Make Every Customer Experience Unique and Drive Long-term Brand Growth  

By Raviteja Dodda

Of late, brands have had to take up a new gauntlet: Personalization of customer experiences to a growing population spanning geographies, marketplaces, time zones, products, services, demographics, and needs.

Offering fitness classes to a few customers that cater to their unique health goals or recommending OTT movies to viewers based on languages or their family circumstances is just one level of personalization.

The rise of the digital economy and the merging of physical shopping experiences with online ones has made the need for personalization implementation not only more niche but also large-scale.

For instance, in the above-cited examples, designing unique fitness classes suited to different customers of the same age group located in the same geography, but displaying different fitness levels or showing different exercise preferences (yoga, pilates, zumba) is personalization at a greater scale. Or offering movie recommendations for families from similar income brackets but across different languages and genres is absolutely necessary. This type of personalization is deep-rooted and widespread; in other words, it’s personalization at scale in action.

So, brands have to think big and think exclusively. Scaling of personalization involves addressing customers beyond username-based messages and keeping them engaged in different ways. From the brand point of view, this means targeting the right customer with the right message. For customers, it means not getting overwhelmed by the staggering number of options available, both online and offline. Personalization at scale is analyzing large amounts of data coming from consumer behavior to tailor and deliver unique experiences to each customer.

Every customer is unique

India’s consumer population, pegged at a staggering 473 million and growing rapidly, spans both the physical and digital worlds today. Let’s consider the daily lives of millions of customers who may each be using hundreds of 100 branded products and services in a day. The sheer permutation and combination of customers and their preferred brands are mindboggling. Mired in this web of data, brands have to figure out they should interact with them, when, and where. The task at hand is staggeringly large, indeed.

Let’s take, for example, how an FMCG brand that primarily sells shampoos can target a 22-year-old college-going young woman. The data points that matter to the brand will look something like the following: What is her hair type (dry hair, frizzy hair, or oily hair)? Is she looking for a complete hair care pack that includes oil, shampoo, conditioner, and a serum? Does she prefer herbal shampoos or non-herbal ones? Does she need an anti-dandruff ingredient in her shampoo? In addition to shampoo type, brands also have to elicit data about the volume of shampoo she wishes to buy (large, medium, or small) and so on. The key to relevant customer experiences is leveraging these insights.

No matter what combination of purchase behavior customers exhibit, brands can use intelligent platforms to gather an arsenal of insights like product preferences, buying behavior (physical or digital), order values, and more, to manufacture unique and personalized experiences.

Customers Demand Consistent Experiences

Going back to the crux of the conversation, the only way a consumer brand can tailor customer experiences for all potential and existing customers is by knowing where each of their hearts truly lies. Customers do expect a personal and consistent experience. This is where technology can be a key differentiator. Whether in-store or online, brands need to look at leveraging the right data at the right time and have a personalization strategy at scale. In today’s scenario, sending an email to customers personalized by name or offering discounts based on past purchases is still relevant but is quickly becoming passé. Instead, brands have to create experiences that are tailored for billions of customers and, at the same time, are also in line with their individual requirements. That’s why it’s important to move a notch higher to reach personalization at scale.

Real-time data analysis supported by intelligent platforms like Customer Engagement Platforms or CEPs offers brands the ability to capitalize on relevant insights and engage with their customers at their preferred times and channels, i.e., websites, mobile apps, and in-store. This leads to personalized experiences that are unique and consistent for each customer without any hassle!

Building Formidable Brand-Customer Connections

When brands personalize at scale, it shows that they care about their customers and value their individuality. This can build trust and rapport, and make your customers more appreciated and respected. Secondly, it can help you meet or exceed your customers’ expectations and deliver more value. In addition to that, when personalization is active behind the scenes, the amount of the customers feeling valued shoots up exponentially, simply because each of their individual experiences is given the utmost importance. A direct result of this is reduced churn, more referrals, and increased repeat purchases.

In the long term, personalization across the board enhances customer loyalty, advocacy, and word-of-mouth. The end goal is to deliver uniformly excellent customer experiences across all touchpoints, be it online or offline. Personalizing customer experiences at scale enhances the value proposition for prospective customers and automatically drives higher customer satisfaction leading to higher conversion rates.

(The author is Raviteja Dodda, CEO & Co-Founder, MoEngage  , and the views expressed in this article are his own)