Do you know that South Africa currently has a population of more than 62 million? And we are set to grow to 67 million within 5 years. Think of how many potential customers there are. All with their own needs, wants and purchasing motivations. Mind-boggling. Customers looking to spend their hard-earned cash more meaningfully than ever, get greater value and rewards, with brands and ecosystems that resonate more deeply. With them. So it’s no wonder that in an ongoing quest for more sustainable, agile and future-proof practices, businesses are embracing a customer-centric business approach via the creation and deployment of customer personas.
“Customer personas can help develop a shared understanding of the target consumer group enabling organisations to grasp their desires and behavioural patterns firmly, and as a result, make decisions strategically instead of just intuitively.”
Complexity to clarity
While customer personas may appear somewhat esoteric at first Kaleidoscope is often asked how we successfully make this process seem simple, broadly accessible and practical, implementing it into organisations of all sizes, whether they are just beginning their journey or at more advanced levels.
“Empathy, design thinking and service design.” Says Kaleidoscope’s Paton Raman emphatically. “Our team originates from retail backgrounds. This places us in a unique position to deeply understand what the end user is looking for. We help organisations discover what that looks like.”
“By holding meaningful conversations with our Kaleidoscope clients and asking them the right questions, we can construct one or more customer persons that anyone in the organisation can easily understand.” Explains Paton.
“We legitimately believe that the customer drives the way to organise, scale and grow a business.” Concurs Angé Hattingh, Kaleidoscope’s Agile thinker and organisational designer. “Our process is needs-based so we like to always tie this back to how you structure your team and business so that your customer’s voice is always at the heart of your organisation, irrespective of what phase or segment you are in.”
Much of Kaleidoscope’s work encompasses client-led service design, transforming client-facing businesses. Kaleidoscope’s approach is flexible, supporting any preferred partner or model. Processes and findings are delivered in both a practical and visual way during the journey.
So many factors are at play today that impact organisations; new technologies, the movement of skills and people, markets, the economy and so on. However, one constant remains and that is the customer-centric approach. By putting the customer first organisations have become more sustainable and resilient.
“The value of having customer personas is that they are tangible, easy to understand, non-threatening to team members and form part-and-parcel of your strategy. Understanding your customers and their journey means that they are your strategic partners. As the landscape changes, one has to revisit the journey maps and update, upgrade and shift.” Notes Angé.
Understanding Customer Personas
Customer personas are compiled via rigorous customer research, diagnostics, data collection and analysis, examining, among other criteria, the following:
Age
Demographics
Profession
Consumer behaviours and preferences
Beliefs, attitudes and values
Pain points or challenges
Unmet needs in an organisation’s product or service process/offering
Preferred methods of engagement
An organisation might have multiple personas, depending on their business. This can range from as few as one or two and up to seven or more different personas.
Key customer insights such as these assist organisations in building stronger value propositions by formulating more effective strategies that develop targeted customer-centric marketing with messaging that speaks directly to their customers.
Customer-centricity is the ability of an organisation to make the customer its focal point so that all its decision-making, products, services and experiences are centred around its customers' wants, needs, behaviours, motivations, perceptions and expectations. This widely accepted modern business practice helps businesses to serve their customers better and build increased customer satisfaction, loyalty and long-term support.
A customer persona is a semi-fictional representation of a company's ideal consumer. Customer personas are tools used by organisations to design customer-centric journeys, service experiences and products that meet customers’ expectations and needs. As a representation of a cross-section of an organisation’s customers, a customer persona helps an organisation to gain deeper insight into their customers, their behaviour and how they choose to engage.
A customer journey map is a process of understanding customer interactions with a brand, product or service. This helps organisations research the customer experience, review customer sentiment and identify the pain points to improve the customer journey.
Benefits of Customer Personas
Customer personas support business growth by empowering organisations to devise a strategy that aligns with an insight-driven value proposition that truly resonates with their customers in the real world.
“Your competitive edge and business success start by engineering a portfolio that delivers undeniable value to both your customers and your bottom line.”- Koos
We couldn’t agree more.
“Customer-centric organisations that embrace customer personas stand to profit from better ROI in their sales, marketing & advertising, and more.”
Duration
How long does the client persona journey take? It depends on the size of the business and the ask. In a small organisation of 5 to 15 people, creating personas can be achieved fairly quickly, in a single workshop. Kaleidoscope conducted work with a well-known corporate client in the health industry requiring 6 months. Recent work with a major bank took 3.5 years.
A powerful tool
“The customer persona is a powerful tool irrespective of an organisation’s size or stage in its business journey. We are extremely passionate about conducting this type of work.” Says Angé. “It is immersive, fun and tremendously fruitful, whether it is simply light-touch, e.g. quickly pulling a team together in a young business to understand their client persona or conducting a full transformation process for a large corporate business, requiring organisation around multiple customer personas. This collaborative journey adds immense value by enabling the right conversations. Understanding your customer and embracing that customer-centricity from the inside out is key to successfully conducting business in the modern world.”
Do you wish to harness the power of customer personas to drive business success in your organisation? We have the expertise and tools.
Connect with us for more information: hello@kaleidoscopesa.co.za | Linkedin | Instagram
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