Customer Segmentation Through Qualitative Analysis

Qualitative customer analysis is an easily accomplishable type of customer segmentation. The allocation of customers to segments is not based on figures, but rather on soft factors such as demographic, geographic, psychographic and behavioral factors (Cooil et al. 2008). Despite its simplicity, this type of segmentation provides practical and rapid information about customer composition. 

As a further example of this type of segmentation, the technology adoption life cycle is presented. This concept is defined as the degree to which an individual or other unit of adoption is relatively earlier in adopting new ideas than the other members of a system (Rogers 1995). Accordingly, live categories of adopters are common  

These categories can also be utilized for the purpose of segmentation. In this way, in a simple and quick manner, different groups of customers can be 

Portfolio models are a very common tool in customer segmentation. The applied parameters for this type of segmentation can be purely qualitative, but also mixed combinations or purely quantitative dimensions are possible (see customer value matrix in Marcus 1998). 

The so-called customer portfolio models or matrices (CPM) are targeted at 

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