Who Are Our Customers

Pick the customer group that matters most, describe it from evidence rather than opinion, and write down the signs of a good fit and the signs that should make you walk away.

Segmentation rests on strong research (Smith, 1956; method: Dolnicar, Grün & Leisch, 2018). The ideal customer profile and personas are practitioner conventions without outcome research. Jobs-to-be-done is practitioner theory with case-based support (Christensen, Hall, Dillon & Duncan, 2016). Scales on this page are rules of thumb.

Use it when:

• You are starting a business, a product or a new role in sales, marketing or product and need one shared picture of who you serve.
• Sales or marketing efforts are spread thin and you suspect you are chasing customers who rarely buy or rarely stay.
• You are about to write a value proposition, a campaign or a price and want it aimed at someone specific.

Skip it when:

• You already have a clear focus segment and need to split the market further: use 6.2 Segmentation Snapshot.
• You need to understand one job in depth: use 6.4 Jobs-to-Be-Done Canvas.

A company that knows exactly whom it serves makes sharper product, price and channel choices than one that sells to everyone. The firmest research sits under one part of this page. Segmentation builds on the long-tested observation that demand is not uniform, so treating a market as groups with different wants beats designing for one average buyer (Smith, 1956). The rest is less settled. The ideal customer profile and the persona are practitioner habits with no single origin and no outcome studies: useful discipline, marked as such. Jobs-to-be-done, used here for needs, is practitioner theory supported by cases rather than systematic tests (Christensen, Hall, Dillon & Duncan, 2016).

The main limit is that a profile only describes. It earns its keep when it rests on evidence and is used to say no. That is why Step 1 asks for revenue share and priority, Step 3 asks for the job and the trigger instead of traits, and Steps 4 and 5 ask who you would turn away and how sure you really are.

List the groups that actually buy from you, using sales data where you have it. Groups should differ in what they need or how they buy, not only in who they are. Pick one to focus on.

Strong answer: "Small dental clinics with two to five chairs: about half our revenue (illustrative), buy on referral, renew every year. Priority: high." Not "small businesses".

Focus segment and why:

Illustrative example: the business and all numbers are made up.

A two-person firm in Finland sells a booking and reminder service to small health and wellness practices. Its founder and its only salesperson fill in the page from last year's invoices and call notes.

Step 1: physiotherapy practices with one to four therapists bring most of the revenue (illustrative) and renew yearly; gyms buy once and leave. Focus: small physiotherapy practices.

Step 2: the owner decides and also treats patients; the receptionist, if there is one, uses the tool. They buy after a peer recommends it. Source: call notes from the past six months.

Step 3: job: "Stop losing income to missed appointments without calling every patient." Trigger: a month with many no-shows. Today: text reminders typed by hand, or nothing.

Step 4: fit: owner-run, books by phone, has felt the cost of no-shows. Walk away: practices inside a hospital group that buys centrally.

Step 5: least sure that owners would pay more for online booking. Test: offer it to five current customers next month and count how many accept.

The page changes one thing at once: the salesperson stops calling gyms.