11 Types of Customers, their Personality Traits and How to Win Them Over

Feb 3
17:01

2021

Reliable Communication

Reliable Communication

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Customers are a group of people so diverse you shouldn’t be able to categorize them. And yet figuring out the types of customers is one of the first steps of a successful business strategy.

If you search for your brand name on review websites or social media,11 Types of Customers, their Personality Traits and How to Win Them Over Articles you’ll get several different reviews & reactions to your products and services from customers. Now combine that with the purchase history of a select few of those customers in the last 6 months, and you might see a few patterns emerging.

These patterns will help you answer the following questions.

  • How often do customers buy from you?
  • What are they saying about your product on public forums?
  • Are they happy with your customer service?

By categorizing the above information, you’ll be able to list down a few customer types. While this is an approximation, it gives you a good starting point to understanding your customer base better

Why should you identify the different types of customers?

What are the advantages of understanding these customer types? Well, there are primarily two reasons to dive into the different types of customer you deal with daily:

Prioritization: Customers are not all equal, and that’s ok. While you owe every single customer a seamless experience and easy access to support, the truth is, there are bound to be customers who are loyal to you, have made higher-value purchases, and bring in more business through referrals. It’s good business to prioritize these customers and deliver an elevated experience.

Personalization: Every customer type is different. So the strategy you use either to serve them or when you are trying to win them over will be different. Understanding what kind of customer you are dealing with helps you personalize your strategy.

Types of customers, their personality traits, and creating a strategy

The three teams that usually have to directly or indirectly deal with customers are customer service, sales, and marketing. These teams interact with customers at different stages of the sales funnel, and the types of customer interaction changes based on what stage of the cycle it took place in. Since ‘Sales & Marketing” are usually the first team to interact with prospects/customers, we’ll begin with them, followed by Support’ customer types.

Sales & Marketing

A customer’s journey begins even before they become your customers. Their first touchpoint is with the marketing team, usually as prospects. Understanding different personas and then creating messaging to target them makes it necessary for the marketing team to understand the types of customers they are dealing with, identify potential challenges and draw them in with a convincing narrative. Then it’s the job of the sales team to decode every specific need of each persona and then pitch a compelling proposition to convert them into customers. Here are the types of customers that you’ll encounter during the purchase and pre-purchase stages

1.Free Customers:

These are the types of customers who are giving your product or service a trial run before deciding whether it’s worth the money. Some examples are users who sign up for free versions of a product or service or only use open-source software.

Personality traits

  • Curious
  • Cost-conscious

Winning them over: Free users consist of both potential customers as well as those that are merely looking around. Being able to distinguish between them is the first task for your marketing and sales teams to be able to personalize their offers.

Once you’ve accomplished that, use the right pricing and packaging of your paid plans to entice free users to upgrade to paid plans. Shifting a feature or two from the free program to the paid plan could also help convert more users to paying customers

2.New Customers:

These customers are buying from you for the first time. They’ve come to you either because of marketing efforts or peer recommendations. Making a good first impression is important because it validates the reason they chose your company.

Personality traits

  • Expectant
  • Uncertain

Winning them over

The key to making an excellent first impression is to explain the value of choosing your product or service offering and then following that up with delivering that value. This means convincing the customer that your product is the right choice to solve their most pressing problems. You should also have a smooth onboarding process so that the customer receives complete information consisting of company stories, product tutorials, etc.

3.Bargain Customers:

Bargain or discount customers are the most difficult to negotiate with. They are always looking for a cut-price deal. Most of their decision making during the consideration stage of their buying journey comes down to cost.

Personality traits

  • Price hagglers
  • Hard negotiators

Winning them over

There are a couple of ways to hook even the hardest bargainer. While this might seem like a problematic type of customer, bargain customers provide an excellent opportunity to flex your marketing and sales team’s creativity in converting these customers.

Entice them to buy a plan that ties them down to a more extended period if it’s a subscription model that you are using. Make them see more value in a lower yearly subscription plan as compared to a monthly one. This guarantees you a higher LTV and a revenue stream.

4.Informed Customers:

Informed buyers are comprehensive. They come prepared, armed with extensive knowledge built through research before even entering a store or talking to a sales representative. When negotiating or trying to pitch a sale to these types of customers, you’ll have to be as thorough as they are. If your product is not in their consideration, set its a herculean task to make them even glance your way.

Personality traits

  • Detail-oriented
  • Thorough and methodical

Winning them over

The best way to win over highly informed customers is to have subject matter experts to vouch for your product or service being offered. While they might be familiar with most of the essential details of what you have to offer, a deeper understanding of your domain shows them what you are talking about.

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