The Lapsed User
Entry posted by GregF
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Recently, there was a very interesting discussion on BZP about people who no longer buy sets (what we in the biz call "lapsed users") and how much influence they can or can't have on product.
There are, based on what I have seen, three main types of lapsed user. We will call them Joe, Bill, and Tom. All three have stopped buying BIONICLE sets, and all are in their teens, for the purposes of this example:
Joe still thinks BIONICLE is interesting, but stopped buying sets in 2004 because he dislikes clone sets and the organic Inika masks, something he has made very clear in his posts.
Bill still likes BIONICLE too, but stopped buying sets because he likes gear functions in the figures, brown stone figures, and clone sets.
Tom is still interested in story, but his life has changed -- he has to save for college, he just got a car, and he has more demands on his money and his time than he had a few years ago when he was buying sets regularly.
Now, of those three, who does BIONICLE have the best chance of getting back as a customer? Not Tom -- his priorities have changed, his needs and wants have changed, and he has had to make a choice between what his life demands now and buying sets. It's highly unlikely that we are going to be able to reactivate him as a customer.
Bill is more likely, but much more problematic. We could get Bill back if we changed sets to suit his tastes. The problem is, his tastes run counter to everything our sales and market research tell us. Everything we know says that if we do a brown clone set with gears, it won't sell. Given that, we aren't going to do one, so it's likely Bill will not come back.
Joe, on the other hand, is a different story. Like Bill, he would be willing to buy BIONICLE again if it suited his tastes. But the things he dislikes -- clone sets and organic masks -- are the same things the majority of the audience dislikes, based on sales and market research. Changing those things and so making the sets more to his liking is easier, because they are changes we need to make anyway for the market as a whole. There's no guarantee we will get him back, because he has found other things to spend his money on ... and the difficulty makes it less likely we will set out with a goal of reactivating him ... but there is at least a chance if he is still paying attention to the sets that he might buy again.
So, you see, it's not just about "you buy or don't buy sets" -- it really comes down to WHY you're not buying, and what the chances are we will get you back. There are some Joes and Bills on BZP, and a lot of Toms, and Joe and Bill are the ones as a business you are more likely to talk about when you discuss reactivating lapsed users. Tom may well still have strong opinions on sets, but as a customer, he is most likely gone for the foreseeable future regardless of what we do.
Greg
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