Using Personalization to Drive Customer Loyalty

The topics of personalization and customer loyalty are quite often linked, but the impact one has on the other is sometimes elusive for brands.

Loyalty360 caught up with Misia Tramp, vice president customer experience strategy & insights for Metia, to learn more about these two topics and how they can be used to greater success for loyalty marketers.

We talk to many brands today about the topic of personalization, yet it remains a challenge for many loyalty marketers. Why do you think that is?
Tramp: Quite often, it’s been thought of as something where you need technology to do personalization, or you can’t do it because you either don’t have CRM or have an antiquated CRM.

It’s seen as something you do to people as opposed to an approach to your customer.

Personalization is a philosophy, an approach. That’s a big challenge and connected to that is data, a common language. It requires everyone to agree on who the customer is and on what personalization strategy to use across an organization.

Marketers want to be able to reach everybody, but personalization requires discipline. You’re not necessarily emailing 5 million customers. It might be your top 20,000 customers and require more than one message. The final challenge is a lack of data about how content works. There is a lack of insight around content marketing.

Personalization is a challenging strategic theme for many marketers. What is being done well now in this regard and where do the challenges lie?
Tramp: An increased number of marketers need tools to support the personalization effort. Many focus on buying solutions on a “best of breed” basis vs. “best of need.”

What’s being done well is a shift to open up technology and measure efforts as far as personalization.
The big theme is connected to the evolution and recognition of companies. They have to have a 360-degree view of their customers.

Data is a huge part of the personalization puzzle. What are the challenges of data collection, data analysis, and obtaining and leveraging key customer data insights?
Tramp: So much data is collected at a transactional level. It’s a bit more challenging to gather longitudinal data, which means tracking an individual or brand at different points in time. It’s easier to know how you’ve interacted with a customer, but actually understanding what customers are doing outside those interactions can be a mystery.

Measuring and having data points across all journeys are two key factors. Having data that measures that is huge. Most organizations don’t have access to that. Most data is retrospective, but it needs to be predictive. Retrospective data doesn’t help them gain a 360-degree view of the customer.

How is personalization best used to drive customer loyalty?
Tramp: In the research we did about loyalty, we gathered a lot of data about how customers define loyalty and how they behave differently. What we heard as one of the strong pieces of feedback was centered around the questions: “Do they have my best interests at heart? Do they respect my time? Are they smart and ethical and personalized?”

Creating emotional moments is key. Differentiation is how you create those emotional moments and that requires personalization. Customers require personalization because they want relevance. They want brands to promote effortlessness and leave them feeling valued. We can’t get that if we’re not personalizing the experience.

To do so, brands need the necessary technology, yet many are in different stages of their technology adoption. Over time, one thing is becoming clear: as the ability to execute becomes automated, designing with emotion in mind will become even more critical as the key differentiator. In addition, how brands choose to use the data they are collecting through these tools will influence how much customers feel they are being listened to and understood.

Why do some brands excel at personalization while others struggle?
Tramp: Organizations that are customer-centered and data-driven tend to be better at personalization. It comes from the leadership and needs to be cultural.

Brands doing it well are putting their money where their mouth is and it’s evident in the scorecards. It becomes an approach.

The others aren’t data driven. Quite often, they’re product-oriented organizations. It’s got to be cultural and needs to be done at the strategical planning level. Culture begins with how people are measured. 

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