Small Business Typology

The Challenge

Small businesses (SMB) made up the majority of Pitney Bowes’s customers, yet they were for the most part treated as a single segment of customers by the company. At the time of this work, were around 28 million SMBs in the Unites States, of which 800,000 were Pitney Bowes clients. This number was shrinking even while the overall number of SMBs was growing, indicating a need to engage with clients beyond the current base.

The project

I revisited several years worth of observational and contextual research with small businesses to develop a deep understanding of who they are, what they prioritized, and how they were changing. This led to a typology based on life stages rather than firmographics. As part of this typology, I also analyzed the current customer base, which feel primarily in the the life stages that represented established businesses. These businesses were familiar with Pitney Bowes, the leasing model, and were comfortable maintaining their existing long term vendor relationships and experience. By contrast, SMBs in growth oriented life stages were not well represented in the client base, and more than that, were primarily interested in interacting with vendors in a different way. These businesses expected flexible, low commitment solutions that grew or shrank as their needs changed. They learned about products in a different way, had different expectations of contracts and pricing, and looked for both ease of onboarding and an integrated experience around solutions. The key implications were that the company would need to develop new strategies and invest in new client experiences in order to penetrate these new markets.

Outcomes

Based on my development of these typologies, I was asked to be part of the team developing a large scale customer segmentation for the company.