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How to Personalize the Customer Journey

Consumers have always valued meaningful personal interactions—the baker who greets them by name or the cashier who remembers their kids’ birthdays. In the past, only smaller boutiques, local shops and luxury brands could offer such intimate customer journeys. Meanwhile, people accepted the anonymity of the digital marketplace as par for the course.

But this is a new day. The arrival of social media, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence has changed the way companies engage with their audience. Now, organizations of any size can tailor the digital experience to specific individuals. If consumer attitudes are any indication, the importance of the customer experience will only become more important in the coming years.

Personalization Is Nothing New, But Customized Digital Experiences Are

These days, online shoppers want more than a seamless digital experience; they want to feel personally connected to a brand. No longer satisfied with generic messages and 12-digit customer ID numbers, they yearn to stand out from the crowd. One survey conducted by Agilone revealed that 79% of people in the US and 70% of people in the UK expect brands to honor their individuality.

Millennials, in particular, value personal touches. They appreciate it when companies remember their names, their past purchases, and even their birthdays. That means businesses must try harder to connect with individuals at every stage of the customer journey. But what is the customer journey, and how can you personalize it?

What Is the Customer Journey?

A customer journey, much like a hero’s journey, tells a story. It follows the customer through every key interaction they have with your company, from the moment they become aware of your brand to the moment they become a loyal, purchasing customer. The journey may be different for each business and each type of customer, but major milestones typically include:

Step into the Customer’s Shoes

When mapping the trip from awareness to loyalty, brands should focus on the customer’s point of view.
What do they want? What motivates them to move on to the step?
What emotions do they experience at each stage of the journey?customer journey awareness

Take an example: Let’s say you’re an avid knitter. Your favorite arts and crafts store sends out three or four email promotions every month. The subject line addresses you by name. You hurry to open the email, only to find coupons for frames, colored pencils, holiday decorations, and scrapbooks—but no yarn!

You just wasted valuable time sifting through irrelevant offers. If the company had looked at your past purchasing history, they might have seen that you exclusively buy yarn from them. Then they could have sent more tailored promotions that feel personal – promotions handpicked just for you.

Once you’ve seen the journey from the customer’s perspective, you can refine your role. What can you do to help them achieve their goals? How can you remove obstacles that might stand in the way of engagement and conversion? Ignore the little details, and customers will be less likely to purchase from you in the future. Cater to their needs, their tastes, and you’ll win their loyalty. That’s what marketers mean by personalizing the customer journey.

Now It’s Time to Map Your Customer Journey

Journey mapping can help you perfect and personalize the customer experience. Essentially, you create a diagram that follows each type of individual through the various customer journey stages, from brand discovery to repeated purchases. What will move them along? What will stand as a barrier in their way? What do they want and how can you give it to them?

The ultimate goal is to personalize each touchpoint. Possible interactions include: 

The Bottom Line: Personalization

Creating a customer journey map can seem overwhelming, but behind the new technology lies a time-honored principle: It pays more to be interested than to be interesting. That’s as true in business as it is in personal relationships. The more interested you are in your customer, the more loyal they’ll be to your brand. Take the time to listen to your clients and customers and use this information to begin mapping personalized client journey maps.

At the end of the day, humanizing digital encounters generates goodwill and provides a significant return on investment. A Study from Gartner, for example, revealed that personalization can increase B2B e-commerce revenues by up to 15 percent. Moving forward, successful businesses will have to leverage new technology to serve the age-old need of creating meaningful interaction on a personal level.

Need help integrating personalization into your digital user experience? Let our digital growth agency walk you through journey mapping process.

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