Understanding Customer Personas
Customers today demand a more personalised experience when it comes to brand interaction, and yet the majority of customers prefer not to part with their personal data.
This makes things especially difficult for customer service teams, who have to respond to individual questions, complaints, and demands in a personal manner, but without any prior knowledge about each unique caller.
What can be done to provide a more personalised experience at the contact centre?
Creating customer ‘personas’ could be the solution.
These are the various profiles or personality groups which make up your customer base, and, once identified, allow you to make targeted judgments about the kind of service they may be looking for.
Research from ResponseTap has discovered that with the right data and insight, most customers can be linked to five typical buyer personas.
Five customer personas:
1. The Socialites
The majority of online shoppers (38 per cent of survey respondents) are ‘Socialites’, i.e. those who like to compare and take recommendations from online communities before making their final decision.
Socialites are emotionally engaged with their shopping and are likely to be put off by poor quality service.
They will reach out over the phone to rectify any issues, before going public on social media to rate their experience.
2. The Perfectionists
These people know exactly what they are looking for, will conduct extensive personal research prior to purchase, and expect brands to deliver their promises at every point along their purchasing journey.
In order to impress this group, you need to be acutely clued-in to their specific needs, otherwise, you risk losing them over the phone.
3. The Ain’t Got Timers
This group is super organised and cuts to the chase with their purchasing decisions.
They naturally use the contact centre to check details, stock, shipping info, or to simply purchase over the phone if the website is taking too long.
In order to satisfy these customers, you need to have staff who are both well-informed, have good common sense, and are able to answer questions directly without passing the caller from pillar to post.
4. The Panic Buyers
These people are typically a flustered bunch, who forgot about (or simply left till the last minute) making a purchase.
50 per cent of last-minute purchases are made online, however, in order to speed up the researching and decision-making process, they often reach for the phone to get some quick answers.
They might ring to check stock before travelling to a store or to check shipping information and times.
5. The Impulsive’s
This group, which tends to be women (62 per cent), make purchasing decisions in a split second.
56 per cent of impulsive buyers like to stay up to date with the latest trends, and love to purchase products as soon as they are released.
They will most likely know which product they are after and tend to order online.
However, they are always looking for the easiest way to purchase and may seal the deal over the phone if it proves more convenient.
A polished contact centre sales rep is unlikely to have their work cut out with this persona.
Conclusion
Knowledge of personas can be incredibly valuable to brands who are unable to track their customers.
Use them as a starting point to consider the dynamics of behaviour across your audiences.
Your specific audience base is likely to differ slightly from the five outlined in this article, however, once your contact centre staff begin to associate the types of people that call with the personas you specify, they can start to tailor the customer experience and improve First Call Resolution rates.
Recommended further reading:
- Find trainers, consultants and technology suppliers that can help improve your contact centre training in our free CX Directory>>>
- Search for upcoming industry training courses, conferences and more designed for the contact centre industry on the Industry Events Calendar>>>
- Read more articles on Skills & Training in contact centres
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