We are one big melting pot. No one individual is the same, so identifying generalised characteristics is not only a challenge, but it can only go so far in defining a person.
What characteristics define a person? Sadly, demographics are still overused by businesses in their marketing and branding strategies. According to these companies, your age bracket and gender betray your decision making, your preferences and your behaviours as a consumer.
At Symanto, we know that people are a lot more complex than that. We believe that the two biggest indicators of how a person truly behaves and reacts are revealed by what they say – by the content of their speech and their writing.
What we say and how we say it reveals a lot about who we are. That’s why text analysis software, such as Symanto APIs and the Symanto Insights Platform a great way to identify personality traits and preferred communication styles.
Why identify communication styles and personality traits?
There are two main ways in which identifying communication styles and personality traits useful for business.
- Understanding consumers: Find out what affects consumer behaviour, and refine your marketing messaging and business strategies so that they resonate with your audience.
- Understanding employees: Improve internal communication. Use the right language and the right approach to motivate employees with different personality traits and preferred communication styles.
How to identify communication styles
We have found that the way people communicate is also the way they prefer to be spoken to. In other words, their communication style is also the style of messaging they respond to best. When we talk about communication style preferences, we are therefore also describing their own communication style.
Symanto identifies four key communication styles.
1. Action-seeking
People who are action-seeking aim to trigger others into action. An example of an action-seeking communicator is someone who freely gives recommendations and advice. Action-seekers also make direct requests for action.
You can expect their communication to be more direct and one-sided.
Examples:
“Get stronger hair or your money back.”
“Arrive early to avoid disappointment.”
How to engage with action-seeking communicators
- Get to the point and stay on topic.
- Communicate confidently.
- Don’t take decisiveness or bluntness personally.
- Thank them for their recommendation.
- Stay clear of small talk.
2. Information-seeking
Information-seeking communicators engage through questions. They are still proactive in their communication although they may not be as direct as action-seekers. They wish to engage in a two-way dialogue to resolve issues. They may also be more conversational.
Examples:
“Are you tired of your hair always breaking?”
“Why is it always so hard to get a table here?”
How to engage with information-seeking communicators
- Show that you have actively listened to their questions and concerns by summarizing what they’ve said.
- Expect them to ask for details.
- Read between the lines of what they are saying, they may not be as upfront about their sentiments.
- Practice active listening, and confirm that you’ve heard them by summarizing what they’ve just said to you.
- Be open to back-and-forth communication, things may not get resolved as quickly.
3. Fact-oriented
Fact-oriented communicators talk in objective terms. They use facts to describe their experiences and don’t tend to divulge much else.
Examples:
“It’s made from high-quality material and lasts a long time.”
“Ten times more effective than our last product.”
How to engage with fact-oriented communicators
- Have your statistics and answers prepared.
- Don’t get sidetracked with small talk – fact orientated communicators may read this as a hazing tactic.
- Don’t take decisiveness or bluntness personally.
4. Self-revealing
Self-revealing consumers open up to discuss their personal opinions and experiences. They enjoy storytelling.
Examples:
“The fabric feels beautiful and I wear it everywhere.”
“You’ll notice the improvement immediately.”
How to engage with self-revealing communicators
- Be open to small talk and building a relationship.
- Ask about their experiences.
- Treat them holistically – they’re not just your customer/ employee.
How to Identify Personality Traits
Symanto’s Personality Traits API applies Carl Jung’s personality theory to discern whether the author of a written text is more rationally or emotionally driven.
Rational
People with the rational personality trait are generally less neurotic and more conscientious. They make decisions based on logic, facts and objective information.
Rational consumers are likely to be less impulsive. They need thorough information and product descriptions. They will research before making a purchase, and it may take them several visits to your website before they decide to buy.
Rational employees generally don’t like to take risks. They are confident adopters of data-driven business strategies.
Emotional
People with the emotional personality trait, meanwhile, tend to be more agreeable and open. They base their decisions on their social values and relationships.
Consumers that are emotionally engaged with your brand are loyal and are more likely to recommend your brand to others.
Quickly Identify Communication Styles and Personality Traits with the Symanto Insights Platform
It is notoriously time-consuming to analyse unstructured, qualitative data to identify communication styles and personality traits. Thankfully, the Symanto Insights Platform is designed to automate much of the process.
The Symanto Insights Platform can crawl review sites and social media pages to analyse written text and automatically assign communication styles and personality traits to each entry.
It is connected to over 75 online portals to retrieve vast amounts of big data in a matter of minutes. You can also feed in your own textual data for analysis in the form of a spreadsheet or CSV file from, for example, your CRM database or customer service transcripts.
To discover more about the many potential applications of the Symanto Insights Platform for your business, get in touch or book your free personalised demonstration today.
