Working with customers in the sciences and technologies is fun and exciting work! These professionals are often tasked to create innovative solutions for the world’s most challenging problems. When helping others in the STEM fields, it’s important to have a good understanding of each persona you are serving. In business, a persona is a character or group that is to represent a user type that might use a site, brand, or product in a similar way. Companies will develop personas to help with brand, product and services development. Here are my tips and tricks I've learning from the last ten years of helping these customers:
🔬 Understanding Scientists:
Scientists are often tasked to generate new scientific ideas within rigorous scientific structures and processes. When working with scientists, it’s helpful to take time to understand their workflows, and to provide clear and concise answers to their questions. When working on technical issues, engage early on to fully understand problems and issues. By empathy early in your interactions, you can learn their workflows, better anticipate their needs and provide based solutions reliable resources.
👩⚕️ Supporting Healthcare Professionals:
Healthcare professionals are highly focused on patient care and outcomes. They will often need fast and reliable assistance with their problem so they can get back to treating patients. When working with healthcare professionals, its helpful to demonstrate empathy and compassion in every interaction because there is often a patient behind the questions they are asking. Be kind, responsive, proactive, and respectful of their time constraints.
🔧 Engaging Engineers:
Engineers are often tasked with the challenging task to build and maintain the systems that support scientific development. They are highly skilled in technology systems and are often analytical thinkers who thrive on logical solutions. When working with Engineers, its important to spend time up front to understand their goals and fully understand technical depth of their request. Ask to follow up questions, provide demonstrations through a call or recordings, and collaborate closely with them. You may need to spend some learning technical terms, programming languages and other technical processes to best support Engineers working with your product.
🧪 Assisting QA Professionals:
QA professionals are dedicated to ensuring product quality and adherence to standards. They have excellent attention to detail and a keen eye for process. They are responsible for creating deviations, CAPAs, reviewing SOPs and presenting to auditors. Provide them with clear and detailed answers when they ask questions or raise concerns. Listen to understand why they may have a concern - this could come from an audit finding they are investigating. Provide them with correct responses and be proactive in addressing any quality-related concerns.
By tailoring your approach to serving diverse customer personas, including scientists, healthcare providers, engineers, and beyond, you can create a customer service experience that is both memorable and one that creates value for the product and service you represent. What customers personas have you worked with? Do you have tips or tricks you have employed to understand your customer base?
This article is was first published on my LinkedIn on April 25th, 2024.
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