Trending: Personalization gets hyper
Digital data. It's a boon for retailers diving into an ever-rising sea of information about customer routines, social connections and purchase history, helping us to create and perfect more personalized experiences that engage our best customers.
Why do we care about personalization? For customers, it means offers tailored to their needs – 82% say they're likely to shop at a retailer that provides them with personalized offers. For retailers, creating personalized experiences enhances customer engagement, ultimately increasing their visits and their basket size – leading to higher sales and profits.
And, even as personalization is still gaining traction, leading retailers are exploring ways to boost relevance, moving beyond purchase history and demographics to more detailed information such as browsing behaviour and real-time data. This allows us to really understand how customers are engaging with the omnichannel world and provide hyper-personalized experiences – not only offering personalized experiences, offers and content today, but using insights to anticipate a customer's future needs.
Different channels mean different interactions
Omnichannel in particular is poised to transform retail for those willing to move with the customer. It gives us the ability to create intelligent customer conversations and experiences by using data from one channel – like web, email, mobile, and in-store – to personalize another.
It’s important to remember that omnichannel is not about doing the same thing across all channels and treating each one as an extension of the store – such an approach would be the antithesis of “customer-centric” when you think about it. True omnichannel retailing starts with recognizing that, increasingly, customers interact with brands differently based on their chosen channel.
Take a bricks and mortar store, for instance. It may carry 65,000 items and offer uniform pricing and mass promotions for everyone who walks in the door. But, with the average customer only ever buying 100 to 200 items, that same store’s online environment can function differently and provide an experience, products, pricing and promotions targeted to what matters to each individual.
The reality is, while today we may still have a big divide between "store shoppers" and "online shoppers," that divide is shrinking. In the rapidly growing omnichannel world, one shopper will engage differently with each channel. The challenge will be to understand the role each channel plays for the customer and how to adapt to meet his or her expectations.
