Customer Group

The customer development process can be said to be the systematic approach to get to know your customers intimately -- their needs, priorities, budgets, decisions, and motivations. The customer development process of Nigerian Bottling company PLC involves eight stages, the suspect stage,the prospect stage,first time customers,repeat customers,clients,members,advocates and partners.
The suspect stage is the period when the company think of a market segment who are likely to buy their products(cola cola,fanta,sprit,black currant,eva water etc),for Nigeria Bottling Company the suspects are every body,because everybody will need to take a chilled drink at one time.From the group of customer in the suspect stage the selling organisation determines the people who are more likely to partronise them,this set of people are called the prospect, for Nigerian Bottling company everybody are still still the prospects because of the variety of their products.Then Nigerian Bottling company tries to convince the prospect to atleast buy their products,this process is called First-time customers.By employing good marketing strategy the first time customer are convinced to come back to purchase NBC’s products ,this act is called Repeat customer. The client stage is the stage where the repated customer are given special attention,good customer care,they are offered advise by the company. The client might become a Member by joinging NBC’s membership programme ,in which they get a lot of benefits. The advocates are the customer who tries to convince their peers or group about the products produced by NBC.The last stage of the customer development process is the partner stage ,i. e the stage when customer becomes supplier or invest in the company.


Customer Segmentation
The purpose for segmenting a market is to allow your marketing/sales program to focus on the subset of prospects that are "most likely" to purchase your offering. If done properly this will help to insure the highest return for your marketing/sales expenditure.
I will however discuss business to business segmentation and business to consumer segmentation.

BUSINESS TO BUSINESS SEGMENTATION
This is way in which a company or a selling organisation target divide a total market into market groups consisting of people who have relatively similar product needs.

Nigerian Bottling company deals with Hi-tech Ineternational company,this company helps Nigerian Bootling company to manage their IT department.

Leventis Nigeria is another company that trade with Nigerian Bootling company,Leventis group is the company that manages the selling trucks of Nigerian Bootling Company.

Nigerian Bootling company also had deal with most companies in Nigeria,they provides their products to the cafetaria of this companies,who in turn pay them a sum of money and at the same time it serves as a marketing/ adevertising medium for Nigerian Bootling comapny.

BUSINESS TO CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION
Nigerian Bottling Company uses following factors;
Demographic,Geographic,Psychographic and Behavioralistic.
Due to the diversify nature of Nigerian Bottling company's products they have adopted all the four factors listed above,and they have been able to control the market in Nigeria.

In the case of Nigeria Bottling Company,their products has been designed in a way that it is targeted towards everybody in Nigereia,there products include classic coca-cola,vanilla coca-cola,diet coke,Fanta,spirit,Eva water,5 alive etc.So their products cut across everybody need regardless of your geographical area,occupation,religious,etc.
At worst if someone doesnt like the products,he or she must drink water(Eva Water).



SEGMENTATION BY PURCHASE BEHAVIOUR

RECENCY:Nigeria Bootling company believes that customers who purchased recently were more likely to buy again when compared to customers who had not purchased in a while.So they try to follow-up or contacts customer who buy their products recently.

FREQUENCY:Nigeria Bootling company also lay much priorities to customers who purchased frequently,because customers who purchased frequently are more likely to buy again,as against customers who had made just one or two purchases.

MONETARY VALUE:In Nigeria Bottling company they believe that customers who had spent the most money in total were more likely to buy again.The most valuable customers tended to continue to become even more valuable.So much attention are also given to companies or individuals who do such things.

As i have stated earlier, the target market for Nigeria Bottling Company is everybody.So most corporate bodies,companies and individual falls into the category listed above,because of the nature of Nigeria Bottling company products.