Scenarios are where the value of persona work really becomes apparent. Using allegorical narratives and graphical vignettes (see example at left), scenarios describe and depict your customers engaged in workflow tasks. The scenario gives the step by step details of how your customers get things done, in what order, using which resources, engaging which other personas, under what kinds of workplace or industry pressures, resolving which problems, and overcoming or being blocked by which challenges. The persona scenarios bring your customers’ experiences to life.

There are two types of scenarios: (1) Personas’ typical, current scenarios show workflows that come to life out of qualitative ethnographic research. (2) Personas’ ideal scenarios are new workflows that your product development, marketing, and sales teams create based on current workflows, personas’ goals, and your company’s capabilities. These ideal scenarios are certainly the reason why personas are so useful in product design and innovation, and are extraordinarily powerful in marketing and sales environments. Ideal buying scenarios depict your customers in comfortable, “no hassle,” easy, informative, even fun buying experiences in which their goals are quickly and completely met.

Buying Process Scenarios

Buying Process Scenarios tell the story of your typical customer going through a buying decision. The scenario is based in research with real customers and may be radically different from the linear progression many marketing and sales departments expect from the traditional “sales funnel.”

Buying Process Scenarios capture buying decision processes from the buyers’ perspective and depict the steps buyers take to retain control of the buying process, to involve all stakeholders, to conduct due diligence research, to evaluate all your competitors, and to ultimately refine their options, revisit their goals, and make a final decision. Using the different buyer persona types within a buyer ecosystem, those personas’ goals, and their organization’s goals, buying process scenarios clearly explain what buyers need and want as they make decisions.

Scenarios also reveal:

• Mental Models: An analysis and depiction of customer perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs that affect decision making. (Example: A customer operating under a Peer Collegiality Mental Model believes that to get “the real story” about a product, he must ask a peer who has purchased that product about her experience. That qualitative peer recommendation heavily affects his final purchase decision, even when weighed against significant quantitative data from your company.)
  

• Persona Insights: A fresh and not-so-obvious understanding of customers that becomes the basis for targeted action leading to competitive advantages. (Insight example: Peers offer your potential buyers an instant snapshot of the entire customer experience of your company, and will highlight weaknesses such as poor installation support.)
  

• Targeted Actions: A specific action your company can take to address customers’ and partners’ articulated and unarticulated concerns. These actions are the “golden nuggets” that persona research and persona modeling can supply. (Action example: Strengthen customer service and support during installation to improve peer reviews.)