Marketing

Why retailers need to speak to customers, don’t just name them

For many brands, personalized CX has amounted to replacing the customer's name within a boilerplate message, and that's it. Now it's time to offer unique experiences based on the customer's actual sentiment and preferences.

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December 22, 2022 | Irene Sibaja

Since the ubiquity of third-party cookies emerged, personalized customer experience has seemingly been the end game for marketers, as cookies finally gave brands the tool necessary to not only reach customers online, but also tailor communications so that each engagement felt unique and special to the customer— theoretically. While cookies and other authenticating tools such as mobile IDs have proven to be an effective solution to track consumer behavior, the output of that efficacy hasn't exactly revolutionized customer experiences.

For many brands today, personalized CX has amounted to replacing the customer's name within a boilerplate message, and that's it. Once considered a major marketing innovation that foreshadowed more change to come, this new iteration of CX has mostly failed to evolve further. What explains the stagnation? The truth is that most retail brands have the potential to upgrade their marketing and service offerings by delivering a more personalized, connected experience, but they are held back by rigid infrastructure marked by silos and the inability to keep up with constantly changing shopping behavior.

Despite the slow burn of CX's evolution, there are forward-thinking brands that are beginning to offer unique experiences based on the customer's actual sentiment and preferences. The following explains how, and why, they are doing it.

Prioritizing loyalty

Time and time again, consumers have made it clear that customer loyalty is not just tied to products or services. The emotional connection between brands and their audience base is also about the experience, one that actually speaks to customers, not just names them at the top of a marketing email or customer service interaction. In 2022, the fact is that customers expect retail brands to go a step further if they are to form this emotional connection, which creates trust and ultimately drives loyalty. They prize brands that indulge their specific wants and needs by providing unique experiences that keep them coming back.

A surefire way to maintain a productive, ongoing dialogue with customers is by connecting the customer experience so that each customer touchpoint does not feel like you're starting from scratch. Most consumers can testify that it is frustrating to come across tailored ads promoting a product they already own, or having to explain the backstory and context of a support issue every time they interact with a customer service agent. Brands that wish to drive loyalty cannot stop personalizing the experience after they resolve a customer's identity. They have to take that understanding and leverage it into a unified, connected experience that makes the customer feel like they are on an actual journey with the brand without feeling creepy.

Marketing efficiency

With third-party cookies and mobile IDs being ushered out in the name of consumer privacy, retailers must begin to look elsewhere, starting with their own zero and first party data. Data-driven brands are using the value exchange to enrich their data by encouraging customers to give up personal information for perks and cool experiences. This marketing strategy will help retailers withstand the eventual demise of cookies, though it will not automatically create a whole new customer experience.

Despite having unprecedented access to customer data, most marketers today do not have the ability to draw granular insights that actually reveal consumer preferences. A retailer may know, for instance, that a customer enjoys fine wine, and is willing to spend more for their favorite vintage. A retailer may not know, however, that this same customer is agnostic about the t-shirts they wear and will buy whatever brand is most economic and convenient. Retail brands that can connect these dots ensure they are not wasting marketing dollars by servicing this customer with ads for a $100 t-shirt. Through zero and first party data, retailers can actually learn that a customer enjoys fine wine exclusively for special occasions, allowing for even more nuanced recommendations.

Connecting the enterprise

The reason retail marketers struggle to make these distinctions is that intelligence is often still siloed, limited to the ecosystems their data platforms are pulling from. To overcome these barriers, brands must adopt solutions that can collect and collate data from across the enterprise, not just from the marketing department. When brands unify data from marketing, customer service, information security, and operations, they can get a truly holistic, single view of the customer. This harmonization is key to unlocking granular insights that actually enable a REAL unique personalized experience, rather than the appearance of one.

The ultimate goal for every marketer is to compel customers who shop at their store twice a month to come back four times a month, or getting someone who typically spends $50 a transaction to pay $65 without having to use a big chunk of the marketing budget. During times of economic instability, this type of persuasion can be table stakes. The most sustainable approach to make this happen is by creating a personalized, connected customer experience that makes shoppers want to return again and again.

Irene Sibaja is a retail industry principal at Treasure Data