Figuring Out Buyer Behavior

I have been stewing with this opportunity that I have identified for a couple weeks now and I have learned so much and my opinions and views have changed since the inception of the idea. However, the most important thing I must identify revolves around my potential customers. I must know exactly who I am targeting, why their needs fit into the service that I am offering, and what is the best way to solve their needs. For this exercise, I decided to choose the particular customer segment of students that go to the University of Florida, take out student loans, and are in their first or second year of school. This is a segment that I believe will fall into my target market more than any others so I was really curious to speak with some people who met these qualifications, and really dive into their unmet needs when it comes to student loans. I was able to easily find three people on campus that were willing to sit down with me and talk about their potential unmet needs. For this particular exercise I needed to focus on need awareness and when exactly the target customers understand and recognize their need. What I found out that was uniform across the three people that I interviewed was that their need was at its peak during the beginning of semesters. This is when the expenses of school are really at their forefront and must be addressed. At the beginning of semesters students are stressed about their financial aid and there are often times some issues that come from the financial aid department. So given this information, my next questions were regarding how each person addressed this particular need. Again, the consensus was that they contact in person, online, or over the phone the financial aid department at the school. Each person expressed that this is not what they prefer to do however, as there can be some difficulties at times with trying to gain the correct information regarding their financial status, but they feel it is their only option, as there is not much pertinent information available online for them. After my conversations with these three individuals, it became evident that the need is there and is there for more than just these three as well. These are important matters that are being dealt with that these students feel is not being handled correctly, and there is nowhere to go for help.