How does personalization impact consumer decisions?

As everyone says, the customer is called the king of the market. Between the brands and the customers, it is usually the customers who always win. Today, brands are going out of their way to make their customers feel special by making their purchasing experience personalized and exceptional.

In today’s everything on-demand world, customers are empowered by technology and the fast-moving digital culture. This led to customer expectations going up the roof. Now, the customers are demanding relevant, personalized experiences on channels that are ideal for them.

They expect this from all the sectors, all the products, services and brands they use. And brands have no other option but to respond to these customer demands as the customers are very quick to switch if the expectations are not fulfilled.

Customer facing companies are working towards providing brilliant experiences. McKinsey data indicates that through personalization, you can lift up your sales by at least 10%. Customer Experience will overtake the price and products as the key differentiator for brands.

Personalization has evolved with the changing customer needs, preferences and expectations from the brands. But it impacts the decisions of the customers so much that it is actually a huge opportunity for the brands and businesses.

Customers have certain expectations and personalization; those expectations are fulfilled. Through personalization, the customers can be:

• Turned into brand loyal
• Turned into repeat customers
• Turned into brand advocates.

Personalization can actually deliver 5 to 8 times the ROI on the marketing spend. When the customer experience is personal, relevant and adds value, it leads to increased and improved engagement with low acquisition costs.

All consumer centric brands, big or small, everyone is set out to make personalization an important objective of their marketing and offerings.

It is basic psychology that when you let people talk about what they like, they will be more interested in you. Just like that, when brands use personalization, they are listening to their customers which in return makes them like your brand more.

It may seem like a small deal but personalization plays a major role in affecting the customer's purchasing decisions. For instance, if you offer your customer recommendations based on their choice of products, they are more likely to purchase from you rather than when you show a generic set of products liked by everyone.

Personalization is still not something very easy. Omni-channel personalization needs a lot of investment but also a lot of thought process, data and analyzed customer data in real-time.

Customers making buying decisions is about human behavior. While businesses can obviously utilize tech for understanding and affecting this, they still need a holistic approach to affect the customer decisioning process.

Decisioning is a complex process that works differently for everyone, it varies from person to person. There are certain steps a business can take for their customers to bend towards them.

Start small and think big

In organizations with already established working systems and legacies, personalization might face a lot of challenges. Starting small by allotting small objectives, one or two, to showcase the importance of the new strategy can help in proving the value.

Embrace “decision first” approach

Effective decisioning only works when the bigger picture is kept in mind. There has to be a clear and precise understanding of the customer experience objectives and goals that you want to target. Traditional approaches and standardized offers need to take a backseat for this to work.

Structure your business to accommodate the CX

Your business structure, if at all it has been conventional and traditional till now, needs to be built with a focus on the customers and their expectations now. The organization now needs to be built around the customer experience, not the customer experience around the organization.

Treat personalization as also an operating system

You need a clearly defined set of KPIs and a team that is committed to monitoring and processing results and measuring outcomes. Personalization needs to be a priority for the marketing team at least.

Get the right talent

Build teams that have experience and expertise in customer centric roles. Get the right talent who is looking forward to adapting to the change and capable of evolving with the shifting landscape.

Get the right tools

You need the right tools for a complex job such as personalization. Get the right technology, the right platforms and the right teams to ensure that your personalization strategy can smoothly and effectively run.

Customer decisions play a critical role as they are the driving force behind the brands. Today, it is extremely important to have personalization imbibed in your strategies for bringing in more customers and building the brand.

One of the tools for this is the customer data platform. Through that, you can collect the customer data, unify and profile it, divide it into segments in real time and get analytics also in real-time. This will allow you to activate your strategies based on the customer behavior and expectations that you are aware of.

In today’s customer-centric world, brands need to buck up and live up to the customer demands and expectations. Only that is how they can achieve increased ROIs.

Personalization is an important factor and does affect the decisioning power of the consumers.