Customer Profile - Exploring Customer Jobs

Our first step to completing the Customer Profile is to explore the goals and objectives of users based on our detailed interview insights. Shopping online has become somewhat of a norm to many people in this day and age, yet many people have rarely given it much thought why they are going online to buy something or what drives them to choose to use the online method. Figure 4.2.1 below summarizes the questions that we need to answer.

Figure 4.2.1 – First Component of Customer Profile

A variety of reasons were mentioned during the interviews including finding items that would not have been sold in Taiwan stores, purchasing from overseas brands, saving money with generally lower prices, and also saving time when they can browse and find many items online. Here one of our interviewees mentioned about the purchase objective of getting items from overseas:

Y: "Online shopping allows me to find some things I can’t find elsewhere, for example a hair care shampoo that you can’t find in Taiwan. Other items that you can only find from overseas and ship them over."

At the same time, one of the common themes that came up from all four of the interviewees was convenience and how buying something online now allowed them the freedom to do it without having to go out around looking for something. They were now able purchase items using less effort than going out to the store, searching for it and going from store to store until finally making the purchase or giving up.

Y: "I bought a Bluetooth earpiece recently as they could deliver in 24 hours, and I wanted to get it quickly, but overall it is also mainly because of the convenience of getting it from searching to purchasing to delivered to me"

L: "Sometimes you're just too busy to go to the store, and if you need daily items you can just purchase them online via PC Home. I think convenience is also key, it means I don't have to go out and look for something"

With this new simplicity of online shopping, consumers do not have to expend as much effort in looking for items and buying it. This reduction in effort provides consumers convenience that makes it meaningful to shop online, and also saves time for users. If we simply followed a model of a user’s journey, the “Jobs” that our respondents shared with us were the browsing, searching for items, comparing, and checking out or paying for items.

However Osterwalder’s canvas wasn’t based on simply identifying the customer jobs along the user journey, but also takes into consideration the level of importance for those goals and objectives. When asked what were the main goals or to rank the importance of the “Jobs”, our interviewees all cited convenient purchasing and saving money with cheaper prices off the top of their head.

L: "Price! Some things you can’t buy in Taiwan, but you can find online. Also some things you can find at the actual stores, but it will be cheaper online as they don’t have to pay for overheads"

H: "Price is cheaper and saves effort instead of going out to buy stuff as it is more convenient"

C: "Convenient, now I can quickly find and buy many things without actually running to the physical store"

All 4 of our interviewees gave very similar answers and with the responses that we managed to obtain, it was then easy to fill in the Customer Jobs section while ranking them in level of importance.

Figure 4.2.2 – Ranked Customer Jobs Section

As seen in the ranked list, the primary objective when going online to shop was basically to purchase items conveniently from the comfort of home or even while they were on the go. This was followed by the ability to save money thanks in part to cheaper prices offered online. The variety of available products online also allowed for users wanting to search for hard to find goods or a particular item to turn to online shopping. In the midst of the shopping process, users would want to compare items in terms of size, technical specifications and prices. One of our younger interviewees felt that it was actually a major part of her shopping journey.

Y: "Comparing items and prices is one main objective while I’m shopping. For the Bluetooth earpiece I purchased recently, I did a lot of comparisons to find the best deal."

Not ranked so high on the list are the checkout & payment process, and surprisingly the browsing of items. Upon a deeper look into some of the responses, we realized that our

interviewees could be broken down into 3 distinct groups, those that didn’t browse but just went online with something in mind, those that were browsing regularly whilst shopping online and those that lie somewhere in between. Only one of our interviewees had indicated to have really browsed shopping platforms on a regular basis. Perhaps offering a valid explanation to why Browsing was not ranked as important by our interviewees.

Our conversations not only allowed us to find out the “Jobs” users were trying to accomplish, how they were ranked in level of importance, but it also provided plenty of feelings and thoughts that revolved around usefulness and ease of use. With the latest technologies, consumers are able to shorten the time required at each stage of the purchase journey: Log on, Search, Compare, Decide & Pay, Delivery & Collection, thereby allowing them to be more satisfied with the whole shopping experience.

Still this online shopping experience must continue to develop and improve. It must be able to help consumers find what they are looking for easily and quickly, and provide consumers the convenience to purchase items from anywhere. It must provide sufficient range of products so consumers can find various items and it must be able to offer consumers attractive prices. Consumers have very clear goals that they want to achieve shopping online and if online platforms fail to assist consumers in achieving them, they have planned to fail.