Summarize your customers for your chosen company in terms of total rank order and segment. Be creative and use a table, chart, or graph, or you may describe, in an essay format, this portion of the assignment.

Assignment Question

In the first two weeks of this course, your goal was to learn how to think strategically as well as understand the tools and traits of effective leadership. Now, you will begin the process of designing the strategic plan for your chosen company from Week 1. The strategic plan design begins with knowing who your current customers are, as well as your potential customers. An effective customer analysis focuses on two types of customers: 1) existing customers and 2) potential customers. It is important to view these types of customers through two different lenses: 1) Your point of view and 2) Your customer’s point of view. To start analyzing your customers, you must first rank them according to the total number of customers, and then according to segments. You should not just view your customers as they are presently, but also according to the likelihood your business with them will grow over the next 1-3 years. It is impossible to conduct a full customer analysis without talking to your customers. As Tracy (2015 p. 52) argues, “You now must start a business almost from scratch.” This statement leaves you with a number of questions to ask. Among these are, “Which customers do you want to try and reach, and which customers, knowing that you know now, would you decide not to try and win back?” The only way to get reliable data about customers is to ask them. An organization only knows 30 percent of what is going on in its customers’ heads, the rest comes from research.” There are three main ways to better understand your customers: 1) listening, 2) observing, and 3) empathizing. In addition, you must consider your potential customers, and then ask why they’re buying from your competitors. You may also have new customers if you developed your business in a different direction – a good strategic plan must consider these as well. In this week’s assignment, you will begin the process of customer analysis and design a plan to gather data to include in your chosen company’s strategic plan. Be sure to review this week’s resources carefully. You are expected to apply the information from these resources when you prepare your assignments. Expand All Collapse All 12.5 %1 of 8 topics complete Show data table for This chart displays the number of completed topics versus the total number of topics within module Week 3.. List of Topics and Sub-Modules for Week 3 Books and Resources for this Week Berman, R., & Donaldson, C. (2018). Map it: Understanding your customer’s journey. Dynamic Chiropractic, 36(12), 24–32. Link Jay, J. (2016). How to get the feedback you didn’t really want to hear (but really need to know). American Salesman, 61(3), 12. Link Liu, A. H., Chugh, R., & Noel Gould, A. (2016). Working smart to win back lost customers the role of coping choices and justice mechanisms. Link Padhye, G., & Sangvikar, B. V. (2016). Understanding the Repatronage Intentions of Supermarket Customers: A Cluster Analysis. IUP Journal… Link Simons, R. (2014). Choosing the right customer. Link Thakur, R., & Workman, L. (2016). Customer portfolio management (CPM) for improved customer relationship management (CRM): Are your customers… Link Tracy, B. (2015). Business strategy (The Brian Tracy success library). New York: AMACOM. Link

Week 3 – Assignment: Analyze Your Customers Assignment

This week, you have learned how to analyze your customers, ascertain what they’re thinking from your point of view as well as their point of view, and you have learned about different methods to better understand them (e.g., observations, discussions, focus groups, and surveys). In this assignment, you will write an essay summarizing your customer analysis for your chosen company. Keep in mind, the attributes you select in your customer analysis will vary given the product that you make or the service you provide.

Be sure to include the following in your essay: Summarize your customers for your chosen company in terms of total rank order and segment. Be creative and use a table, chart, or graph, or you may describe, in an essay format, this portion of the assignment. Identify Key Customer Data, including the following, suggested information: Product/service, market segment, buying from the competition, location of their end-use customers, key quality characteristics, sales volume. You will need to conduct some research of similar companies in order to gather this information. Remember, this will be mostly estimated data at this point since you will project information from similar organizations to your company. Include some interesting charts or tables to highlight your data, so that your audience can visualize your information. Design a high-level plan to gather data from your employees (i.e., observations, discussions, focus groups, and surveys). Summarize how you will gather data. If using a survey, include in your appendix. If using discussions or focus groups, including the questions you will ask. If using observations, describe specifically what and how you will observe.

Length: 5-7 pages, not including title and reference pages  Resources: Support your paper with a minimum of 5 scholarly resources. Your response should reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards.