Entries are in alphabetical order.
In brief
The words for understanding who buys and why, from research methods to the tools for reading behavior.
- Buyer persona
- A representative profile of a group of customers, with goals, habits, frustrations and decision criteria, built on real data.
- Buying committee
- The set of people who take part in a purchasing decision within a company, each with their own role and criteria.
- Customer journey
- A customer’s path from the first need to purchase and beyond: stages, touchpoints, emotions, critical moments. Read more →
- Empathy map
- A framework for putting yourself in the customer’s shoes: what they say, think, do, feel, see and hear, what frustrates them and what they want. Read more →
- Focus group
- A moderated discussion with a small group of people about a topic or a stimulus, to bring out opinions and tensions.
- Insight
- A non-obvious understanding of customer behavior that explains why they do what they do and suggests what to do about it.
- Jobs to be done
- The jobs — functional, social, emotional — the customer is trying to get done when choosing a product. Read more →
- Moment of truth
- A point in the journey where the customer forms a decisive opinion about the brand: the first trial, the first contact with customer service.
- NPS
- Net Promoter Score: an index of how likely customers are to recommend a brand, calculated as the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors.
- Pain point
- A problem, an annoyance or a fear the customer runs into before, during or after the purchase.
- Primary research
- Data collected directly from people — interviews, surveys, tests — for a specific question.
- Secondary (desk) research
- Analysis of existing sources: reports, articles, public data, online conversations. Read more →
- Segment
- A group of customers with similar needs and behaviors.
- Touchpoint
- Any point of contact between customer and brand: website, store, social media, reviews, customer service.
- Synthetic user
- A person simulated by an AI model, built on a market’s data, to be interviewed in order to prepare and test an idea. Read more →
Written by the MAPS editorial team with the help of AI, checked and reviewed by the team.
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