How good are you at customer profiling?

I read today a website that called New Yorkers stressed, unfriendly but intellectually inclined while their Georgia and Florida countrymen are sociable and energetic. Whereas, I personally find New Yorkers fast paced but friendly, intelligent and very knowledgable on all that New York has to offer and above all else, passionate and in love with the city that they live in.  Georgia and Florida is similar in some ways but less fast paced because they don't live in the city that never sleeps and are more able to identify with open space and nature. One thing I have identified with the Americans that I have met is that they tend  to be 'into' so many things that mostly, I have never heard of. They are so up-to-date with the latest and greatest, that I wonder how they find time to do anything else.

Like for instance, I was driving in a car with a friend in Denver and they asked me if I use Pandora. My immediate reaction was that "no, I am not into Pandora" as I thought he was talking about the jewellery brand that is very popular in Australia and overseas.

We were having totally different conversations. Something that I have become quite use to through my international travels with the Australian accent being very hard for most people to understand and the fact we call "garbage" - "rubbish", "bangs" - "fringe" and so on, adding to language barrier issues.

Pandora, is an iphone application that brings radio to a new era. It provides personalised, mobile and free music that is tailored to your individual taste in music. For instance, if I like Black Eyed Peas, chances are that I would like songs from Kings of Leon. Through algarithms, the application tailors a music selection based on the songs you like and makes selection without you even having to 'find songs' like many other similar types of applications force you to do.

This got me thinking. How well do we know our customers and how well do we profile them to ensure that we "talk their language" and "give them what they want and need" in business? If a Marketing Eye client is open to proximity marketing then chances are that they would be open to other mobile marketing techniques, iphone applications and so on. Through algarithms, I am sure we could model our clients according to not just what products or services we want to sell, but what they are as individuals open to.

How often do marketing companies use psychological profiling on their clients to know them better and explore their personality traits to accomodate a better service offering? Think about your business and your customers and see what tools you can use to improve your customer profiling to better service their needs and make the sales process more succinct.