Choosing account criteria from existing customer evidence

Choose account criteria by looking for observable traits that relate to successful use of your current offer. Compare customers served well with difficult cases, ask why a pattern matters, then write a rule a researcher can check.

A trait shared by a few customers is a hypothesis, not proof of a market boundary.

Define the outcome before looking for patterns

Agree on what shows that the offer worked for the customer and was feasible to deliver. Depending on the offer, evidence might include continued use, implementation effort, a solved workflow problem or the customer’s account of its value. Keep revenue visible, but do not use it alone as a measure of fit.

Include contrasting cases. A customer may have bought despite an expensive workaround; another may have declined because of a requirement the business still cannot meet. Ask delivery and customer-facing colleagues what differed, and distinguish recorded facts from recollection.

Successful vs. Difficult Customer Cases: Key Differences

Turn a pattern into a criterion

For each proposed trait, make a brief evidence note:

Suppose a hypothetical service connects stock records to a planning system. Several successful customers use the same planning platform. That does not show the platform is required.

Ask whether delivery technically depends on it or whether those customers arrived through one referral channel. The answer determines whether it is an eligibility rule or a research note.

Turning a Pattern into a Checkable Account Criterion

Watch for weak proxies

Use an employee-count or revenue band only if scale changes the problem or the ability to deliver. Do not invent a threshold because a prospect database offers the filter. An industry label can conceal differences in workflow; describe the operational condition first, then decide whether industry helps identify it.

A small or narrow customer base cannot settle the wider market boundary. Record the cases behind a proposed rule and mark uncertain rules as provisional. A blank CRM field is missing information, not evidence that an account lacks the trait.

Check whether the rule is usable

Give each criterion a plain definition and specify acceptable evidence. Ask colleagues to apply it to candidate accounts. Disagreements may reveal unclear wording or information that needs a further check.

Revisit a rule when it repeatedly excludes accounts the business could serve, admits accounts with the same avoidable mismatch or becomes outdated after the offer changes. Keep the reason for each revision.

Usability Check for Account Criteria