Segmentar os vários tipos de clientes

Voltando ao delta que ilustra 8 posicionamentos estratégicos possíveis, como proposto por Arnoldo Hax no seu livro "The Delta Model":
"We want to segment customers to identify the best value proposition for each one of them. We cannot and should not treat every customer equally, because they are different. If we do not recognize this, we are making the fatal mistake of commoditizing customers, which ultimately leads toward the commoditization of the business. We have said, “Commodities only exist in the minds of the inept.”

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This is basically true because there is no such thing as a commodity customer, which implies that there is no such a thing as a commodity business.

However, in most cases, we cannot deal from the outset with every customer as if it were a unique, singular entity. We need to find a comfortable middle ground. This is accomplished by a process of segmentation that identifies differences among the whole customer base but seeks some similarities in subgroups of customers that share similar requirements.We call these entities customer tiers. The art and science of customer segmentation – which is much more art than science – is to find proper criteria that will allow us to perform the segmentation in the most appropriate way."

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Hax, depois dá o exemplo do caso da Castrol:

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"Castrol is one of the leading lubricant companies in the world. They realized that playing the Best Product strategy was not going anywhere, since the business was getting commoditized and differentiation through premium products was not generating a sustainable competitive advantage. Typically, 6 months after they would successfully introduce a new premium lubricant, competitors would launch a similar product. Selling lubricants by the gallon was not a very compelling proposition.
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First, in the process of making lubricants, Castrol had accumulated a remarkable degree of knowledge about plant maintenance. (Moi ici: algo que demora anos a atingir) This is not surprising, since the purpose of a lubricant is to improve the productivity of machinery and equipment of the plant. Rather than using this knowledge strictly for the development of new products, the idea that emerged was that it could be transferred to select customers with consequences that were far more important than merely delivering lubricants.
The second realization was that services were much more critical than products to fight a commoditization syndrome. Product can seldom, if ever, be massively customized; services, on the other hand, are inherently customizable.

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In order to develop an effective set of value propositions, Castrol undertook a careful customer segmentation project. Often, companies segment markets. Castrol certainly did that by identifying the major clusters of business applications: cement, sugar, pulp and paper, textile, food and beverage, wood, mining, and glass. But that was not enough. The brilliant next step for Castrol was to identify, within each market segment, which customers to target with varying degrees of priorities. They performed that task by recognizing the different attitudes the customers had about accepting a full Total Customer Solutions approach.
They considered three Tiers.

• Primary Target Segment – Productivity-Conscious Customers.

These customers are eager to receive support that will enhance their productivity,
reduce total costs, and promote higher sales.

• Secondary Target Segment – Cost-Conscious Customers.

These customers are concerned about total costs but they believe new production
does not necessarily yield higher sales or economies of scale.

• The Least Desirable Segment – Price-Conscious Customers.

These customers are basically buying from the supplier that offers the lowest
price."

Ou sistematizando de forma a ir ao âmago:

"This segmentation is also very useful in helping to decommoditize the full business base. It recognizes that there are some legitimate customers, who fit in the transaction category, that only want a standard product at the lowest price from you.
The reason behind that, most of the time, is that they are self-sufficient. The other two tiers offer opportunities for customization and uniqueness of delivery with different degrees of value added. The Support tier expects some help, normally in cost reduction. The Relationship tier seeks as full and complete assistance as it can be given, hoping that this will result in increases of revenues and profitability, as well as cost and productivity improvements."

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Por vezes, quando pergunto numa empresa quem são os seus clientes-alvo, a resposta sabe-me a pouco, sabe-me a algo de arcaico. Em vez da segmentação dos clientes mostram-me a segmentação dos mercados por diferentes parâmetros: demografia; geografia; canal; dimensão; rentabilidade; ...