While stereotyping and profiling have negative connotations, and as such, are not a recommended strategy in business or in life. Typecasting, however, can be a pretty handy framework for understanding and classifying your Clients. And while an actor may be repelled by the idea of being repeatedly cast in the same type of role, as a business, establishing a repeatable and increasingly intuitive mechanism that allows you to quickly identify and segment prospects based on common defining characteristics (e.g., industry, services, budgets, etc.) will produce efficiency gains moving forward – particularly if your clientele spans industries.
When Profile is NOT a bad word
How many online accounts do you own? If you’re like me you’ve stopped counting. Can you think of any that don’t have a customer profile? In this context a profile a good thing. Those businesses have established a system that is fundamental to learning our transactional habits and gaining insights to establish strategic relationships; identify common themes, patterns, trends or needs within and across client categories.
Align Forms at the Left
Why do we line up for things? Moreover why do we form multiple lines for what is apparently the same service? The answer – organization and speed. Have you ever been to a bank, a grocery store or to the DMV: they have lines all the time. And those lines are part of a structure that serves both the business and its customers. They provide customers with clarity and direct targeted groups to the most appropriate service. My need to quickly purchase 3 tomatoes and a watermelon are different from your need to purchase enough food to feed half of Tibet. My complex registration needs are different from your simple license renewal needs. And your commercial banking needs are different from personal check deposit process. What’s the goal from both business and the customer’s point of view? Clarity, competency, speed, satisfaction and success. The business can staff counters and POS systems with qualified staff to supply the appropriate level of service, and we get to select the line, register, or counter that meets our needs. And let’s face it, when the ability to efficiently service customers in those lines is compromised, a predictable breakdown ensues.
Segmenting your prospects and customers by type based on markers like their market or industry position, capacity and needs, allows you to anticipate demand, design your portfolio, and manage inventory and logistics more efficiently. You will have taken a necessary step toward setting yourself and your clients up for success early in the relationship. Bear In mind that your profile classifications could change due to changes in a client’s business structure, operations or status. But If you’ve got a solid system setup, changes in classification would most likely be infrequent. Whether you’re outfitted with sophisticated CRM, CXM or eCommerce AI, or whether you’re relying on spreadsheets to develop customer profiles, organizing them by classification allows you to more easily spot risk, remediation and growth opportunities within or across categories.