What Is a Customer Persona?

A customer persona is a profile of a typical business customer. It gives you a window into the mind of the customer. This lets you close deals faster and improve customer retention.

In this article, learn how to create different types of customer personas. We use a case study, so you can track the process from start to finish.

Plus, get tips on what to avoid when creating customer personas and learn how the right data can enhance your personas. This gives you better effectiveness with marketing, sales, and support.

Customer Persona Definition

We’ll get into more detailed types of customer personas below. But first, it’s important to understand the basic definition of a customer persona.

What is a customer persona? It’s an imaginary profile of a customer, buyer, or client. It’s used to help better target goods or services to the right market.

How customer personas summarize a target audience segment

There’s an old saying: “Selling to everyone is selling to no one.” It means that you can’t have too broad an audience for your merchandise or services. Otherwise, no one thinks your offerings are for them.

Customer personas let you target a specific audience for what you are selling. You’re not selling IT services (too broad). You’re selling cybersecurity for startup e-commerce businesses. See the difference?

You could drill down even further. Maybe you only work with companies that sell apparel. Or you partner with Etsy sellers who want to scale to bigger platforms.

You can also have customer personas for merchandise. For example, you could be a clothing company for retirees who like travel and outdoor sports.

Why research-backed personas are more useful than assumptions

Your personas shouldn’t just be pulled out of your imagination, though. Use research-based personas. Then you’ll have a more accurate perception of your customers.

Take the example above. You might find through a survey that your customers prefer travel to warm climates. Selling skiwear isn’t profitable.

Customer Persona vs. Buyer Persona vs. User Persona

There are subtle differences between different types of personas. Let’s explore the most common types with a hypothetical use case. We’ll use this case study throughout for consistency:

Customer – the HMO that purchases your medical equipment
Buyer – the CEO of the HMO who signs off on buying the equipment
User – the healthcare workers who actually use your equipment

These personas typically apply to service contracts, capital equipment purchases, and bulk orders. (Personas for individual consumers are a little different.)

Buyer persona: The decision-maker

The buyer is the decision-maker in the process. Using the example above, it’s the head of a healthcare group that gives the okay to buy your medical imaging system.

User persona: The person using the product or service

The users are the physicians, nurses, and techs utilizing the imaging system. They may have very different needs from the buyer.

For instance, the buyer may be looking at factors like:

Up-front cost
Financing options
Depreciation
Durability
Bundled services

However, the users may place greater value on:

Ease of use
Required training
Workplace safety
Patient comfort
Accuracy of results

Customer persona: The broader relationship and experience

Technically, the healthcare institution is your customer. It includes the buyer and users described above.

But it also might include:

A physician board that is choosing between three systems to recommend to the CEO
Facilities managers who have to check the technical requirements for imaging
Staff in the medical supply department who replenish items used in imaging
Billers and coders who need to charge insurance correctly

Why the distinction matters in complex buying journeys

You can see in the example above why these persona distinctions matter. They don’t all have the same needs. But you, as the company selling to them, must satisfy all of them.

Why Customer Personas Are Important

We can crank down the microscope a little more here. It’s vital to understand the importance of customer personas. And by extension, related personas are critical too.

Align marketing, sales, product, and customer experience teams

Creating an accurate customer persona sets you up for success from the start. You can align your marketing, sales, and support for the entire customer.

Let’s return to selling to our imaginary HMO above. When you understand the customer universe, you can:

Develop marketing and sales materials to satisfy the C-suite.
Write training and troubleshooting manuals for healthcare users.
Set up in-house support to handle common questions from others.

Improve messaging and campaign relevance

Say you’re still at the point where you’re convincing the HMO CEO to buy your system.

You understand their financial concerns, so you can prepare materials that help them do the math. They can see how your system fits the HMO budget and is the most cost-effective.

Prioritize product and service improvements

Once the system has been purchased, you have a different set of customers: HMO staff. How do you “sell” to them?

You stay proactive about system upgrades and new add-ons for convenience. You ensure you offer adequate tech support. When the time is right, you may be able to upsell or cross-sell other types of related equipment.

Support retention, expansion, and customer lifetime value

A customer who has made a large capital equipment purchase is one you want to retain for years. Above, we mentioned offering strong support. It’s essential for customer retention and future sales.

You want to think of the customer’s lifetime value. That’s the amount they’ll spend on medical equipment over the length of your relationship. It could be tens of thousands over decades.

Understand the broader customer persona and back it up with stellar service? Congratulations! You increase the chances of a long relationship. That contributes to business stability and profits.

RELATED ARTICLE — VOC Customer Experience

What to Include in a Customer Persona

How do you build a customer persona? Below are some key components to include.

Remember, you may be creating a persona for one person if you sell, say, bird feeders. But if you sell to institutions, you may have multiple personas, as described above.

Persona name and short snapshot

Give the persona a name so you can tell them apart from others. Create a little picture of them.

For example:

Healthcare institution CEO/COO
Capital equipment decision-maker
Greatest concern = HMO budget
Has health and business education
Wants data, not subjective sales info
Follows the stock market closely

Role, context, and responsibilities

What else do we know about our HMO CEO?

They give the ultimate “yea” or “nay” on capital equipment purchases.
They take the recommendations of their physician board seriously.
They have to answer to an institution board about finances.
If they like a company, they tend to purchase more from it.

Goals and success metrics

What is your goal for selling to our hypothetical CEO? What is considered a success?

Naturally, selling a medical imaging system is the end goal. But first, your goal might be to get them to present your materials to the physician board. Or it might be to set up a demo of your system.

Pain points and constraints

It’s vital to understand your customers’ pain points and limitations. In our case study here, these might be:

A budget cap that they can’t exceed
The need to finance the system over three years
Poor tech support from a previous vendor
Wanting a faster system to meet scheduling metrics
Complaints from patients about the current system

Jobs to be done

What does the client ultimately want from their medical imaging system? They don’t simply want to take pictures of patients for diagnostic purposes.

Underlying motives could be:

Taking images faster to schedule more appointments per day
Meeting emergency protocols for patients who need surgery
Reducing equipment downtime that eats into HMO revenue
Increasing patient satisfaction scores for comfort and wait times
Decreasing healthcare provider complaints about poor images

What are the jobs to be done with your customer persona?

Decision triggers

With every sale, there are reasons why the customer moves ahead or stops the process. There are also reasons why they’re looking in the first place.

You need to understand what those are. Using our case study again, decision triggers could be:

Too many breakdowns with the current imaging system
Patients going elsewhere for diagnostic images (lost revenue)
Budget allocations that need to be used within the year

Buying committee, influencers, and blockers

We know with our hypothetical HMO that there’s a CEO and a committee of physicians involved. But it’s not as simple as that.

Maybe there’s a senior doctor on the board who influences others with their opinion. Perhaps there’s a negative person who needs more hand-holding. They might have even had a bad experience with your company at another institution.

You must identify these forces and how to deal with them.

Common objections and risks

What are your customers’ most common objections or sticking points? Price is a frequent roadblock, but there could be hidden issues.

It’s possible the HMO is leery of switching to a new equipment vendor, in spite of concerns with the current one. What do they feel is a risk in going with your company?

Preferred channels, content, and proof points

How you approach customers should be part of your persona profile. In the case of our CEO, do they want information sent first by email? An appointment scheduled via an assistant? Do you approach the physician board first?

Proof points show how you can solve a problem for the customer. So, what proof points make the best case for your medical imaging system? Examples might be:

It requires less time per image, letting the customer schedule more appointments.
You have the best statistics for problems and downtime in the industry.
Your company offers three-year and five-year financing programs.
You have testimonials from healthcare professionals about stellar image quality.

Real customer quotes

Add any real-life quotes from your customers or customers just like yours.

“We can’t afford a CT scanner that keeps breaking!”

“Our patients are the number one priority. Everything else is second to precise diagnostics and their satisfaction.”

How to Create a Customer Persona

Creating a customer persona isn’t hard when you build it logically and thoughtfully. Here are the basic steps.

Define the segments you want to understand

First, make a list of customers or customer groups you want to understand better. Remember, you’re not selling to everyone, only the customers who are right for your goods or services.

Collect customer interviews, surveys, CRM data, and support insights

As mentioned earlier, the more data-based your personas, the better they’ll service you. So, add any interviews and surveys with them. Other CRM insights, like from your sales team, are ideal to include too.

Group patterns by goals, behaviors, barriers, and motivations

Can you group customer patterns by certain characteristics? For instance, are HMOs more driven by cost metrics than hospitals? Perhaps hospital users prioritize system speed and reliability?

Draft a concise persona canvas

Next, take what you know and create a draft persona for the typical customer or customers. Flesh it out, like you’re describing an actual person.

Validate the persona with quantitative research

You can double-check your personas with more hard data. Surveys and sales figures give you quantitative information. That’s more reliable than opinions.

Once you hone your personas, it’s time to use them. Give them to folks in sales, marketing, and support. That way, they can find a quicker path to closing, which is what you want.

Review and update personas regularly

Customer personas aren’t static. You’ll need to update them periodically. Factors that might prompt a review include:

Changes in the general economy
Promotions and retirements
Launching new products or services
Feedback from sales and support
New competition in the market
Calendar milestones (e.g., fiscal year)

Customer Persona Examples

We can continue to use our case study from above to look at a few persona examples. Think about how these customer types look to your business.

B2B buyer persona example

Let’s imagine this is the typical person who purchases supplies for medical imaging. They purchase things like contrast media, procedure equipment, and cleaning supplies.

Head of supplies for medical imaging
Extremely budget-conscious
Worried about shortages and allocations
Highly organized and detail-oriented
Makes data-driven decisions

Service business customer persona example

We can contrast the persona above to the radiologist who reads images. They don’t just use your equipment. They also use your subscription software that integrates images with patient medical records.

Hospital radiologist in oncology
Always feels crunched for time with patient load
Frustrated by tech glitches in any form
Loves systems that are quick to learn
Concerned with HIPAA and privacy laws
Prefers self-service solutions for support

Negative persona example

We touched on a negative persona earlier. Here’s a sample that might be familiar to many medical equipment salespeople:

Senior physician on HMO purchasing board
Vast hands-on medical experience
Resists new advances in technology
Vocal when equipment doesn’t work right
Takes a long time to make buying decisions
Prefers current system with flaws to a new one

Sometimes a negative persona is a customer service persona. That’s because they need extra support or kid-glove treatment.

Common Customer Persona Mistakes to Avoid

Want to avoid making mistakes in creating your customer personas? Avoid these five common errors.

Relying on demographics alone

Customer personas are more than merely age, income, and location. You need to think about personal traits too.

It’s good to use data. But you must also look at typical behaviors, pain points, and the like.

Basing personas on one memorable customer

It’s not enough to call to mind one indelible customer to create a persona. They’re not going to all be like that, for better or worse.

Be sure to incorporate traits from a range of typical customers. And add data so it’s less subjective.

Creating too many personas

Too many personas can be confusing and unhelpful. Create the most essential ones first for your business. You can always add more later.

Letting personas sit unused in a slide deck

You’ve gone to the trouble of creating your customer personas. Now use them!

You want to share them with everyone who interacts with the customer. This includes:

Marketing
Advertising
Support
Sales
Technical development

Failing to update personas as markets change

For most businesses, markets change every few years. You should be updating your customer personas at least this often, if not more frequently. Otherwise, yours could be outdated and useless.

FAQs About Customer Personas

What is a customer persona?

A customer persona is a hypothetical profile of your typical customer. It can also represent different customers under one customer umbrella. When you create an accurate customer persona, all your services can be honed to meet their needs.

What is the difference between a customer persona and a buyer persona?

The customer persona is a broad user of your product or service. It might be a company, rather than one person. The buyer is the decision-maker in the sales process.

How many customer personas should a business have?

It depends on your business and whether you sell to individuals or other businesses. You should have enough to cover your typical customers. But you don’t want so many that they become overwhelming to use.

What information goes into customer personas?

You want to include the essentials to understand their thought process. That includes how they decide to buy and how they handle dissatisfaction.

Things like the customer’s buying habits, pain points, and objections are important. Add anything else that might help marketing and customer service.

How do personas improve customer service?

Understanding your customer through a persona can help with:

Personalizing communications and approaches
Developing empathy for frustrations
Providing better training and troubleshooting
Preventing customers from going to the competition
Improving customer satisfaction scores

Conclusion: Strong Personas Turn Customer Research Into Better Decisions

Successful customer personas and your research data go hand in hand. Together, they help build customer relationships and boost customer retention.

Listen360 helps businesses get the information they need to create strong personas. Improve customer satisfaction and reduce churn with the feedback and analytics you need. Request a demo and see how it would work for your company.