Personalizing the customer experience

In a previous post we saw a few of the benefits that a good customer segmentation can bring us, however we have left the most important thing until last.

Personalizing the customer experience.

What is the customer experience?

The name says it all, it is everything that the customer experiences during the purchasing process of your product or service.

Many may think that the customer experience is limited to the transaction itself, the moment of purchase, but that is not the case. There is much more.

• Brand identity: consumers focus increasingly on brand identity and seek out those brands that are in line with their own ideology. If they identify with your brand and feel comfortable, then the experience gets off on the right foot.

• Product or service: Offering a good product and knowing how to explain it correctly to the customer. The product won’t be any better because you use technical or complex words, the important thing is for the customer to know what you are offering so they know if it’s what they are looking for.

• Customer service: The customer can have doubts that they need resolving at any time, and this is where a good customer service comes into play. Whether in a physical store or online, we can’t give the customer the impression that their doubts are irrelevant or annoying.

• Delivery: Delivery of the product or service must be easy and not pose any problems for the customer. You will have to follow up on your online sales and facilitate the delivery method, but don’t forget that a smile and a nice, practical bag will be essential in your stores.

• After-sales service: When everything goes well we are all happy, but what happens when something goes wrong? A good plan B can turn an incident (a return, a faulty product, etc.) into another opportunity to charm your customer.

Why is personalization important in the customer experience?

Looking after your customers does not mean being annoying.

In store it is easier to personalize the experience of regular customers, the assistant knows them and knows their names and habits, but in online sales we can fall into the trap of focusing on the transaction itself rather than on the people making it.

Designing a unique experience can work for a percentage of your customers but it can be uncomfortable for others or even annoying for some. Collecting your customer’s data and analysing it will help you in creating a personalized experience that generates loyalty from your customers and makes them feel special.

We all like to feel special, right?

By taking care of your customers and knowing how to do so you will be able to better capitalize on all of your marketing and loyalty strategies. The majority of communication via email ends up in the recycle bin because it is too general, boring or annoying.

If you learn to target your customers, each one of them will feel like you are speaking to them, not with their neighbour, and most probably they will read your mail.

Familiar is better

When something is familiar, it makes you feel more comfortable, and if you are comfortable you are more likely to make the purchase. It’s the “modernization of word of mouth”.

If you personalize the customer experience you won’t need people to recommend your products to them (which also helps, but this is covered in another chapter). The customer will feel so at ease that the probability of a visit to a store turning into a sale increases on its own.

By knowing how to target each one of them you will also be able to get the most out of your marketing strategies, your customers will feel like they are unique and will identify with that message.

Don’t forget that millenials and generation Z are starting to take over from previous generations in e-commerce and the digital world in terms of purchase decisions. For these two generations it is crucial for them to feel like they are understood and valued by brands.

An analysis from Deloitte makes it clear: the era of collecting, filtering and analysing has arrived.

Collecting data, filtering it and analysing it to offer your customers a purchasing (and after-sales) experience that puts smile on their face. With a good segmentation you will be able to personalize the online experience to the fullest and even transfer it offline for your customer to feel the same care through whichever channel they contact you.