I’ve not seen much dialogue about personas / profiling / customer segmentation from the CX community, but it’s a topic I’m keen to hear opinions on so please share yours, especially if you disagree with mine.

While the evidence suggests that marketing efforts should target the whole category, with my design hat on I’ve always found creating personas or user profiles a worthwhile activity because:

- The research required to create them immerses you in the customer’s world
- The process encourages debate and surfaces assumptions
- The resultant profiles can be a useful communication tool
- They can help you identify candidates for further research, requirements gathering and testing

That said, for a set of profiles to be valuable I look for a "Yes" to these 7 questions:

1. Do the profiles explain observable differences in behaviors?
2. Can you point to real people who fit them?
3. Are they clearly distinctive from each other?
4. Do they cover the whole customer base?
5. Can each be sized by measurable parameters: value to the business, no. of customers represented, etc?
6. Does each represent a significant business opportunity?
7. Is it clear how these profiles aid our decision-making?

Most of the time, unfortunately, the answers tend to be "No"!

See this post on LinkedIn