Behavioral Personas for Better Service CRA
Methods & Outcomes
- Internal data review
- Qualitative interviews
- Quantitative behavioural surveys
- Persona development
- Usage scenarios and communication templates
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How well do you really know your users?
Highlights
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) interacts with nearly every adult in Canada, but had limited visibility into the real behaviours, motivations, and needs of its users. While various branches had created personas, they were inconsistent and lacked validation. CRA turned to DFFRNT to develop a comprehensive, cross-organizational set of behavioural personas.
DFFRNT conducted qualitative and quantitative research, reviewed existing internal data, and synthesized insights into persona artifacts and scenarios that could guide service delivery and communications. These validated personas now serve as strategic tools across departments, aligning teams around a shared understanding of the people they serve.
The Client
The CRA is one of the federal government’s largest organizations, responsible for tax collection and benefit delivery. The agency needed a rigorous, behaviour-based understanding of its diverse user base to inform better decision-making and public engagement.
The Challenge
Within CRA’s many branches, various personas existed—but lacked consistency, research backing, and applicability beyond siloed contexts. CRA needed a complete, validated set of personas and use scenarios that reflected actual behaviours, not assumptions or averages.
The goal was to support consistent, user-informed service design and communication across the agency. That meant understanding not just who Canadians are, but why and how they engage with CRA services.
"Being from outside the organization, we can take a step back and dispassionately look at the real factors that separate one type of user from another."
The Solution
DFFRNT used a multi-phase process to develop the personas:
- Scoping: Narrowing focus from all users to targeted service audiences
- Discovery: Reviewing internal research and data
- Immersion: Interviewing departments across CRA to uncover user knowledge
- Primary Research: Conducting qualitative interviews to understand motivations, needs, and behaviours
- Quantitative Analysis: Using large-sample surveys to confirm patterns and behavioural clusters
- Design: Producing engaging, usable persona artifacts and scenarios
- Adoption Planning: Equipping CRA teams with processes and templates for ongoing use
This structured methodology enabled CRA to shift from disconnected internal assumptions to a shared, science-backed view of real users.
The Outcome
CRA now has a validated set of behavioural personas that represent diverse Canadians, across goals, mindsets, motivations, and challenges. These tools help internal teams:
- Improve service design
- Adjust communication strategies
- Tailor compliance messaging
- Align policy development with user realities
By integrating behavioural insight into everyday decisions, CRA is better positioned to serve the public with empathy, relevance, and clarity.
Key Takeaways
- Personas are most powerful when grounded in behavioural research, not demographics alone
- A shared view of users improves consistency across departments
- Research-based personas support both strategic policy and day-to-day service delivery
- Understanding user motivation is critical for compliance-related messaging
- Adoption tools help teams activate personas in real work
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