The only way for you to truly understand your customers and form strong bonds with them is by developing CS Customer Personas.
Customer (or Buyer) Persona is a term used by Marketing Teams who seek to learn more about the company's prospects.
Customer Success is an interdisciplinary field.
As such, it can (and should) utilize other fields' resources and tools to improve the value provided to customers.
CS Customer Persona is about the current customers.
While the Buyer Persona is focused on the future customer,
Customer Success' Personas are focused on existing customers.
This tool allows us to form strong connections with multiple customers by simply -
Taking their unique persona into account.
Key Components for Your CS Persona
A CS Persona guides you through your interactions with your customers to ensure that each touchpoint is based on the customer's:
Desired Outcomes
Identity
Pain-points
Here are the key components of a CS Persona:
Demographics = Basic Info
This component includes the geographic location, age, gender, and income of your customer.
You can add additional information, such as marital status and number of kids if it's relevant to your business and the product you offer.
The Benefits of the Demographics
This component impacts the interests of the customer and their decision-making process.
Knowing what they're interested in and how they make purchasing decisions impacts the way you speak to your customers and help them achieve their desired outcomes.
Personalty = Who's the person?
In addition to the demographics, you should also get to know your customer on a personal level:
Are they spontaneous or not?
Are they data-driven?
Are they people-oriented?
How do they make decisions?
The Benefits of the Personality
Each customer is an individual with unique traits and characteristics.
By acknowledging their personality, we can speak their language and deliver value by following their pace.
Work = Who's the employee?
Behind every customer, there's an employee.
This component is about the employee of the company, who is also your customer:
What industry do they work in?
What is their current role and area of responsibility?
Are they the decision-makers?
The Benefits of the Work
This component is absolutely critical to delivering value as you need to know:
The company's continuum of decision-making authority, and
the customer's area of responsibility
Motivation = What drives the customer?
Once we understand who the customer is, we need to understand their motivations.
This component can be summed up in one question:
What drives them throughout the purchasing process?
Do they ...
Want to look good in front of their boss?
Save time?
Save money?
The Benefits of the Motivation
Understanding your customers' motivations (or goals) goes a long way.
It allows you to customize the way you guide them through their journey,
And ensure that you're helping them achieve their desired outcomes.
Challenges = What would stop them?
Do you know what challenges are stopping your customer from being successful?
This component includes both the challenges and the solutions,
Since being proactive is the best and only way to prevent churn.
The Benefits of the Challenges
Identifying (and solving) these challenges is in your best interest.
I mean, these challenges can make a successful customer churn.