Five Major Types of Customers and What They Demand

Dealing with different types of customers is common in any business regardless of its size and industry verticals. From entrepreneurs to customer service professionals deal with different customer types of clients that may have different needs.

From customer care to sales each type of customers may have different demands. To deal with diversified types of customers, business executives need to know various aspects like goals, vision, motivation, desires, challenges, buying patterns, and more. Knowing all the different traits of the business clients help agents and other business representatives to communicate more effectively with customers. It also helps in converting the defined goals of the businesses such as making a sale, generating awareness, maintaining a great customer relationship, and anything else.

Even if we think about only one and the most important aspect of business, which is maintaining a good and healthy customer relationship, knowing clients and their types can make this job easier.

This article aims to help you understand different types of customers, so you define client centric services and business approaches. Of course, different humans have different traits, but there are still some similarities, and based on that customers can be classified into 5 major categories:

1.       New customers
2.       Happy customers
3.       Angry customers
4.       Need based customers
5.       Loyal customers

In this article, we will understand different types of customers along with their common demands, needs, and desires. You will also understand how each type of customers can be motivated to take the action that you need them to take.

1. New customers

One of the crucial types of customer is a new customer and honestly, they are difficult to crack. Each new customer can have different expectations from the business. But there are some major traits of this type of customers as listed below:

•         They are confused
•         They have a lot of questions
•         They always have high expectations

All a new customer needs is constant support and guidance. They need you to explain everything, which might be obvious and self understandable as per the agents. They are looking for empathetic and supportive agents.

Handling new clients is easy, but tricky. The efforts need to be put in as with the right services and treatment, you can convert these clients into one of the best types of customers and that is loyal customers. Loyal customers will be easier to deal with and you can sell them other products or even make them brand advocates.

2. Happy customers

Happy customers are the best types of customers to deal with. They will be with you for constant and timely support. They will need support only on some occasions. There are some common traits of these customers such as:

•         Something went wrong suddenly
•         They need to understand something new that is announced
•         They have some common queries

Happy customers are often easy to deal with as they are already impressed with your service. However, if they are facing any issues, your customer service professionals need to deal with them consciously to ensure they don’t get converted into the angry client category. The right approach and reliable answer will satisfy the customers.

3. Angry customers

They are the most difficult type of customers to deal with as they are angry and infuriated. They might be shouting and they may also use foul language. They are just not ready to listen to you at any cost and sometimes these calls result in escalated calls. Some of the traits of these types of customer are:

•         They have already lost patience for any known or unknown reason
•         They don’t explain their issue clearly and just spit their anger
•         They just want to talk to the manager
•         They keep on blaming

Your customer service professionals need to be trained specifically to handle angry clients. Even if the agents have the answers, they need to handle these clients differently as they would be more interested in getting their anger out instead of getting a resolution. Thus, it is necessary to put agents that are good at listening and have the patience to deal with this kind of client.

4. Need based customers

This is the widest market of consumers. It covers the largest types of customer. As the name suggests, they are motivated by their needs. The needs of these types of customers would be different. The needs can also be shifting from time to time. There are some traits of this type of customers such as:

•         They have specific needs
•         They are driven by changing market trends or product innovation
•         They always like new things to experiment with

These customers may look for the best deals all the time to meet their needs. They may and may not connect to your customer care team to discuss their requirements. Thus, they are easier to get lured by your competitors. You need to be more conscious to retain these clients as they can be retained easily if you meet their needs. By sending them the right offers at the right time, you can win the loyalty of these types of customers. You can also use social media platforms along with sending personalized offers to the need based clients to keep them engaged with your business.

5. Loyal customers

This must be one of the favorite types of customer that brands love. They just stick to one market even if there is some sort of inconvenience. They are calm and can wait to get loyalty. Different businesses may have different numbers of loyal customers, but usually, these types of customers are fewer in number. The common traits of these clients are listed below:

•         They love to be with a single brand and find it tedious to switch from one provider to another
•         They are happy to pay a reasonable cost for the service or product they receive
•         They are open to listening when they need a resolution from the agents.

These types of customer are difficult to win against your competitors and it often takes time and effort to increase the number of loyal clients. They can make your business more profitable by giving you not only ongoing business, but they can also work as your brand advocates and help you gain more new clients. They can also help in converting happy clients into loyal clients with their testimonials, and other strategies.

Concluding notes

These are the top 5 major types of customers, but that is not it. Depending on common traits and demands that are also some more types of customer in different industries such as:

•         Impulsive customers
•         Insistent customers
•         Talkative customers
•         Concerned customers
•         Bargain hunters
•         Wandering customers
•         Discount customers

These are different types of customers that usually business deal with. Knowing what type of customers you are dealing with can make your job of training your customer service professionals. They know how to recognize each type of customers and handle them effectively. This information is also important to define different marketing, sales, and customer care strategies so businesses can drive the desires of clients in their favor.

We have been supporting businesses with our customer care and unified communication solutions that can help them identify types of customers and treat them with the right approach. To know more about our offerings, get in touch with us.