“Street-wise Client Service”

Identifying and Managing Buyer PersonasBy Bolaji Okusaga

Let’s Get On The Street…

Where do I learn?

“ Schooling disturbs my education, Life is where I learn”

- George Bernard Shaw

Who is a Buyer

One Who Makes Demand for Value

• Value is at the centre of each sales transaction

• Without an exchange of value, there is no sale

One Who Requires Service

• Whether you are selling a physical product or a service, buyers require service

• Such service can come before or after sale

One Who Perceives and is Prepared to Pay for Value

• Perception stirs every sale decision

• If the customer does not feet right about a product or service he/she will not buy.

How Do I Recognise One?

What is their demographic information?

What is their job and level of seniority?

What does a day in their life look like?

What are their pain points?

What do they value most? What are their

goals?

Where do they go for information?

What experience are they looking for when

shopping for your products and services?

What are their most common objections to

your product or service?

How do I identify this persona?

You Need to Know the Rules To Break It!

1. Knowing the Customer

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Who is the Customer?

• The Customer is that person or Institution that makes a demand for your products or service offering.

• A Customer is the target for specific products or service and helps add value to an enterprise through the demand he / she makes of specific offerings.

• The Customer is the most crucial actor in the marketing process because there can be no marketing without the Customer.

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What does the Customer Want?

• The CUSTOMER seeks for the satisfaction of his / her needs in the market.

• The PRODUCERS of goods and services seek to satisfy the desire of Customers for value in return for profit.

• The CUSTOMER demands the value inherent in the consumption of products or services and also gives value to the PRODUCER in the process.

Communicating With the Customer

To handle Customers effectively, we need to follow the Customer handling steps and adjust our communication skills and style for different Customer types.

Customer TypesCustomers are different!Some Customers are easy to work with and others are not. We get on with some but others are extremely “difficult” because of how they communicate with us.Their expectations may not always be aligned to our current service delivery processes.

Customers have different personalities; which influence how they want to be treated. If you can access what personality type your clients are, this will assist you in being able to understand what kind of person you are dealing with and you as a Customer service person will be likely to establish a good rapport with them, in the long run this enables you to:

- Resolve their query in the shortest possible time- Identify the problem and provide the best solution- Enjoy the interaction - Experience less stress- Enjoy work more

Tracking Customer Types and Behaviour

TYPE 1 - SOCIALISERSSocialisers are friendly, smiley and chatty.They are enthusiastic and easy going. Use lots of face and hand gestures when communicating.

Usually give you lots of information (some of which is relevant) and like to talk about unrelated topics such as the weather and traffic etc.

When talking to socialisers they like you to give examples of the point that you are making and they do not need much detail preferring you to make points with stories.

They usually make decisions quickly

TYPE 2 - GENERALSGenerals are direct, straight talking and know exactly what they want, expecting you to provide the solution.They are assertive and formal in their communication style and tend to be unfriendly and distant although not unpleasant. They are assertive in their approach and talk down at you as they want to be in charge.When talking to generals they will give the impression that they are short of time. They become impatient with people who are not decisive and are poor listeners so they want you to get to the point quickly. Extremely results oriented.

TYPE 3 - TEAM PLAYERSTeam Players are kind, warm and supportive.When communicating they use few hands gestures and tend to be quite. They are generally unassertive and are soft hearted, wanting to remain friends with everyone.

Team players always want to co-operate, when talking to team players bear in mind that they will be indecisive and look to you and make decisions on your recommendation. If unhappy with your service, they won’t complain, however they will also not come back. Team players are slow moving and slow to make decisions as they tend to rely on input from others

TYPE 4 – DETECTIVESDetectives are precise, detail oriented and suspicious which makes them critical.They are serious and distant when communicating and tend to be unfriendly but not rude. They are concerned with order and will investigate and test everything you say in order to arrive at a precise conclusion that they feel is detailed enough.When talking to detectives, make sure that you are able to provide precise, accurate answers for the many questions that they will ask you. They will be slow to make decisions as they will ask you. They will be slow to make decisions as they don’t know what they want but expect you to work it out

TYPE - 1 TYPE - 2 TYPE - 3 TYPE - 4

SOCIALSERSHow to Adjust communicationStyle:

• Be casual and chatty as well

• Use examples to explain things

• Remain professional

GENERALSHow to Adjust communicationStyle:

• You must beKnowledgeable

• Avoid having arguments

• Promise only what you candeliver

• Go straight tothe point

TEAM PLAYERSHow to Adjust communicationStyle:

• Slow down to Clients pace

• Proffer best solutions to gain clients loyalty

DETECTIVESHow to Adjust communicationStyle:

• Refer to pastExperiencesgiving details

•Comprehensive explanations

• Must be accountable

2. Customer Profiling

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Why Profile the Customer

• Because Corporations produces for People of different age, race, creed, socio-economic status, who reside in different locations and have different fears, aspirations and temperaments, there is the need to understand each identified groups buying patterns and motivation for consumption in order to better produce, distribute, sell and deliver the products to customers, hence the need for customer profiling.

• Customer profiling is the foundation on which all other marketing actions can be based. It requires a major commitment by management to customer-oriented planning, research, implementation & control.

• The overall objective of using a profiling strategy is to improve your company’s competitive position and better serve the needs of your customers.

• Some specific objectives may include increased sales, improved market share and enhanced image.

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Data Mining: The Basis of Customer Profiling

• Sales– Sales Data analysis

– Computing of Sales number i.e. profit or loss,

– Sales support

– Map complaints and after sale issues

– Collateral development

• Marketing – Understand what

customers value

– Select target market segments

– Define consumption patterns and identify seasonality in product use

– Identify and champion the customers’ needs

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Why Mine Data?

• From a business view-point, data such as the following are collected:– Web data, e-commerce – purchases at department/

grocery stores – Bank/Credit Card

transactions

• Data is mined to facilitate clearer information and engender better judgments of business situations as well as enable a more precise intervention where necessary .

• Companies need to understand their markets, determine and set goals for their target segments, determine the marketing mix that will influence customers’ buying decisions, and build the reputation needed to support their plans.

• Data mining helps to support the marketing department’s role in sourcing market knowledge and customer profiles.

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Practical Examples

• Traditional Data Mining

– Customer 103 (visit = 1): Age 23, Previous-Purchase: non, Marital-Status:

single, Children: none, Annual-Income: 20000, Purchase-Interests: unknown,

Store-Credit-Card: no, Homeowner: unknown

– Customer 103 (visit = 2): Age 23, Previous-Purchase: no, Marital-Status:

married, Children: none, Annual-Income: 20000: Purchase-Interests: car, Store-

Credit-Card: yes, Homeowner: no

– Customer 103 (visit = n): Age 24, Previous-Purchase: yes, Marital-Status:

married, Children: yes, Annual-Income: 75000, Purchase-Interests: television,

Store-Credit-Card: yes, Homeowner: no, Computer-Sales-Target: YES

• Knowledge Discovery (Learned Rule)

– IF customer has made a previous purchase, AND customer has an annual

income over $25000, AND customer is interested in buying home electronics

THEN probability of computer sale is 0.5

– Training set: 26/41 = 0.634, test set: 12/20 = 0.600

– Typical application: target marketing

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Why Segment the Market?

• To help design more responsive products and services

• To help develop better promotional tactics and customer campaigns

• To clearly identify consumption patterns and product / service perception.

• To identify product and market strategy demands of varying categories of consumers.

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Developing a Segmentation Strategy: Things to Consider

Market divided into geographic unitsMarket divide income, age, sex etc.Market divided along lifestyle lines

Market divided on knowledge and attitude

1. Segment the

Market

GeographicDemographicPsychographic

Behavioural

2. Profile and Prioritize SegmentsSales Potential

ROIEase of Market Entry

3. Choose Segmentation Strategy

Undifferentiated

Differentiated

Concentrated

Used where market has similar characteristicsPromotion of different products to different market segmentsEffort is focused on a particular market segment

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Approaches to Market Segmentation

1. Mass market approach

2. Large segment approach

3. Adjacent segment approach

4. Multi-segment approach

5. Small segment approach

6. Niche approach

7. Mass customization approach

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Mass Market Approach

• This implies a generic value proposition built around the core customer need and the business’s generic positioning strategy

• It used when differences in customer needs are small

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Large Segment Approach

• This addresses one set of core customer needs

• It is used when resources are limited

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Adjacent Segment Approach

• The moves from primary target and actively targets next set of promising customer group.

• It basically use profits from primary market to pursue market share with a closely related customer group.

• It is used where an organisation desires to grow market share but has limited resources.

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Multi-Segment Approach

• Here segments are targeted simultaneously, each with his / her own peculiar market-mix.

• This has portfolio effects and helps leverage multiple incomes streams based on wider market target, but lacks the impact which comes from a concentrated strategy.

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Small Segment Approach

• This is usually applied for exclusive and luxury items as well as an ambush strategy where an organisation decides to target the smallest segment in order to gradually gain market share.

• This strategy is used when resources are limited and where a small set of consumers with defined characteristics are ignored by competition in the quest for a larger share of the market.

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Niche Market Approach

• Here attention is focused on a portion of the small segment.

• This often used when needs cannot be fully addressed within a single segment.

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Mass Customisation Approach

• Here customers create their own segments.

• This strategy is the complete opposite of mass market strategy; each unique group of customer needs is a niche

• It combines the advantages of niche segment strategy with the opportunity available in a multi-segment strategy

• It is deployed when database marketing allows customization within each segment.

• Its disadvantages include:– increased price of customized products– delay in receipt of custom-made products– need for customers to invest time in specifying their preferences before the

product can be produced

3. The Era of Customer Dictatorship

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Perfect Market: The Old Order

• In an imperfect market, where the DEMAND for specific products or services outweighs SUPPLY, producers are usually price-makers, who make little effort to woo the Customer.

• This situation occurs in a monopoly or an oligopoly.

• Here, producers dictate their terms and Customers strive to meet these terms.

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Enter the Era of Imperfect Markets

• With globalization, increased innovation and its attendant atmosphere of fierce competition, where monopolies like Microsoft and Oligopolies such as Coca-Cola, IBM, Nestle and PepsiCo are now facing stiff competition from emerging enterprises in China and India, the era of price-makers in perfect markets are over.

• The death of perfect markets has led to a new era where competitive edge is not only driven by product quality but by distribution, delivery and customer service innovation.

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The Demands of a Customer Service Culture

• Global exposure to technology and skilled Man power, led to the advent of product parity in most industry and the consequent erosion of rigid customer loyalty.

• Price now became a big consideration in choosing between competing brands and products.

• In this dispensation, consumers became price-grabbers, shopping for price and not out of loyalty.

• However given the need for differentiation beyond price and product quality, companies now started to innovate in the area of product delivery, turn-around time and Customer service.

• This shifted emphasis away from Total Quality Management (TQM) to Total Relationship Commitment (TRC) and redefined the whole concept of Marketing.

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Enter the Era of Maxi-Marketing...

• Noting that traditional marketing with its emphasis on Product, Place, Price and Promotion, does not adequately address Customer needs, Maxi-marketing a blueprint centered around Customer Relationship Management (CRM) emerged.

• Customer Relationship Management is a process or methodology used to learn more about customers' needs and behaviours in order to develop stronger relationships with them.

• CRM as a process which brings together pieces of information about how customers, sales, marketing effectiveness, responsiveness and market trends help to shape a Company’s Business Strategy

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CRM: The New Reality

• Customer Loyalty is crucial in the drive at year on year profit.

• For a company to stay solvent and profitable, it must manage its customer churn rate and increase its customer retention capacity.

• To drive this strategic intent, Companies must court the Customer by meeting or surpassing his expectations through availing the Customer a robust value proposition well beyond the competition.

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What is Customer Loyalty?

• Customer loyalty describes the tendency of a Customer to choose a product or service over another. Note the use of the word "choose" .

• Though; customer loyalty becomes evident when choices are made and actions taken by Customers. Customers may express high satisfaction levels with a company in a survey, but satisfaction does not equal loyalty.

• Loyalty is demonstrated by the actions of the Customer; Customers can be very satisfied and still not be loyal.

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Retaining the Loyalty of the Customer – What Imperatives?

• If your Customer could compare you with your competitor in terms of your product and price, would you be better off?

• Companies generally need to know two key principles about customer decision making:

1. Customers never buy solely on price even tough we think they do.

2. Prices may be transparent to Customers,

but value is usually opaque. By building a Customer service culture, companies build added value to their offerings.

4. Customer Engagement: Moving from Price to Value

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Moving the Conversation away from Price to Value

PRODUCER /SERVICE PROVIDER CUSTOMER

VALUE-SELLING

A CustomerRelationship driven Value

Proposition

An EfficiencyExpectant Value EquationPROFIT

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How To Sell on Value

• Value delivery is the basis of the existence of businesses.

• However, given the gradual decline in the differentiation of offerings based on quality, value delivery in most industry began to wear the toga of monotony and stasis.

• Value delivery soon became defined in terms of product delivery, distribution and Customer service innovation.

• Product and Service delivery based on the understanding of Customers changing needs and attitude became the order of the day.

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Selling on Value: Cases from the Masters

DELL

Cut off the middleman in the distribution of Computer Hardware and Customized offerings to suit individual Consumers, thereby beating competitors like HP, Compaq and IBM.

PEPSICO

Shifted emphasis from the production of carbonated soft drinks to production of energy drinks and other related offerings in order to take advantage of changes in trends and consumption attitude, thereby beating a competitor like Coca-Cola in terms of profit.

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Selling on Value: The Nigerian Experience

ZENITH BANK

Redefined the concept of Banking in Nigeria by introducing On-Line-Real-Time Banking and Convenience Banking before it became the minimum standard of entry thereby beating Competitors like Guaranty Trust and Diamond Bank.

EKOCORP

Redefined health care delivery in Nigeria by being the first publicly quoted Hospital. Through its access to funds from the capital market, it was able to raise enough funds to procure state of the art medical equipment and hire experienced personnel thereby raising the bar in private health care delivery.

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How to Get There

• It is proven that innovation based on technology or efficiency in production not targeted at the customer do not positively affect the bottom-line.

• Most profitable innovation therefore are built around the Customer.

• This is because the Customer is at the core of Value Delivery and Profit Maximization.

• It is therefore essential to build a Customer centric value delivery process in order to engender loyalty.

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What Does it Take?

1. UNDERSTAND WHAT YOUR CUSTOMER REALLY VALUE

You may find that product cost is a small component of the customer’s total cost and that price is only one of the many variables that customers consider. To build loyalty you must understand the Customer’s Life Time Value (LTV) and align this with your Product’s Lifecycle.

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What Does it Take?

2. DEVELOP FLEXIBLE MARKET OFFERINGSNo Company can satisfy all Customer segments with

the same offering. Companies need to create flexible market offerings. These are bundles of products, service and information that Customers can configure and customize to suit their priorities. Companies sometimes bundle services with their product, but the truth is that not all Customers value these services. Allow Customers to choose the service they value and pay for only what they use.

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3. COMMUNICATE YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION

You need to educate Customers about the elements of your value proposition in order for them to fit these into their equation. Without this, your sales force will only use price as its competitive weapon. There is therefore the need to educate your customers on the economic benefits of the Non-Price-Variables embedded in your offering.

What Does it Take?

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4. BE OPEN AND HONESTA lot of People believe that transparency is an enemy of profit. They reason that Customers will take advantage of better information to drive down prices and profit, but the truth is that there can be no loyalty where there is no trust and trust is better built in an open and honest relationship.

TRANSPARENCY: THE CALL CENTRE PROFITABLE INFORMATION

What Does it Take?

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5. DEVELOP A CUSTOMER DATA-MINING PROCESS

Customer data and models based on this data can help inform you of customers most likely to respond and become loyal, no matter what kind of front-end marketing program you are running or how you "wrap it up" and present it to the customer. The data will tell you who to promote to, and how to save precious marketing naira in the process of creating customers who are loyal to you.

What Does it Take?

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Parting Shot

“ It is much less costly to generate Customer Loyalty and retain Customers, than to deploy marketing money in the quest at attracting new Customers”

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Thank you