \ref{fig:customers} to show the label, is the word "Figure" missing?

Question

I have a figure to be referenced as below. Why, using \ref{fig:customers} to show the label, is the word "Figure" missing? Only the figure number is shown: "3.2". How can I change it to "Figure 3.2"?

Potential customers are listed in the `\ref{fig:customers}` below.

\begin{figure}[htbp!]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.8]{needs_customers.png}
%[clip=true]
\caption{Potential Customers, Requirement and Constraints}
\label{fig:customers}
\end{figure}

Answer 1

There are packages that do that. One of them is hyperref:

\documentclass{scrartcl}

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{hyperref}

\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.2\textwidth]{example-image}
\caption{An example}
\label{fig:example}
\end{figure}

Please see \autoref{fig:example}.
\end{document}

Another option is the cleveref-package:

\documentclass{scrartcl}

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{cleveref}

\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.2\textwidth]{example-image}
\caption{An example}
\label{fig:example}
\end{figure}

Please see \cref{fig:example}
\end{document}

Answer 2

The default behaviour of the references to some certain counter do not provide the name of the counter (say figure or table etc.).

hyperref and cleveref amongst other packages provide this missing feature however, there might be other packages as well.

Here I present a solution which is working and quite quick if there should be no other package included (sometimes this is demanded by publishers and their weird settings!)

Without special package: Change the \p@figure references formatter macro to use \figurename.

The hyperref package is used here to show that the redefinition of \p@figure still works with hyperref.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphicx}

\usepackage{hyperref}

\makeatletter
\renewcommand{\p@figure}{\figurename\ }
\makeatother

\begin{document}

You must see the incredible \ref{fig:foo}.

\clearpage
\begin{figure}
\centering
\caption{Foo caption}
\label{fig:foo}
\end{figure}

\end{document}