Nathan_5_I
This goes along with Allison's post about the development of personas as a design tool. I work at Best Buy and we use personas as a way of life. From the first moment anyone is hired for a sales associate position, we indoctrinated with the personas of our customer base. For example, the Best Buy store in Muncie is a "Middle America" store, with our key personas as Ray and Maria. These customers are specifically targeted through sales techniques. First Ray likes to be up to date on the newest technology and Maria wants to keep her family connected. It seems a little silly from an objective standpoint, but it helps Best Buy employees understand what our customers are interested in. Anyway I just wanted to point out that these personas are used outside of a design scenario.
posted by Nathan Keller @ 2:44 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
I get how that could be helpful, but why do they have to give these personas names? I just don't like that! Why can't they just refer to them as mom and dad or something that indicates what their persona represents?
This is a great example of personifying. Best Buy continues to be successful because of it. to Ashley... I think of it like a comedy show, if the actors & actresses had no names we wouldn't empathize with them.
I've never been in a retail situation exactly like Nathan's, and I'm sure it works better in practice than in theory, but it seems insulting to lump a bunch of people together in a couple groups like that. I assumed that people tend to walk into Best Buys because they want new technology, and the employees want to provide them with their products so they can make money. Personas might be useful in advertising, but as employee indoctrination, it seems to be pointless.
I think that best buy has a great idea. The names should not matter. If the employees understand it then who cares? Sales are sales. That is cool how it relates to the industry though.
I think personas such as this work great for a person-on-person customer service objective. In those situations you need to have empathy...and...oh, I think I just understood the objective of personas a little better. haha. It still seems a little off-putting though.
As a side comment, come on man, my name was spelled right there under your post.
I agree that naming the persona is a little weird but I also agree that it makes them more personal and understandable. You can relate better to a "Ray" than to a "Midwest Male."
That's really neat how that works. I have a better understanding of how it works now Thanks!
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