How brands can use data to offer the “good kind” of personalization
Digital products are becoming a primary channel brands to begin a dialogue with their audiences. As such, the quest for technologies that can start the conversation and genuinely personalize experiences is top of mind for retailers, publishers, and social aggregators alike.
As various technology companies scramble to crack this problem from a data science angle, I’d like to riff on it from the perspective of the customer for a moment.
Think about the last time you searched for something outside of your normal habits on Amazon, let’s say you’re buying a gift for a friend’s baby shower. The effect of this action on your future experience might be misguided. How long until they stop promoting baby socks to me?
As an advisor to companies on the design and strategy of their digital products, I understand why companies are eager for better data collection and deployment frameworks. Customer data has enormous potential yet to be unlocked. If used smartly, data allows brands to get the word out about their products, and to do so in a way that is targeted and efficient. In theory, and in practice, this usage of data is in the customers best interest, saving them time and connecting them with things that they actually want and enjoy.
So, how should brands think about customer data to offer the “good kind” of personalization?
Let’s bring it back to the idea of dialogue, which is simply a two way exchange of information. Imagine a visit to your site as a scene with two people talking; your company and your guest.
Who starts the conversation? What do they talk about? How long do they chat? In this scene, is your company a helpful contributor to the conversation, or does your company just sit quietly in the corner with headphones on as your guest struggles to get your attention? Next, what’s your company’s tone? Are you stern and technical or friendly and inviting? Is your company yelling? Are they a close talker? Look at your site through this lens of personified dialogue and consider: Are you happy with your website’s performance as a brand ambassador?
Before you go too far in answering these questions, take a look at the data to see how it might help you out. Customer actions on your site create data, and data is the language of automated personalization. This data is their contribution to the dialogue with your company, it’s their voice. Your company has the challenge of learning what this data means and deciding how to respond. This will be different for every company (or should be IMO) because these decisions should be considered as part of your brand voice.
Unfortunately, the design of this dialogue is often overlooked as people think about data-driven personalization as a strictly technical problem. While it will be different for every company, here are a few tips to start thinking about these data-driven dialogues.
1. Use the information you have to get the conversation started.
Whether you realize it or not, you do have information about every person who walks through the door into your site. Granted, this information might not be that interesting or relevant, but you generally have access to information about the visitor’s physical location (at least generally), the time of day that they chose to visit you, and all of the contextual information that can be collected between those two points…local weather, major news stories, etc. Often, you can know if they’re new to your site or if they’re a regular. Are any of these bits of dialogue useful in crafting a response? Do they inspire ideas for making small talk? Or perhaps a witty pick-up line? For example, I could imagine airbnb using location and time of year to target site visitors who live in New Orleans in the months leading up to Mardi Gras. They could promote the opportunity to make money by getting out of town.
2. Be a good listener.
Once someone as started talking to you, listen to what they have to say. When it’s your turn to speak, respond to what they said in the most genuine way possible. (“Listening” should be more than just an output to your analytics department.) Are there actions they might take on your site that could give you insight into what’s motivating them to have this conversation in the first place? What kinds of customers come to your site from a behavioral point of view; are you supporting the “browsers” and the “searchers”? For each type of information shared, identify which bits are representative of their needs and values at a point in time, and which are more fundamental indicators that we should remember to pick up the conversation next time?
3. Use data to deepen the relationships, not to exploit them.
Now that you’ve gotten to know each other better, you might have some pretty important information about them; an email address, their birthday, social media profile, credit card number, etc. That’s some pretty sensitive information that they wouldn’t have volunteered unless it was on the path to achieve some other goal…like to buy something. Once you know enough about your visitors to really let loose on personalization, that’s also the time that you need to be the most mindful of what personalization actually means. Personalization is a method of hospitality. It’s the acknowledgement of someone’s presence, and their unique needs as an individual in a specific situation or context. Customers provide you with significant data because they find a value in the service you offer that is worthy of that exchange. They trust you, so don’t screw it up. Consider the data you have and the tone of relationship that you set in the dialog above. In that persona, what would/should your company do with this privileged information?
These tips aren’t exhaustive, nor do they address the specific technical hurdles that your organization will face in implementing a more personalized UI. Hopefully, these tips will help you a set better foundation for understanding what your organization hopes to achieve through personalization, and helping focus the technology efforts toward achieving the right voice.
