Wanda Childs has just moved
to Kansas from Boston with
her husband and daughter,
and she is expecting her
second child. It is now time
to add another family car
to their garage. In this
Test Drive Report, Wanda
gets quotes for insurance
on potential new vehicles
as well as the new vehicle
in combination with the current
family sedan from two prominent
online auto insurers, Geico
and Progressive. The moment
of truth in this Product
Select and Buy Customer Scenario
pattern is “I can quickly
and easily find out the cost
for insuring our family vehicles.”The
metrics around this moment
of truth include the ability
to find all the information
she needs without making
even one phone call, finding
competitive information on
at least two other providers
easily, providing no private
personal information (e.g.,
social security number, phone
number, income), and finding
this information on each
potential provider’s
Web site within 15 minutes.
Both gieco.com and progressive.com
do a good job of guiding
potential customers through
the process of getting an
insurance quote, although
both have some issues with
providing competitive quotes:
Geico doesn’t offer
any, and Progressive makes
it difficult to find quotes
from providers you care about.
PRODUCT SELECT AND
BUY CUSTOMER SCENARIO PATTERN
In the Product Select and
Buy Customer Scenario pattern,
customers want to acquire
products or services that
meet their requirements.
Most typically, customers
follow a sequence of activities
that:
- Perform research for
the product/service
- Compare similar products/services
along criteria that are
meaningful to their usage
of the product or service
- Select the product or
service that they feel
best addresses their selection
criteria.
A customer’s key Moment
of Truth in this Customer
Scenario pattern is “I
want to find the product
or service that best addresses
my requirements.”The
Metrics for this Moment of
Truth qualify or quantify
the time to perform the research
and comparison, the ease
with which they can be performed,
the channel on which they
can be performed, and, ultimately,
that a selection that meets
the customer’s specific
parameters can be made within
the customers’desired
time frame.
Select an Auto Insurance
Policy for Both a New Car
and for the Entire Family
Fleet
In this Moment of Truth
Test-drive report, we’ll
role play the customer persona
who uses online, self-service
facilities to research, compare,
and select a new provider
for her car insurance. We’ll
name this customer persona
Wanda Childs.
Wanda, her husband, and
two year old daughter have
just moved from Massachusetts
to Kansas. With a new baby
on the way, Wanda and her
husband Dennis want to buy
a new minivan or crossover
vehicle to add to the family
fleet of a 2000 Ford Edge
pickup truck and a 2000 Saturn
LS2 sedan. She has two vehicles
in mind: a 2007 Honda Odyssey
and a 2007 Honda CRV.
And both Wanda and Dennis
are very excited about looking
for insurance because of
the move. You see, in Massachusetts,
there are set insurance rates,
so there is really no competition
and, thus, no pricing wars
between providers (although
this is set to change). Now
that they are in Kansas,
Wanda can do what she’s
been itching to do for years:
go to both Geico.com and
Progressive.com and see which
will offer her a better deal.
Because money is tight,
what with the move, the baby
on the way, and buying a
new car, Wanda also believes
that the cost of insurance
might be a determining factor
in which new vehicle they
purchase. When she purchased
her first family car, the
Saturn, she didn't look at
insurance rates very closely.
It's only the second time
around that she realized
it could play a role in her
decision-making process.
Wanda works all day, takes
care of her daughter in the
evening, and is usually pretty
tired. So she wants to do
her research online at these
two sites that she’s
heard so much about on television
commercials. Her Moment of
Truth is, “I can quickly
and easily find out the cost
for insuring our family vehicles.”Her
metrics for this Moment of
Truth are:
1. I can find all the information
I need on the Web site without
making a single telephone
call.
2. I can find competitive
information on at least two
other providers easily.
3. I provide no private
personal information (e.g.,
social security number, phone
number, income).
4. I can find the answers
to all my questions on each
Web site within 15 minutes
of research.
Her conditions of satisfaction
(criteria) include:
- Easy to follow process
- Good prices
- Able to provide all the
information the sites need
without having to look
anything up
Wanda is going to check
out the Web sites of Geico,
because she loves their commercials,
and Progressive, because
of the availability of competitors’prices
from that site and the promise
of “spend 15 minutes
to save 15 percent or more.”
|
Customer Scenarios
A customer scenario is the
process that a customer would
ideally like to do in order
to achieve a desired outcome
(not how they do it today).
Thus, Customer Scenarios
are the sequences of activities
that customers want to or
need to perform in order
to reach their objectives
in doing business with you.
A customer scenario has
the following components:
Customer Persona represents
the person who performs the
Customer Scenario. The persona
is defined as an individual,
who represents a composite
of the characteristics and
behaviors of a typical customer
in a particular customer
segment.
Context information
defines the starting conditions
of a Customer Scenario or
the Persona’s current
state.
Activities are
the tasks that the customer
performs from the initial
Context to reach the Desired
Outcome.
Desired Outcome defines
the end of the Customer Scenario,
the point at which the Persona
has accomplished the needed
or wanted objective.
Conditions of Satisfaction are
additional requirements or
parameters that further define
whether or not the desired
outcome has been successfully
achieved.
Moments of Truth are
the three or four activities
that are most critical to
the customer and represent
the “showstoppers”—if
the customer can’t
easily do these few things,
he or she will give up and
abandon the scenario.
Metrics are
quantifiable measures that
define success or failure
of a Moment of Truth.
|
In Table A, we list and
describe the relevant Customer
Scenario components for the
Moment of Truth Test-drive.
I Can Quickly and
Easily Find Out the Cost
for Insuring Our Family
Vehicles
(Please download
the formatted PDF for the
table at http://www.psgroup.com/detail.aspx?ID=840.)
Table A. In this table,
we provide a context for
Wanda’s Customer Scenario.
We also note her Moment of
Truth and the metrics, which
will indicate whether the
auto insurance provider being
researched meets or exceeds
her expectations and tolerance
vis à vis her customer
experience. Finally, we capture
the criteria upon which Wanda
will base her choices, which
helps specify what information
she will be looking for.