Know-How Exchange : Customer Behavior

Aindri,

Check out this article:

"Building customer profiles using data mining techniques"

https://tinyurl.com/3hxg5

I hope that helps.

My advice might help you in two different ways...

First, it's the content to consider.

When my company was constructing a [sort-of] prospect list, we brainstormed the customer characteristics that would help us break the list into manageable segments and to assess the size of the target markets. We refined those characteristics into a short list of criteria, which for us included location (metro area), industry, size (revenue or employees), and environmental fines (yep, we dug it up from EPA online records).

Be aware that it's tempting to try to put every little detail into the critera set, but it's best to use only the characteristics that will truly help you identify likely customers. (For instance, does Zip code really matter?)

Second, it sounds like you want advice on the tool or technique for constructing a useful matrix.

I've found that good old MS Excel has some simple features that let me not only build a grid, but sort and filter it. Put the names of your customers in column A, and the criteria in columns B through Whatever. Use row 1 for headings. Start filling it in, but don't leave gaps between any rows. And when you put "answers" in your criteria columns, try to be consistent with how you fill 'em in ("Y" isn't "Yes" and isn't "True").

Okay, now for the good part: From the Data menu, choose Filter, then choose Autofilter. Ta-dah! Magically your column headings become drop-down lists that represent your criteria entries. When you pick one, the whole grid gets filtered, and when you pick another the filter refines it even more. Plus, the status bar at the bottom of the screen shows you how many are included in the result. Cool!

Excel is no substitute for a great CRM tool (we like salesforce.com) or a sophisticated database... but it's probably on your pc right now, and it can help you get some answers fairly easily.