Target Customer Strategies

Determining who the targeted customer is and where they are in the customer life stage is a critical first step in getting to better know your customer so you can direct the company and personnel towards those customers’ needs and wants (see attached reading below). This will help the company utilize their time and resources more efficiently and keep the company on-track via company planning and goal setting.

Another critical factor in company success has increasingly become the company website that in many cases is the primary way customers are interacting at least initially with the company. If the company website is unwieldy and difficult to navigate among other aspects, the customer simply may not come back. In this Discussion you have the opportunity to practice with critiquing a company website using the website checklist from your CSR Tool Belt.

Choose a company service or company product and review their website based on the customer building strategies and the customer life stage of the targeted customer as reviewed in the Learning Activity that you have completed.

Review the company website for:

• Who is the targeted customer or customers in your opinion and what stage of the customer life stage (from the Learning Activity) are they in?
• Download the Website Checklist (CSR Tool 5) , and review the chosen website checking all the items and insert your comments below each item as you proceed to review your chosen website. If an item does not apply, you should note that as well.
• Then share the name of your chosen company and the url (choose one that someone else has not chosen) and your checklist items assessments in the Discussion with your classmates.

Review the general differences in the generations based on birth years. This may help with understanding target customers:

Elder or Mature Generation: These customers would have been born before 1946. Although loyal to country and company products and services, they are more conservative with their spending and are more challenged technologically.

Baby Boomers: Born before 1964, but after 1946, these customers are an idealistic lot who are individualistic, demanding, with a positive attitude. Yet they challenge or question authority while venturing to solve problems themselves.

Generation X: These customers were born after the Baby Boomers but before 1981. Although self-reliant like the Baby Boomers, they differ in that they are very comfortable with technology while distrusting authority/institutions. They have relationship-building savvy and understand about social responsibility and protection of the environment.

The Millennial Generation (or Generation Y): Born after the Generation Xers, these customers are self-confident multi-taskers utilizing multiple interactive devices to interact and exact information from the world. As a result they can be impatient with others who are less technology savvy or unable to match their speedy information processing.

Generation Z: This generation was born in the 1990’s and grew up on the Internet using social media. They process information and interact instantaneously. They are independent in their thinking and are used to interacting with a more diverse social group.

Reference

Gibson, P. (2012). The world of customer service (3d ed.). Mason, OH: Cengage.

Levit, A. (2015, March 28). Make way for generation z. The New York Times. Retrieved from

http://www.nytimes.com

Where would these generations be located on the Customer Life Stages Cycle?

Stage 1: Young and single

Stage 2: Young marrieds w/children or without

Stage 3: Middleaged 1) With children; 2) Without children; 3) Divorced

Stage 4: Older -Married or Unmarried with or without children

Need by 02 Oct 2015 at 1200HRS  EST in APA format in a minimum of 450 words