Cracking the personalization code: Always-on customer engagement strategies

Personalization at retail has been shown to be a powerful tool for developing customer loyalty, as 62% percent of business leaders cite improved customer retention as a benefit of personalization efforts. 

When done well, personalization makes consumers feel like they’re more than anonymous buyers. It helps us believe that the brands we love know and understand us. The coffee shop app that remembers your favorite order. The streaming service that suggests the perfect show based on what you’ve watched before. The restaurant that emails you a coupon for a free birthday dessert.

In fact, according to the same report referenced above, nearly half of retail customers say they’ll likely become repeat customers after a personalized shopping experience. Exactly how that personalization looks and which tactics are most effective have changed over time. However, the goal for businesses is still the same: getting your audience to engage with you (and by extension, spend with you). 

Setting your strategy

A strong customer engagement strategy begins with the data you've gathered based on their interactions with your brand. This may include events before, during and after their purchases on all the channels and platforms where they find you. Some examples include:

• Demographic details (name, address, marital status, date of birth)
• Purchase history and preferences (categories, specific items, frequency, etc.)

Successful companies can organize that data, establish business goals and develop a plan to achieve them. Common customer engagement goals include:

• Retention and loyalty
• Driving frequency and incremental spending
• Cross-sell and upsell to additional/different products

The right strategy also needs to meet and anticipate customer needs. Think about online retailers that offer “related products'' suggestions. For example, when a customer is considering a new LED TV and the retailer suggests the perfect wall mount and sound bar to go with it — exactly when the customer is ready to buy. 

Personalization strategies should also be measurable and responsive. Let’s go back to that free birthday dessert example. Are you sending the free dessert offer to all customers on their birthdays — or are you testing that against a group that will not receive the offer? By doing the latter you can not only track coupon redemptions, you can also measure the impact on overall customer spending. Examine what you could learn from the personalization approach. In this example, you might consider questions such as:

• Do coupon recipients visit the restaurant more often than they did in the past?
• Do they visit more often than those who did not receive the coupon?
• Do coupon recipients spend more per visit?     

Businesses should have a hypothesis about a given strategy such as, “people who receive the coupon will visit more frequently.” The key is being able to pivot if/when the results show something other than what you expected. In this case, suppose the coupon results in fewer trips or smaller purchases? You might conclude that the offer wasn’t rich enough to change behavior. Or perhaps there were errors with your customer data.

No matter what your results tell you, prepare to act on them, whether that means extending the strategy to more customers, testing a different offer or taking a deeper look at the customer data that’s available. It’s all about learning from the marketplace and finding optimal ways to connect with customers and prospects to create positive experiences that can build loyalty and revenue.

Making it about “me” 

Gone are the days when simply including someone’s name in an email subject line was a sufficient form of personalization. When marketing personalization seems automated and templated — or is filled with errors (such as spelling a name wrong) — customers can become disenchanted. Consider this: 85% of online shoppers will provide their email address to receive discounts. But if the communications that contain those discounts don’t seem relevant, personalization can work against you. 

The key is how you collect and manage all that data. Today, more retailers are using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to capture data and predict consumer behavior. Social media channels also provide valuable opportunities to gather data through customer surveys, feedback and social listening. What’s more, shopping apps and loyalty/reward programs are a great way to gather data and shopping behavior from both online and in-store transactions. 

Powering personalization with technology

Gathering accurate data and insights about your customers is essential. But it’s important to recognize that the best personalization strategies rely on more than just data and ideas. They depend on technology that can power it all. Here are the key components you’ll want to consider — along with the role each one plays in any personalization strategy:  

• High-performance network: Enables seamless interactions among people, software, locations and data. Supports advanced technologies to gather and analyze data, such as AI and ML.
• Fiber Internet: High speed, low latency and reliable connections to make data accessible. Ability to easily scale as your needs grow.
• Cloud connections: Direct connections to leading cloud providers where you’re likely to store customer data. Support for multiple environments, including hybrid and multi-cloud.
• Network security: Help protect company and customer data from hackers, malware and DDoS attacks. Enable secure connections across multiple locations, including zero trust network access and multi-factor authentication.

Keep in mind that strategic-level business decisions necessitate that your internal IT teams have a seat at the table. What’s more, you need a technology partner to help you plan, build and implement it all. Spectrum Enterprise offers the expertise and industry know-how, plus the ongoing support you need to make personalization work.   

Learn more about how Spectrum Enterprise can help power your personalization efforts.