For years, retailers have been told how valuable personalization can be for their business. In fact, brands have been making the investment: 57% of leaders listed “customer-centricity” and 47% listed “personalization” among their top-three strategic goals over the next 12 to 24 months, according to the Master The Customer Experience report from Capgemini and Retail TouchPoints.
At the same time, however, these retailers are relatively unsure of whether their initiatives are working. According to the McKinsey report, Perspectives on Personalization @ Scale, 95% of marketing professionals recognize the potential of personalization, yet only 20% say organizations are doing a good job delivering it.
This gap comes down to a short-sighted approach and a lack of a strategic roadmap. Personalization needs to be adopted at every business level, and the entire organization needs to focus first and foremost on the customer and their entire end-to-end journey.
Advertisement
We’ve taken this topic and broken it down into three pillars to help retailers not only appreciate the scope and scale of a successful personalization program, but also guide their investment.
Organizational Strategy
Across industries, most organizations share the same three goals: acquire new customers, accelerate the buying journey and nurture long-term customer relationships.
Smart organizations understand that customer service and post-purchase engagement are critical to building strong relationships and driving incremental business. This cross-functional effort includes marketing, sales, operations, customer service and other business functions, resulting in customer interaction points within every department.
This is important because personalization doesn’t just end with a purchase. The goal of a personalized experience is to build customer loyalty, not just earn a conversion. Every interaction before, during and after the conversion needs to leverage customer data to make the experience unique, engaging and tailored to the customer through the journey.
Technology
Many believe that personalization is about technology and finding the tools to “unlock” insights, but a technology-first approach will not succeed unless companies focus on customer experience.
It is true, however, that personalization is impossible without the right technology to process data and understand customer needs. Personalization technology needs to address:
- Data collection and storage — capture touch point data to create individualized profiles;
- System integration — connect and synchronize data sources to eliminate silos and ensure customer data is informing every experience-related decision; and
- Measurement and analysis — observe customer responses to experience changes and allow this data to guide future optimizations and decisions.
Creating a 360-degree view of the customer calls for a unified customer data platform or system to connect channels and create individual profiles. This centralized data structure then will fuel personalization initiatives centered on the individual customer. New channels, such as voice, for instance, will also need to be tracked to add nuance and context to these rich customer data sets.
Technology strategy doesn’t necessarily require massive capital expenditures. Organizations do not necessarily need to invest in new technology if they already have systems that can get the job done. First, look at existing systems and customer data to find real value in what you already have.
Experience
Experience ultimately moves the needle. Remember: personalization delivers what the person needs at the moment they need it. Think of it as your answer when they say, “I want to…”
Content should clearly and directly tell a story and address customer needs in an engaging, intuitive and valuable way. The experience should change depending on where the customer is in the buying journey. Early-cycle browsing users prefer informative, guiding content such as fit guides or how-tos. When that individual has engaged with this information, more direct and product- or service-based content could be presented. As they hopefully continue to engage, portals such as My Account can continue to add color and dynamism to the experience.
The transformative potential of individualized experiences is incredibly exciting. There are many steps and capabilities required to get to a 360-degree view.
One Step At A Time
Successfully developing personalization capabilities and scaling a program is an iterative process. Always-on, real-time, one-to-one personalization isn’t just a button you can hit — it is a result of strategy, content, technology and vision applied over time.
Getting started isn’t as difficult as it seems. By acknowledging the three pillars of personalization and taking an iterative approach, retailers can identify where their personalization program currently sits and where it needs to go to support the entire end-to-end customer journey.
Mike Davidson is Executive Creative Director at Capgemini’s Commerce Design Practice. He works with global brands to execute commerce strategies and works with to advance their organizational maturity across customer research, design-thinking, content and personalization.
Erin McElwee is a Senior Digital Consultant at Capgemini’s DCX NA Practice. McElwee has worked in digital data consulting for the past eight years with a focus on data, testing and personalization. She works hand in hand with brands to develop their personalization programs, build cross channel personalization strategies and manage their data roadmaps.
