Data Driven Personas: transforming customer service into a strategic insights tool for a large FMCG company
The combination of data analytics and design thinking enabled further understanding and definition of specific consumer profiles using their CRM Database as a starting point
Within the organizations, the process of Digital Transformation impacts how products are consumed and also customer services. In order to adapt to changing times, the customer relations center of an international beverages manufacturer needed to remodel its strategic positioning, based on strategic information.
In this project MJV aimed to refine the relationship between the brand and consumers, proposing a more personalized customer service. The main challenge would be to define the personas, based on the customer service data analysis, offering support for new services in the sector, with approaches closer to the reality of the brand’s consumers.
Blueprint: understanding and mapping processes
The first stage of the project consisted in the description and evaluation of current practices relating to planning, collecting, registering, synthesis and communication of data on consumers, who got in touch through the company’s customer service channels.
With the aim of co-creating the production of different blueprints, a workshop was conducted with multidisciplinary groups from the company. Thus, it was possible to map the business processes of the teams involved in customer service, identifying the roles and interdependencies at play.
Next, the data obtained were consolidated into a single global blueprint, encompassing the entire operation, based on a holistic view of the relationship between the company and the client.
Clustering: organizing the data alongside the people
In order to define the different consumer profiles and create the personas, it was necessary to group similar information and cases into categories. This grouping was based on the reason that led the consumer to get in touch with the company, including complaints, requests for information, feedback, promotions, e-commerce, or other issues. Each one of the categories had subcategories which specified the interaction even further.
With the aim of training the teams involved in the process and generate insights, another workshop was carried out, this time about managing the information. During the event, reference models were presented in the area of information management. Collaborators were divided into groups, presented with the categories and encouraged to reflect on new ideas for customer relations services.
Personas: powerful Design Thinking tools
The method to develop personas is a tool used during the Design Thinking process. Through this process, profiles are created with needs, habits, desires and specific characteristics, such as gender, age, location and place of birth, which sum up the behaviors observed during the analysis of the database, information clustering and information management practices implemented in the sector.
The personas allow for the identification of common characteristics and to come up with different customer relations strategies for each group. In this way, the actions will have more relevance to the varying demands of consumers, and simultaneously increase operational efficiency.
Prototyping: refining and implementing solutions
During the prototyping phase, a solution was developed for implementing the blueprint, driven forth in a joint partnership with the collaborators of the team. Starting with two MVPs (Minimum Viable Product), it was about testing and hypothesizing until reaching the final solution.
As the project’s conclusion and to indicate possible next steps to capture information to enrich the database, new customer relations services were conceived, differing according to the personas. Pleased with the solution developed by MJV, the client requested that MJV take part in the next process, supporting the strategic repositioning of the company.
MJV SOLUTIONS:
- Analysis of the practices of communicating with clients;
- Blueprint of the processes that involve the brand-consumer relation;
- Defining personas;
- A conceptual project of new services per persona;
- Methods to capture and access new data;
- Next steps for innovation, based on the personas;
- Two Workshops.
