Businesses all over the world are shifting their operations towards a customer centric strategy that defines the customer as the core pillar of success. This shift towards customer obsession is accelerated by digital transformation that has led to the adoption of advanced customer relationship management tools and other vibrant platforms that have give brands full visibility of the customer journey map. According to statistics appearing on Forbes, digital transformation and a focus on customer experience can generate a 20-30% increase in customer satisfaction and economic gains of 20-50%.

Understand different generations of consumers

Online businesses will attract different generations of consumers that exhibit extreme shopping patterns driven by micro and macro environmental activities that took place in their generation. Baby Boomers born between 1946-1964 enjoyed immense economic prosperity, post-world war 11 peace. Kenyans were involved in a unstable political environment while fighting for independence. They only use technology when it is necessary and may not spend a lot of time on different digital channels. Generation X born between 1965 – 1980 where influenced by campaigns to mainstream capitalism and consumerism culture. They are ambitious and adopt technology very easily as a tool to stay connected with their aging parents and tech savvy children.

Generation Y or Millennials was born between 1981- 1996 when technology and entrepreneurship was becoming a global phenomenon. They are a global generation since they share the same values in many countries thanks to globalization and their connection through the Internet. Generation Z was born between 1997-2010 when digital was mainstream, internet and mobile phones were readily available. They spend a lot of time on digital platforms, self-taught through tutorials and have a real time access to global news and entertainment.

Identify Target Customer

From all these generations of consumers, it is important to identify a target market that consists of consumers who exhibit similar characteristics like age, income, geographical location etc. It is also possible to have more than one target customer group segmented as primary, secondary or even tertiary customer segments. Primary customer is the core target of any business where more resources are allocated while the rest may get limited attention. For the purposes of this article and better understanding, we will have the millennials as our primary target customer.

Develop Customer persona

Now that we know our primary target customer is a millennial, we need to go deeper and create a persona that befits our target customer. Customer persona is a fictional profile that represents a target customer. You can also create negative persona to represent those you do not want as a customer.

Customer persona should be a vivid description that profiles the characteristics of the target customer. Let us name our Persona Niki, she is 34 years old a University of Nairobi bachelor of Commerce graduate currently working at eyeballs as a business account manager earning USD 30,000 PA. she lives at South C and is a single mother of two children. She loves to travel, hangout with friends and has started playing golf of late. Write down as much information as you can about the persona so that you are able to vividly envision the customer you are targeting. Most of the digital platforms will ask you to key in this details when developing an advert. Use this persona every time you are doing meetings to help the team have the customer in mind when developing creatives and other marketing programs. I encourage teams to have imaginary photo of the persona hanging on a boardroom wall and even go further and have a seat for the imaginary customer. Ask yourself, what would the customer say about your creatives, Marketing programs, website customer journey maps and key touchpoints?

The Middle of the pyramid purchasing power

Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics indicate that 36.1 per cent of Kenyan households are classified as poor with the remaining 63.9 per cent or 30.39 million being non-poor. Domestic data put the low-income earners as those taking home 23,670 shillings (about 216 U.S. dollars) and below while those earning between 216 dollars to 1,094 dollars are classified as middle class.

Our persona Kiki is a middle class with a decent job and salary which translate to high status and peer pressure to live up to industry standards. As a business, you have to consider how much discretionary income Kiki has after spending on necessities like rent, food, clothing, transport, insurance, Mortgage etc. You will probably be fighting to get a share of the remaining 15% of Kiki discretionary income.

You also have to find out how many Kikis form part of the target customers in the target market and determine if the number is big enough to sustain your business.

Most tech -startups will target the middle class due to quick uptake of technology, smartphone penetration and ability to afford data, their disposable income and other factors that make this customer segment attractive. However, they later discover that that market is too small and only concentrated in urban centres. That is why most start ups will launch very fast in several countries in capital cities where there are middle class with disposable income.

Hyper-personalized Customer experience

Millennials are driven by the desire to get personalized experiences. They are willing to pay a premium for great experiences. To deliver hyper-personalized customer experiences, working on the customer journey map and identify key customer touchpoints. Marketers have been debating the relevance of the legacy marketing funnel that mapped customer journey from awareness to a purchase which was develop in line with legacy marketing channels. The modern customer has evolved and marketing channels are now fragmented thus the modern customer has multiple touchpoints that spread throughout pre-purchase, purchase and post purchase experiences.

I prefer the bowtie data insights marketing funnel that gives complete visibility of the customer journey from pain point to loyalty. It presents a deeper understanding of customer acquisition, conversion and retention touchpoints that can be optimized for higher conversion.

Map out Niki purchase decision making journey and touchpoints throughout brand discovery (eg Search engine, Social Media, TV etc), interest in your product ( website, Email, call etc) consideration ( audit your competitors digital assets) Conversion ( How will kiki pay once she decides to make a purchase) loyalty ( how will she give feedback? Either through reviews and ratings on website, social media comments or even email) Optimize the ecommerce platform and creatives to the liking of Kiki. The images, videos and content should be tested on Kiki to increase conversion rate.

Retention Optimization

Retention refers to the percentage of users who come back to buy your product after their first purchase within a certain timeframe eg if 200 users buy your product today, and 40 of them come back the following month, then your one-month retention is 20%. Online businesses focus a lot on daily active Users (DAU) or Monthly active Users (MAU) as a key metric to analyze stickiness and retention rate. This is determined by the industry you operate in.

A study by Invesp shows that acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing customer and increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits from 25-95%.The success rate of selling to a customer you already have is 60-70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is 5-20%.

Create power user curves by focusing on specific segments, determine what drives their actions and purchase behavior. Some users have longer sales cycle or lead generation cycles while others are shorter. Power user curve can help you better under engagement per cohort, determine user actions and determine what should be changed based on their purchase patterns.

Implement omnichannel customer support services that allow consumers get support through channels of their convenience and preference like website, social media, email or even face to face. Collect customer feedback and complaints and genuinely make attempts to incorporate or communicate effectively and in a timely manner.