Singapore, Jan 18: Online shopping is here to stay and it is all thanks to the pandemic.
Like it or not, brands would now need to look at ways on how to make digital shopping acutely similar to traditional experiences.
As we know the practice of online or e-shopping has been on the rise since the start of the pandemic is evidently here to stay with companies such as Statista reporting that the number of digital shoppers had grown from 2.05 billion to 2.14 billion in just last year, alone!
In an interview with DailyStraits.com, Treasure Data marketing strategist Sean Valencia tells us what brands can do to make their customers experiences more memorable the next time they shop online with them through hyper personalisation and much more. Without further ado, let’s read the full interview below.
What is hyper personalisation?
Hyper personalisation, from a marketing standpoint, is the most advanced way for brands to tailor their experiences for a customer on an individual and personal level. It leverages Machine Learning, real-time data, data analytics and more to curate the most relevant experience for the customer.
A survey of 200 marketing leaders by Forbes Insights and Treasure Data reveals that when personalisation is being applied in a robust way, enterprises are seeing positive results. Two in five executives also report that hyper personalisation positively impacts sales, basket sizes as well as marketing spend efficiency.
What role does customer experience play in today’s age?
The modern customer is one who is very informed of both their data privacy rights and their options as a customer. It is critical to ensure customers have a great, seamless experience across all the various touch points they will encounter when making a purchase both online and offline.
We need to be mindful of how satisfied a customer is when engaging with a brand, product, or service across the entire customer experience, from navigating the website to talking to customer service and receiving the product or service they purchased. Another Forbes Insights and Treasure Data study found 74 per cent of consumers are at least somewhat likely to buy based on their experience alone.
How can CDP help brands improve customer experience?
A typical customer journey is not a linear one. There are often numerous interactions with the brand during various stages of the customer experience. For instance, these interactions may come in the form of visiting the brand’s website, looking up reviews of products, speaking with sales or customer service and so forth. However, it becomes a problem when these multiple interactions are disconnected, leading to a fragmented experience for the customer. At each of these points of interactions, the customer is treated as a “new customer” making it impossible to provide a curated experience for the customer. A customer data platform (CDP) can centralise and unify customer data from a CRM, marketing tools, websites, social media, help desk interactions, and a variety of additional zero-, first-, second-, and third-party data sources. As a result, the marketing team can orchestrate great experiences and the frontline representative, be it in sales or service will have a clear understanding of the customer’s needs and be able to cater to them accordingly.
Balancing privacy with hyper personalisation, is this possible?
Privacy and hyper personalisation may seem like they are mutually exclusive concepts but there’s a demand for both. As more countries begin ramping up their data protection policies, marketers are put in a bind. The fact is that these two concepts can exist in harmony as long as there is a balance. Customers these days demand transparency and responsible data management. If data is being collected it is important to both get consent and inform exactly how and why this data will be used. Customers also expect value in exchange for their data.
By using technology such as a Customer Data Platform, businesses can manage their customer’s consent, secure their data, keep up with regulation, and build customer trust all in one reliable place enterprise wide.
Moving towards the era of zero party data. What are your thoughts around this?
Organisations hold the power today when it comes to data but in the near future this will not be true. The power has already begun shifting towards the customers. This shift can actually be an opportunity for organisations to navigate the cookieless future and develop trust with their customers.
Now there is a need to ramp up on zero party data. Zero party data was coined by Forrester Research and is data that is willingly given by customers. Customers may be willing to give their zero party data if they expect value and a better experience in return. The role for businesses today is to earn the trust of customers and reassure them that their data will be used to their benefit. We need to focus on how we can utilise data to deliver value to our customers.
Ultimately, a sound data strategy is needed for all your customer data. Businesses need to understand their requirements for customer experiences across the entire organisation and its imperative that businesses bring all their data together, be it first, second, third, or zero-party data, so it can be validated, cleansed, standardised, unified, and made actionable across the organisation.
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June Ramli is the editor of DailyStraits.com. To stay in touch with June, look her up on Twitter @junesairaramli