Customer Personas

Apply the Influence of Perception to the Customer experience of service delivery Identify tools to monitor and evaluate a Customer experience Strategy.

In the present scenario, consumers are more inclining towards fruit drinks over other conventional carbonated drinks. Majority of the present generation are much concerned about their health and thus, fruit drinks are being marketed as the healthier options for the carbonated drinks (Wojcicki and Heyman 2012). In Australia also, it is of no difference. According to the latest report, fruit juice market is growing at a modest rate of 1.2 percent. It is expected that fruit juice industry will be estimated at $800 million in 2016 (Euromonitor.com, 2017). Food zone is a new entrant in this market. They are offering several of types of flavored fruit juices at an affordable price.

This report will discuss about the customer experience for the above said product from different perspectives of the customers. Issues associate with the customer experienced will also be discussed (Rawson, Duncan and Jones 2013). For the research purpose, primary data collection method such as customer interview is being used. Customer data and reviews from the portal of the organization are also being used to determine the customer experience. Customer experience map will be used in this report to identify the change in the experience of the customers before and after using the fruit juice of Food zone.

Relationship, analytical and innovator are the three chosen customer personas to be discussed. Some customers tend to be more social and interactive. Their personas are being identified as relationship (Caballero, Moreno and Seffah 2014). They are less interested in the technicalities of specifications of the product. Rather than they are more interested in the social interaction. In the case of food zone, these types of customers should be approached with extensive promotional activities. They are more influenced by promotions and advertisements. Marketing through the use of social media is an effective tool to attract these types of customers (Andzulis, Panagopoulos and Rapp 2012).

Analytical personas of the customers influence on the basis of their past experience. They are more comfortable with established rules and procedures. Differentiated products will not have much effect on their buying behavior (Berry and Haile 2014). The product should be full proofed to attract these types of customers. They will evaluate all types of aspects before buying any products. To attract these types of customer, food zone have to go with the traditional approach without pushing any one of a kind promotional policy. The product of food zone which is fruit juice should be according to the market standard. Barring the health and hygiene aspect, all the other aspects should be kept intact.

Competitor Analysis

The last customer persona is innovator. It is easier to attract customers having this persona. They are more independent in nature unlike the analytical ones. Creativity and innovation attracts these types of customers. One of the most effective policies to attract them is to induct new ideas in terms of the product and the promotional policy (Paweloszek and Korczak 2016). It is been seen in the customer interviews that, majority of the customers opting for a new and lesser known products are innovators. They should be the target segments for food zone (Solomon, Russell-Bennett and Previte 2012). This is due to the reason that, food zone is new entrant in the market. Thus, customers having innovator personas will be easy to attract with a new product. Food zone can come up with new flavors to match the innovative nature of these customers.

Analyzing the customer data both from primary and secondary sources shows that, customers prefer the other brands over food zone due to its taste. Some people do not prefer the fruit juice of food zone due to its high sugar content (Leung et al. 2014). It is being told by majority of the customers that, high sugar content of the fruit juice is creating barrier over selecting the food zone. As earlier discussed, fruit juice are being perceived as the healthier option over the conventional carbonated drinks. Thus, high level of sugar content will dilute the healthier aspect of the food zone. In this case, Berri and Minute Maid are frontrunners (Upson et al. 2012). According to the customers, fruit juices of these brands are having less amount of sugar content and thus they more prefer these brands over food zone. In this aspect, Minute Maid is ahead in the competition. Their sugar free content in their fruit juices is attracting more health conscious customers.

Pricing is another issue in the customer experience for Food zone. According to several customers, fruit juices of Food zone is a bit overpriced compared to its competitors. In the Australian market, Minute maid, Tropicana and Berri are more renowned than that of food zone. It is due to the reason that, Food zone is a new entrant in the market and thus it constitute of less brand image than its competitors (Severi and Ling 2013). However, Food zone opted for premium pricing. It has adversely affected on the customer experience. According to the several customers, they have found nothing special in the fruit juice of Food zone for which they have to pay extra price. Tropicana and other brands being having more brand image in the market are charging less. Thus, customers automatically prefer other brands over Food zone.

Issues in Customer Experience Management

According to the market survey, several customers are not satisfied with the taste of the Food zone. According to them, the taste of the orange juice of Food zone is not taste authentic and slightly bitterly in nature. It is another major issue of Food zone over its competitors. Fruit juices is being marketed as an alternative to the carbonated drinks but still it should taste good to attract customers. Tropicana and Minute Maid have more favorable taste which attracts all types of customer segments. Moreover, proof of authentic ingredients is also important for the customers opting for the fruit drinks as a healthier option (Popkin 2012). According to the market survey, several customers prefer Tropicana and Minute Maid just because of their authenticity. Some customers told in the market survey that the taste of the fruit juice of Food zone is sometimes not up to the mark. Thus they become skeptical about the quality of the ingredients being used in the juices. This issue also makes the customers to go for other options rather than going for Food zone. The taste of the fruit juice of fruit zone should be attractive to the customers and the ingredients used in the process should be properly notified to the customers.

Moreover, according to the ideal customer experience management, the customer service in terms of providing effective after sales service also affects the customer experience. According to majority of the customer, the after sales service and the customer relationship management of the competitors such as Minute Maid and Tropicana is much more effective than that of the Food zone. Thus, the customer grievance cannot be effectively met. Hence, it can be concluded that the forward integration in the customer experience management is facing issues.

• Delivering effective and efficient customer experience across all channels is difficult to be maintained by the organizations. It requires a holistic approach in maintaining the entire aspects of the customer experience management.
• Customer experience management is based on the technologies. The more updated and latest will be the technologies being used, the more will be the customer convenience. However, the technologies are rapidly changing and it is difficult for the organizations to cope up with the changing environment.
• The taste and preference pattern of the customers are also variable in nature. With the time, the taste and preference pattern of the customer is changing. Thus, it is difficult for the organizations to adjust with the change and design their customer experience management.
• Though feedback systems are being initiated in order to address the customer grievance. However, the expectation of the customers gets varied with the actual feedback management. Every customers have diversified expectations and it is difficult to meet all the requirements and expectations of the customers.

The customer experience map can be divide in to three parts which portrays the experience before, during and after the purchase of the product. The need generation and the initial consideration analyze the experiences before the purchase (Mihart 2012). Engagement and the evaluation part analyze the experience during the purchase and the rest of the factors analyze the experience after the purchase (Howard 2014).

These types of personas are extrovert and have a lot of interaction with the other members of the society. The need is generated for them from the word of mouth and they gain the information from the online medium and from friends and family. This is phase where the customer finds out the information before purchasing of the product. The people belonging to this category will interact with the sales executive to find whether the product is satisfying the need of the customers (Jahanshani et al 2014). The will try to develop a good relationship with the sales executive and clarify all the questions they have in their mind.  The final experience shows the comparison between the previous and present experience. This comparison will determine the customer will turn in to a loyal customer or search for a substitute in the market (Sahagun and Vasquez-Parraga 2014). The customers were eager to try out the product as it offered quality than the other products in the market but after usage of the product, the customer had issues with the taste. There are some of the customers who did not like the taste of the product.

Customer Experience Map

These types of personas are creative and will try to search for products, which have a unique selling proposition. The uniqueness of the product will be the evaluation point for the customer and they will try to differentiate based on the quality. The clarification will include the comparison among the various products in the market. When the product is bought, the customer will compare the uniqueness of the product with his or her own expectation. This will be the factor, which will determine whether the customer will be loyal to the brand or shift to the other products, which look lucrative (Sahagun and Vasquez-Parraga 2014). This group of customers was eager to try out the uniqueness but after the usage some of them thought that the sugar content is high.

These types of personas are very critical about the product and they like to make a total analysis so that they can gather all the information about the product.  There are very careful customers and do not take risky decisions. They like to evaluate all the factors before purchasing and they have to convince to buy the product. This group of customers analyzed all the aspects of the product and was concerned about the price of the product (Ellickson, Misra and Nair 2012). However, after the usage of the product some of them are of the opinion that the price of the product is high when compared to the quality of the product served. Thus, after taking feedbacks from the customer, the experience map shows that price, taste and the sugar content are the factors which should be brought under scrutiny (Moghaddam 2015).

Conclusion

Therefore, the market survey and the customer experience shows that, the current service experience of the customers regarding Food zone is favorable but there are some issues which need to be addressed. Customer experience map showed that price, quality and taste are the areas where competitors are going ahead of food zone. Thus, these areas should be improved in order to increase the positive experience of the customers. Currently, customers are willing to have one of a kind product in the fruit juice categories which are being properly fulfilled by the Food zone. However, customers prefer the competitor’s products than the products of Food zone due to the indentified areas of gap.

Fruit juice markets in the Australia are already having established brands such as Tropicana and Minute Maid. Thus, it is obvious that the customer will compare the newly introduced products in the market with the established brands. Therefore, to survive in the market and to generate positive customer experience, Food zone should rectify the gaps being identified in this research. It will help them to serve the customers more effectively and efficiently

References

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