There is a consensus among customer experience practitioners when it comes to personalisation: when done well, it can be a business differentiator. It’s easy to see why. Personalisation shows to customers the value that brands place on their relationships – both now and in the future.
Those who feel like brands listen to them and accommodate their changing tastes and needs will reward them with their long-term loyalty. The impact of which can be truly transformative. In Medallia’s research, CX practitioners who rated their organisation’s personalisation capabilities the highest were twice as likely to achieve major revenue growth (of at least 10%) than those who rated their capabilities lower.
Yet, a personalisation gap remains. On the one hand, 73% of brands claim they aim to differentiate themselves from competitors on the basis of experience. On the other hand, only one in four say that they have reached a high level of personalisation. To bridge this divide, organisations need robust CX programmes in place.
Best practices for personalisation
Implementing personalisation strategies is an ongoing, iterative process. Successful CX leaders understand that as their organisation matures and grows, they need to revisit how CX fits into core processes and how it can shape commercial goals. An effective strategy will meet six criteria:
- Clear goals: Set specific objectives for personalisation efforts, such as a certain percentage uplift in engagement, increase in sales or uptick in NPS
- Holistic customer insights: Gather data across all touchpoints to develop a thorough understanding of key customer segments, their pain points, behaviour and interests
- Advanced analytics: Leverage real-time data analysis to keep personalisation efforts relevant and effective over time
- Embedded AI and automation: Accelerate the delivery of personalised experiences, maintain consistency across all customer touchpoints and address customer needs proactively
- Thoughtful UX design: Create user interfaces that adapt to individual preferences while maintaining brand consistency
- Regular testing and development: Conduct A/B testing to evaluate the success of personalisation tactics and understand what resonates best with different customer segments
At a time when 82% of customers say personalisation drives brand choice, organisations can no longer afford to leverage personalisation in only pockets of customer experience. It must be interwoven into end-to-end customer journeys. AI and other advanced analytics tools must also be at the ready to ensure that personalisation delivers results in the moments that matter the most.
Always-on listening
Effective personalisation starts with comprehensive data collection. Businesses need detailed insights into customer preferences and behaviours, else their efforts will fall short. This requires “always-on listening” – embedding customer experience signal capture capabilities into all channels, whether that’s direct feedback (e.g. surveys) or indirect feedback (such as social media, contact centre logs and CRM metrics).
Organisations must gather data from all parts of the customer journey and, in turn, make each step as seamless and personalised as the next one. If a customer buys an item promoted to them via the brand’s mobile app, they should not receive a personalised email offering the same item a week later. A well-orchestrated customer journey delivers novelty and value at every turn.
Consistency also builds trust. Integrating personalisation along the entire customer journey will help organisations build sophisticated customer profiles, spot emerging patterns, and anticipate needs.
Elevate customer experiences today
With AI-enabled technology readily available, there is mounting pressure on organisations to deliver the personalised experiences customers are after. This urgency is certainly felt among decision-makers. Over a third of respondents in Medallia’s 2024 ‘State of Personalisation’ Research said that their organisation would be making significant investments in AI in 2024 – a sizable increase from the year before.
Capabilities, such as AI-enabled speech and text analytics, help decode underlying customer sentiment and intent. With richer forms of feedback like video, even the most complex of unstructured data – emotions such as frustration and surprise – can be operationalised.
What’s more, AI can help personalise the customer experience even before an interaction takes place. Organisations can use AI to figure out why customers are reaching out for support in the first place. They can then determine which agent is most qualified to address the specific issue – automatically assigning the conversation to them and even scheduling follow-ups.
Brands adopting AI today can finally retire the one-size-fits-all approach to customer interactions and embrace a new era of personalisation. This will be characterised by the use of real-time insights to automatically surface the next-best actions and experiences for customers across channels. Brands will be curating relevant journeys tailored to the individual – thinking of the end-to-end process rather than single actions.
There is certainly reason for optimism when it comes to better customer experiences. With AI investments firmly on the agenda – and CX professionals collectively ranking personalisation as their top priority for this year – the time is ripe for businesses to make big moves. Those that create a robust, company-wide movement around personalisation will lead to customer satisfaction and loyalty in the long run.