12A) Buyer Behavior 1

Market Segment:

I have decided to research more in the behavior of young male full-time students that are not currently employed. First, one of my roommates (he is 19 years old) with whom I share the problem of keeping it up with the cleanliness in the apartment. Second was another person that lives in my same condominium but in a different block (he is 22). For my third interview I picked a guy (21 years old) that lives with 2 more roommates in another apartment complex, and has had multiple fights with one of his roommates because he thinks that that person is always creating a disaster in the common areas.

Awareness:

After analyzing my interviews, I was able to establish patterns over when their need peaks and the cause of it. In the three scenarios the problem starts in the common areas, most likely during weekends when these students spend more time at home, and actually time to take some time extra to do some shores. Also, they told me that during weekdays it stress them when all the dishes are dirty and no one washes them, and it gets to the point where there is no clean plate. In the case of my roommate, one of the issues is a cat, from another roommate of mine. The floor in our apartment is carpet, and as you can imagine, all the hair and the food of the cat messes up the carpet and make it stink.

Information Research:

A common pattern among my interviewees was that their immediate answer to “where would you look up information about a house cleaning service?” was “Google, of course!”. They were pretty straight forward with it, since they would just google “housekeeping service in Gainesville”. They would also comment it with the rest of the roommates to see if they know something about it and if they would agree to cooperate in finding and financing such service. Last but not least, they all said that they would think of people that they know that use or have used that service before in order to ask them their opinion and experiences, instead of a suggestion for an specific company.

Findings and Conclusions:

Turns out that there are some patterns in when and where the problem of a mess at home peaks. It is during weekends and late afternoon, early at night that it tends to be the worst. Specially in things related to the common area like the dishes, the carpet, pets, and the use of the washer machine and drier. The main personal problem that they face is the lack of time to do their own shores. For my conclusions I would say that this specific market segment is aware of the problem and have the tools to look for the information. The only problem is that they are hesitant about making the final decision on whether request the service or not. To address this problem, I would focus my market campaign on the emotions that students in these situations feel.