Challenge
Satisfying people’s needs with a product or service, personal relationships and customer retention are key to strive in a B2B environment. However, needs, communication styles and expectations might differ depending on the individual customer and the same sales pitch or CRM strategy can seldom be applied across all customer types. 3Shape experienced such a situation and needed to develop a global segmentation which could provide strategic insights into current and potential clients in Asia, the USA and Europe.
Approach
To ensure a segmentation study delivers strategic company value, it is important to step back from existing views and assumptions and listen to and observe customers’ lives and beliefs. This includes investigating customers from a 360° angle. For 3Shape, Epinion lead qualitative discussions with internal and external stakeholders to build a solid knowledge base as well as to inform the following quantitative online survey ensuring the segmentation is truly build on an outside-in view. An explorative statistical approach was then used to identify the segments and attribute financial value to each of them.
Resolution
3Shape was provided with distinct customer segments and hereby one common language to communicate about their customers across their truly global organisation. Ensuring actionable and easy-to-understand segments enabled the organisation to apply the segmentation knowledge to day-to-day work. The identified segments therefore helped business areas across 3Shape’s organisation – including R&D, sales and marketing - to work more customer-centric and increase the relevance of customer propositions such as product offerings, marketing material and sales efforts.
