Customer Interaction Styles

I blanch at the way in which customers are stereotyped by vendors - particularly in this recent fad of "personas" that attempt to give the firm a better sense of the kinds of characters it is dealing with, but which are ultimately based on a one-sided set of assumptions that observe customer behavior without much consideration of the reasons customers behave the way that they do.

The vendor-customer relationships is a relationship like any other: each party interacts with the other on the assumption of what they expect their values and motives to be - and this perception ideally rectifies itself over time as they observe how the other party actually is, rather than how they are assumed to be.   Thus considered, behavior is not indelible, but more importantly it is not irrational - people behave in specific ways because they feel it has been successful for them in the past, on the assumption that future interactions will follow the same pattern.

So while it's well and good to make assumptions about consumer behavior, it's also important to consider how that behavior arose - how customers came to be the way that they are - and to consider our own conduct in the relationship.  In our first encounter, they are the way they are because of previous experience with other vendors but in second and subsequent interactions, their behavior is a reaction to our own.


How Customers Are

I'll start by considering, in a general sense, the way that customers behave in an encounter with a vendor.  It is, in essence, a relationship in which they need something they cannot furnish for themselves, and are looking to the vendor to provide it.   The way that customers are, at least at the first encounter, is a reflection of the way they have been treated in the past.

In a broad sense, they are collaborative, neutral, or hostile.  This is not a trinary switch, but a continuum - though I do have the sense that even "continuum" is not quite correct as it is the confluence of three different continuums:

• Collaborative - The customer expects the vendor to be attentive to their needs and is amenable to being advised, believing that the vendor is trustworthy and will make suggestions that contribute to their welfare.
• Neutral - The customer expects the vendor to be indifferent to their needs and is cautious about being advised, recognizing that the vendor has good intentions but, at the same time, is pursuing an agenda that may not be compatible to their personal welfare.
• Hostile - The customer still expects the vendor to be indifferent to their needs but is resistant to being advised, recognizing that the  vendor is pursuing its own agenda that is contrary to their personal welfare.

The three key elements in each of these states are the vendor's attentiveness or indifference to the customer's needs, the objectives they presume the vendor to have, and the effect that the agreement or difference between the two has on the expectations of the customer. All of this derives from the basic consideration of whether the product on offer is really a solution to their needs.

In relation to customer behavior, the way in which they will interact with a vendor reflects their assessment of this relationship: a collaborative customer will be relatively easy to sell, a neutral one tougher, and a hostile one nearly impossible.   And again, this relationship will be level-set based on the customer's previous encounters with vendors who fit the archetype - when buying a car, the customer expects the vendor to act in the same manner, and with the same agenda, as the last vendor that sold them a car.

This is where assessing the customers' attitude toward the industry or product category is significant, as it is the starting point at which their expectations are set and upon which their behavior will be based.   Ideally, the vendor wishes to be approached tabula rasa so that the customer will judge the vendor on its own merits, without the negative baggage created by others - but this is inevitable.


How We Made Them That Way

The notion that customers "are the way they are" is ignoring how they came to be that way - and, too often, assuming that their style of interaction is going to remain consistent and there's nothing that vendors can do to change it.   This is not correct at all because both parties bear responsibility for the relationship - we made customers the way they are, and we can choose to accept, support, or change their general attitude toward us.

As mentioned, "we" begins in a vague and general sense of all marketers, or all markers in a given industry sector (as categorized in the customers' schema rather than our own) but slowly shifts to be appropriate to the individual relationship.   We can act to support their existing attitude, or we can act to adjust it.   Primarily, this results from the way in which a firm interacts with the customer:

• Supportive - We can seek to understand and serve the needs of the customer, and serve them in the way they wish to be served
• Indifferent - We can remain aloof from the customer, proffering our merchandise and expecting customers to undertake the effort to serve themselves
• Parasitic - We can attempt to control the customers, indifferent to their needs but attentive to our own desire for profit

What I mean to imply here is that our behavior toward the customer shapes their behavior toward us.  A firm that is supportive encourages customers to be collaborative, one that is indifferent encourages them to be neutral, and one that is parasitic encourages them to be hostile.  The notion of encouragement is important, as it would be exceedingly ignorant or arrogant to assume our control is such that the customer will react a given way.

But encouragement is important in that it changes the nature of the relationship.  We have the ability to warm up a hostile customer by acting in a supportive manner.   We also have the ability, though we may often lack the interest, to change our own behavior in the relationship, such as when a collaborative customer voices a complain because they expected us to be supportive but found us to be indifferent.

And in that way, we shape the behavior of the customer - we inherit their attitude from the firms they have interacted with in the past, change their attitude during the course of our own interaction, and reset their assumptions for the next firm they will interact with.   We have the ability to do this for better or for worse.

This is not in the nature of an option we may choose to purse.  It is in the manner of a consequence we cannot avoid, not matter how hard we wish it were not so.