Personalizing User Experience to Create Long-lasting User Relationships

Introduction

Providing a personalized user experience to create strengthened relationships with the customer is not a new ideology.

With the evolving customer needs and the advent of the internet, the digital retail sector has witnessed significant personalization to enhance the end user’s experience.

Personalization provides user-specific content, which leads to a greater conversion rate and enhanced customer satisfaction. However, some companies are yet to tap into its potential due to a lack of expertise and a well-devised approach to formulate strategies.

Owing to this, Gaurav Chhaparwal, Analytics Leader and Advisor at MoEngage, held a seminar to impart his ideas and help people approach the concept of personalization intellectually. 

This article covers some of the most critical points from the presentation –

Factors that led to the Introduction of Personalization 

One of the primary reasons for introducing personalization has been the lack of connection between the two involved parties. Companies indulge in traditional practices to engage their users by creating a ‘one-size-fits-all’ promotion strategy.

One such strategy is the ‘Spray and Pray,’ which dictates that the companies send the same non-personalized emails to every user. This approach does not value the individual buying journey and does not cater to the current situation of a customer. 

What is Personalization?

Personalization is the process of defining an individual’s preferences based on their attributes and their level of engagement with a brand. It comprises tailoring a service/product to account for specific users rather than general groups.  

Catering to Evolving Customer Needs with Personalization 

“If you do not communicate in a relevant manner, you have lost. If you are not talking to someone in a relevant context, you lose them due to the short attention span of people,” says Gaurav Chhaparwal.

With the ever-evolving customer needs, mass marketing is a dead notion in the modern era. Delivering a generic push notification or email to your entire client base is now redundant for the tech-savvy generation.

A study to corroborate the above statement claimed that 74% of online customers feel frustrated when companies show them content that does not remotely pique their interests.

94% of company owners agree that personalization is a critical factor for business success. However, a study revealed that 72% of companies did not know how to execute website personalization. 

Creating a Personalized User Experience 

It is imperative to understand how to create a personalized experience for different customers associated with your business. Some critical questions that must get answered include –

What data should you capture?

• Demographics and User Preferences

The customer data that falls under demographics and user preferences includes general information like name, age, marital status, nationality, household structure and more. The company must prompt and inquire about this data directly from the user.

• Transactional Data

This data set includes information about the transactions that have happened between you and your customers. This data reveals the conversion rate, purchased product category, product value, secondary products bought, and more.

• User Behaviour

Users leave a digital footprint when navigating through your website, which reveals its shortcomings and positive attributes. It provides insights into the reasons for your current conversion rate, most viewed products, number of pages visited, and other factors. 

• Location

Location tracking is one of the most crucial parameters for geographically concerned or local market businesses. It helps local businesses to identify potential customers in their vicinity to send out targeted promotions to them.

• Social Media Data

It is beneficial to track and understand the social interactions of customers with their friends and colleagues. This data provides insights about their daily-life preferences in various products. You can also potentially gather user feedback if they upload a post that discusses their recent purchase from your website. 

Which technology and tools should you employ?

With such a diverse market of technological tools, you must figure out the appropriate ones that comply with the needs of your business by narrowing down your shortcomings.

It is also equally, if not more significant, to recruit the right people for the job while scouting for appropriate tools.

“Picking the right people is far more important than tools and methods employed because tools follow people, and thus, you must seriously think about who is driving the journey of personalization for your company,” said Gaurav Chhaparwal during his presentation.

How often should you communicate?

To answer this query, Gaurav Chhaparwal quoted, “You must communicate with your customers every time they interact with your brand, whether by downloading your app, making purchases, watching tutorial videos, or any other means.”

Providing a personalized interaction with your clients can go a long way in sustaining relationships and brand loyalty.

Another step where you must communicate is when your customers evolve. For instance, when a customer installs your app for the first time, you must send over a brief guide for navigation and features along with a line of gratitude for choosing your platform.  

It is imperative to communicate with your clients after they have used your products or services to gather valuable feedback. 

Which body owns the job of personalization – IT or marketing?

Personalization cannot get operated by a single body but rather a team of individuals who possess knowledge of technology and marketing. Therefore, your company must have cross-functional teams to ensure that the end-user enjoys a streamlined navigation experience clubbed with intelligent marketing tactics. 

Is it possible to personalize offline?

Offline personalization has been an emerging idea with ever-evolving customer needs. Certain devices and applications are helping acquire nearby users’ information and enabling brief tracking of users when they are in a brick-and-mortar store.

For instance, certain stores have implemented models that monitor which isles were the most visited by different users. If those users were on the store’s wifi, the store might grant a promotional offer to entice visitors to make a purchase. 

Wrapping Up: Q&A Session

1. How do we personalize?

During the Q&A session between Gaurav Chhaparwal and the audience, he summed up how companies can achieve personalization with their customers.

An example quoted by Gaurav said that if your business has a new user, your brand drops familiarization prompts. If the user has transacted, you provide them with reassurance messages or brand loyalty messages. 

However, if you are dealing with previous users, you drop upsell messages and satisfaction messages. If your customers are entering the churn bucket, your immediate move must be to drop win-back or resolution messages. 

2. How to solve the conflict of user personalization and data privacy?

“The questions prompted by companies for their users should revolve around gathering behavioural data, location data (post user permission), and other non-explicit data forms if permitted by the user,” as answered by Gaurav Chhaparwal.

To reassure users, brands must provide valuable use-cases and transparency in exchange for the data acquired, which increases the users’ willingness to open up.

3. How should a business account for scalability when running personalized campaigns?

If your business is running a generic campaign, you must understand your users more generically such that any future offers can adhere to the needs of a large segment. Personalization involves generating end-user-specific content, while large-scale marketing campaigns involve the segmentation of your users. 

Final Words

With the evolving customer needs, brands must constantly inculcate trends such as personalization for all customer types, which can help create a sense of belonging and ensure brand loyalty.