Assignment 15A - Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 2

• Find three people who would fit that segment and arrange to interview them.
• Similar to last time, I am focusing on the segment of parents of UF students. Interviewee #1 has a child who just signed a lease off-campus for his sophomore year. Interviewee #2 has a child in graduate school in need of housing for one semester. Interviewee #3 is the parent of a child in a sorority. 
• Report the findings. 
•  Begin with alternative evaluation. In this step, your job is to figure out how they do their picking. Does price matter the most? Does quality? Does style? Is there more than one factor that is important to your customer segment? 
• In the first interview, the parent expressed that they signed an off-campus lease because that is what his child’s friends were all doing. The third interview was similar in that the parent mentioned she was not looking for housing for her child because her child wanted to live in the sorority house with her friends. Both interviews differed vastly from the second interviewee who mentioned that they were still looking for housing and did not care much for roommates. Upon further questioning, I realized that due to the higher course load in graduate school, this parent preferred her child lived alone or in a quieter setting to focus on school. All the interviewees did mention that furnished housing was a requirement. Any additional questions regarding quality, style, and pricing seemed to be irrelevant. 
• How/where do they buy? Elements of the actual transaction can help characterize your segment. Is your segment more likely to buy online or in a store? Are they more likely to use cash or will they finance the purchase? Etc. If this is a B2B purchase, who's involved in the purchase decision? 
• This purchase would be done completely online, whether that be through UF housing or a virtual lease agreement. The parties involved would be the lessee, the guarantor (typically a parent) and the lessor. 
• Post-purchase evaluation. What matters most to your customers when they think back on the 'rightness' of the purchase? What helps them determine the purchase was a good idea? What sorts of things make them think a purchase was a bad idea? 
• My customer segment evaluates the ‘rightness’ of the purchase depending on the criteria. For instance, the first interviewee has no regrets about the purchase because he would rather his child live with friends than be stuck with random roommates (who could be awful); to him, the price compromise is worth it. 
• Draw conclusions. 
• I think the market is still there, but the priorities are more diverse than I’d imagined. Some of the original market is still there such as the parent of the graduate student who only needs housing for a semester. They are still looking for an adequate solution and I believe my service would be utilized by them or people in a similar boat. However, it appears that some other people of my previous market are okay with compromising some financial aspects of the housing decision such as paying for an empty apartment over summer, if it meant that their child would have roommates they know (aka comfort over value). That being said, I think they would still utilize my service because the core need, housing, is still there. The flexible lease service would allow them all to still live with friends but choose the amount of time they would actually need the apartment for (summer vs. no summer).