Personalization: the frontier for Internet Service Providers
What is the importance of personalization for Internet Service Providers? Why is it the most important trend of the future? What are the advantages for marketing and customer service?
We hear more and more about web 3.0, a revolution of enormous scope that involves the analysis and interpretation of Big Data, with Artificial Intelligence systems, but above all with personalization. But what does this mean, in concrete terms? To understand it, it is better to take a quick step back.
A revolution that starts from “data” and arrives at individuals
As is well known, the Internet is a telecommunications network that was initially born in the military (in the 60s, under the name of Arpanet) and then moved to the scientific and academic community.
The World Wide Web saw the light in 1991. At this point, the internet was ready to spread with a completely unexpected speed. In December 1995, there were 16 million internet users in the world: 0.4% of the world’s population. By December 2000, the number of internet users had already reached 361 million; 5.85% of the world’s population.
From that moment on, the number of internet users worldwide has been one of constant growth that cannot be stopped. In 2010, the number of users became almost two billion. Today, they are 4.7 billion, that is, just under 60% of the world’s population.
In a relatively short time, internet has become something indispensable: for the productive world (at any level), for markets, for societies, and for the functioning of national institutions, for our individual lives. We certainly didn’t need the Covid-19 pandemic to realize it, but it was the internet that saved our economic and social system: from smart working to telemedicine, from online shopping to distance learning.
In short, we are immersed in an economic and social system that is increasingly digitized and that brings advantages on all fronts and opportunities still to be imagined and then seized.
Here is an important point, never forget: Digital Transformation is a revolution that is still young, that has a long way to go and that is based on connectivity made available by Internet Service Provider. Here we return to Web 3.0.
Web 2.0 indicated the strong increase of interaction between “sites” and “users” that exploded with the spread of social networks, but also of Wikipedia: it was the so-called “collaborative web”.
The Web 3.0, instead, is the turning point of the so-called “semantic web”, a network where machines not only “read”, but also learn to “interpret” through Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning systems.
This is a revolution that starts from data and arrives at individuals. Today, it can be said that there is not only one internet, but many internet built to the measure of individuals.
It may sound abstract and complicated, but it is not so. In fact, this is already part of our lives.
Think about personalized search engine suggestions, algorithms that recommend related products on Amazon or series on Netflix, based on our preferences and our previous behaviors; data-driven advertising banners that appear while we’re browsing, suggestions from friends or interesting pages on social networks that we frequent.
In short, personalization is already here; and it has already changed the way we operate online. But there are still a lot of margins to implement it in the best possible way, with enormous advantages to be grasped both for brands and companies, and for users and consumers. Of course, internet providers cannot stand by and watch. On the contrary, they must be among the first to ride this trend.
Personalization for Internet Service Provider is the turning point of the future, and it must impact their marketing and Customer Service processes (two departments that are intimately related, today more than ever).
The multiple advantages of personalization for Internet Service Provider
Personalization is the future of the digital world, marketing, and Customer Service. It’s also a huge opportunity that ISP must learn to take advantage of before the competition.
Why is personalization so effective? Personalization is effective for a very simple and very old reason: there is nothing more functional and persuasive than to address each customer in a different way, based on his characteristics, his behaviour, his previous purchases, his tastes, and inclinations.
In short, we are talking about the secret of the success of every kind of commerce for centuries and millennia before the birth of the World Wide Web. This is the strength of personalization. Today, digital offers us the tools to interface in a personalized way, one-to-one, even with client audiences of thousands or millions of people; the advantages, in this sense, are enormous.
We have decided to group them under three themes, in a path that leads from marketing to Customer Service, starting from the specific to the general.
1. Targeted call to action…therefore, a better conversion rate
Calls to action are fundamental because, in many cases, they constitute the final landing place of a digital customer journey.
But not all calls to action are the same; which are the most effective? No question about it: the most effective calls to action are those tailored to the individual customer or user (also, and above all, in case of upselling or cross-selling operations).
Some data? Personalized calls to action are 202% more effective than generic ones (source: Hubspot). In addition, companies that personalize their clients’ digital experiences record, on average, a 19% increase in sales (source: Salesforce).
Attention: it is essential to design digital Customer Journeys and related calls to action, not only in a personalized way, but that are optimized for an omni-channel perspective.
2. Related products and services: how decisive are they?
Sixty-three percent of consumers say they are very attentive to the products and services recommended by companies based on their preferences (source: Userproof). A very relevant percentage.
In this regard, we bring you a very famous example: it has been calculated that as much as 29% of Amazon’s total sales derive from personalized recommendations, i.e., the advice given to individual users based on their characteristics and their previous purchases (source: Rejoiner).
3. More personalization equals more loyalty
In the previous points, we focused on aspects that fall more specifically within the field of digital marketing.
In this point, instead, we will shift focus to Customer Service, which is increasingly becoming the main pillar of strategies for all types of business, and it is undoubtedly the most important side for Internet Service Provider: in fact, the real competitive advantage, in today’s market, is acquired or lost here. Never forget this.
Here is some supporting data. 79% of consumers said that they will only seriously consider brands that demonstrate that they are “taking care” of them (Source: Commpro.biz).
According to an Oracle study, 9 out of 10 clients have left a company to become customers of a competitor because of an unsatisfactory Customer Experience. Finally, there is a well-known study conducted by Bain & Company that has shown that it costs 6 to 7 times more to win a new client than to retain one.
What is the decisive element for customer satisfaction, and therefore loyalty? Once again, the answer is personalization. It is about collecting as much data as possible on users, digitizing the Customer Base.
In this way you get to “know” the audience that you address and divide it into more and more specific targets to hit with communications and tailor-made operations, up to addressing individuals, in a completely personalized way.
The next step is to create a Customer Service and a truly one-to-one dialog. From digital optimization, we move on to engagement, and then to loyalty. This is the way to gain efficiency, credibility, reputation, to reduce the churn rate (i.e., the rate of loss of users), and to improve your market position!
Want to learn more about the Internet Service Providers industry? Check out this post 👇
