Know-How Exchange : Customer Behavior

In my opinion.. the one thing missing is the significant contact or contacts at the customer. Companies rarely buy anything (and if they do use a robot to buy - it looks for the world's lowest price). Instead, people who work for the company buy things. You need to begin capturing information on the key contact/s. As well as the information on the company itself.

You might also want to consider these factors:

1) The contacts that influence the decision-maker
2) The lifetime value of the customer relationship
3) The amount/cost of post-sales support required by the customer
4) Industry/trade association memberships

I hope this helps,

Tim Rayl

Maria,

All great suggestions above.

I am not sure how you plan to segment your customers or what type of business your are in, but you may want to add a psychographic aspect to your "customer profile" including their attitudes, beliefs and values toward the product/service category, their own businesses and their customers. Adding these aspects will help you to develop and deliver products/services that meet not only their spoken needs but their underlying emotional needs. Also it helps to craft your marketing messages in a way that speaks to your ideal customer.

Hope this helps!

Doreen