Expert: How to personalize without the creep factor

Kristina: How important is hyper-personalization to businesses?

Anil Kaul, CEO, Absoludata: In a recent Accenture study, it was reported that more than 56% of consumers say they would be more inclined to use a retailer or service if it offers a personalized experience. Hyper-personalization uses customer behavioral, attitudinal, transactional data gathered from multiple sources to provide more personalized and targeted products, services, and content. Hyper-personalization is a growing trend which focuses mainly on maximizing the opportunities to customize products, services or offers that fits your customers’ needs. Businesses are using hyper-personalization to consistently target the right audience throughout the customer lifecycle. Creating meaningful connections and driving engagement among the audience for more leads and higher conversions.

Kristina: How can brands know they’re being hyper-personal and yet not slipping over into the ‘creepy’ factor?

Anil: Hyper-personalization is not about being ‘creepy’ and sitting outside your customer’s houses and tracking each and every movement but it is about paying attention to all of the data your customers are creating when they interact with your business whether it is online or offline. The first and foremost point to be kept in mind while creating a hyper-personalized experience for clients is to ensure that the business keeps the value proposition from the customer standpoint in mind. There needs to be significant value for shoppers in order to increase engagement. It is also important that the customer is not bombarded with continuous promotional offers. Too many messages or promotions can easily backfire for the retailer. Business must maintain transparency about how any information gathered will be stored and used. Opt-in policies let customers play an active role in the process.

Kristina: What kinds of data should brands use to hyperpersonalize?

Anil: [Brands should use] social media data, transactional data, research/survey data, campaign response data and demographic data.

More from Anil and Absolutdata later this week, including his top 3 tips for better personalization.