personalized customer service essay

Personalized Customer Service: The Basics

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Think about a local bakery in your neighborhood (if you’re lucky enough to have one). What does a small business like that do better than other businesses? If we had to pick one thing (apart from freshly baked goods), it’d be personalized customer service. 

Thanks to their lower sales volumes, small businesses can easily get to know who their customers are and what they want. Maybe the owner greets you by name. Maybe a sales associate even remembers what you’ve bought before and can recommend other things you’ll like. 

This kind of service makes a difference, and people want that experience when they interact with companies. 

First, let’s take a look at the nuts and bolts.

What is personalized customer service?

Personalized customer service is a marketing technique that helps you tailor your communication with each customer, either during direct interactions or when sending out individualized messaging. A customer service approach that is personalized essentially means an agent "knows" the customer they're talking to because of collected data.

For example, the local baker may know you like sugar-free cookies, so they may tell you they have a fresh batch coming out in a few minutes.

But how can this experience be transferred to high growth environments, B2B, or the digital world? 

There are many ways as it turns out. A very common one is by using automatic product recommendations. For instance, Amazon has various personalized elements in their site like “People who bought this product, also bought these products”, “Inspired by your shopping trends” or other tailored lists. 

Even simply using your customer’s name in automated promotional emails (done easily with software like MailChimp or Hubspot) adds an element of personalization. And emails are a great tool for personalization in general. In fact, by some reports, personalized emails deliver six times higher transaction rates .

So, personalization can take many forms and there are different processes running on the backend for each tactic. For example, personalization may be:

• Persona or segment-based . This kind of personalized customer service is driven by segmentation and development of buyer personas. You don’t directly cater to each individual customer, but you are trying to predict their preferences based on what you know of their persona or segment. This may include location, industry, job title, characteristics, needs, purchase intent, and more. You can use this approach in both emails and your website to present curated content.
• Automated individualization . The example from Amazon is a result of automated, real-time data collection, based on the activity of the customer’s profile. In this case, there’s an algorithm running in the background that draws from information that is specific to the customer, e.g. who they are, their contact details, and search history. Product offerings, personalized coupons based on past purchases, personalized homepage promotions or shopping cart recommendations can all be made for the specific customer.
• Personal . For example, if your customer support team uses software that allows them to see previous interactions from customers who reach out, they can directly talk to customers and say things like “Oh, I can see you’ve had this issue before, let’s try a more permanent fix.” This is the most personal personalization (yes, we said that) you can get.

Why should I personalize customer service?

Personalized customer service isn’t just a favor you can do for your customers. Done right, it may be what differentiates you from your competitors. In a 2020 study , 97 percent of marketers surveyed reported a measurable lift to their business outcomes from their personalization efforts.

Here are some positive business outcomes that stem from personalized customer service:

• Better customer relationships . Personalization builds trust – it shows customers you care about who they are and what they want out of their experience with your brand.
• Higher customer retention . From trust comes loyalty. Customers who know you have their best interests at heart are more likely to stay with you.
• Increased sales . If your prospective customers get relevant content, support, and product offerings from you, it’s more likely they’ll give you a chance to delight them. In fact, 40 percent of U.S. consumers say they have purchased something more expensive than they originally planned to because their experience was personalized.
• Increase conversions . Even if a customer doesn’t buy immediately, it’s still important to encourage them to take actions that move them through the customer journey.
• Better data for the future . Personalization demands efficient data collection and analysis (more on that later). This means you’ll be better placed to identify trends and modify your products or operations accordingly.

With all these benefits, there’s no doubt personalized customer service is here to stay. In fact, it’s fast becoming the norm. And it’s those who do it right that stand to reap the benefits.

Personalization gone wrong

“Do it right” really is the operative phrase. Sometimes, things just don’t work out as intended.

One amusing example of useless personalization was described in a viral tweet by British author Jacqueline Rayner regarding Amazon’s insistence on recommending her new toilet seats – even after she had already bought one. 

This example shows that data analysis can give you a glimpse into behavior a consumer has demonstrated, but not necessarily help you understand their intentions or future preferences. You may have bought a three-tiered cake from the bakery for your 10th-anniversary party, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to be buying another any time soon – so the baker will not make a sale by suggesting more of these cakes to you.

It’s important to find ways to filter out irrelevant information and make sure you actually provide value to your customers.

Another example of personalized service that doesn’t work is when you simply don’t pay enough attention to customer segments. For example – and this is a true story – if you blast promotional emails advertising discounts to every customer you have, but those discounts only apply to local customers, you’re not going to generate sales from international ones – on the contrary, you may even lose customers out of frustration.

How to improve personalized customer service

To make sure personalization actually brings the value it’s supposed to, here are seven tips to help you refine your efforts:

1. Understand your audience

You can’t personalize effectively if you don’t understand your target audiences and the psychology of customer service . 

The first step is to analyze data from your customers (found in your CRM, customer engagement platforms, social media, etc.) and settle on the most important buyer personas. 

This is key because individual personalization isn’t always time-efficient in large numbers. It isn’t always possible to have offerings that cater to each and every one of your customers specifically. You can however predict customer preferences by discovering patterns and segmenting your audiences. That’s why segmentation should come first, and then you can start taking steps to individualize as much as possible based on what you know about your customers.

Different customer analytics give you the insights you need. Choose what you want to analyze and use technology to do it right. And then, you can proactively offer better and more personalized customer service . For example, if you discover that repeat customers ask the same questions about specific products, you could create knowledge base articles or FAQs that answer these questions.

2. Be fully omnichannel

A key component of personalization in customer service is to know your customers’ interaction history across all communication channels – in other words, to offer omnichannel service . 

Imagine, for example, that a customer support agent receives an email from a customer about an issue, which they then help them resolve. Some time later, the customer calls in with the same issue, but this time another agent picks it up. In this case, having a system in place that allows the agent to see that it’s a recurring issue will not only provide the agent with context, it may also help solve the issue quicker. And, it’ll show the customer that your company cares about their specific communication history. 

Solutions that offer a unified view of all interactions across channels help you achieve omnichannel and personalized service. Conversations become more targeted and relevant, since agents see what customers have previously asked about or what content they’ve searched for.

3. Call them by their name

As we mentioned, using your customer’s first name in promotional emails is good practice. But, you can go way beyond that. With the appropriate use of tech, you can find the best moments to connect with your customers, too.

One good example is to offer small discounts on your customers’ birthdays. Or, if you’re in B2B, you can send relevant case studies to prospects depending on how much you know about their use case. Even sending individualized messages after negative experiences (e.g. apology emails ) helps show that you care.

On that note, your sales practices should always include personalization where possible. Make sure your team members do appropriate research before sending cold emails or doing discovery calls. Avoid generic emails that can be seen as spam, but make sure you actually speak to the customer’s particular challenges and offer them solutions.

4. Take advantage of rising tech

Using advanced tech in personalization is important. Reportedly, organizations have been ramping up their usage of machine-learning and algorithmic personalization over the past years, from 26 percent in 2018 to 40 percent in 2019 to 46 percent in 2020. 

A big part of that is using conversational AI to answer questions and offer tailored product recommendations. Chatbots, for example, are able to collect data and analyze them to understand what each customer might be interested in. They can then pop up while the customer is browsing and offer to show them relevant items or to check inventory. 

This also works with content – if a site visitor browses certain blog posts and then returns to the site some other time, the chatbot is able to make relevant recommendations or try to gather feedback.

And, many chatbots are able to send personalized notifications about services your customers use. Chatbots in telecom , for example, can inform users about their text allowance, while chatbots in banking can send alerts when account balances drop below certain limits. Look for the potential to implement this kind of personalization no matter what industry you’re in.

See more about how chatbots can work wonders for your brand .

5. Provide choices (but don’t overdo it)

Everyone wants to have different options to choose from so they can find what best suits them. 

For example, you should recommend three to four products rather than just one. In B2B, you should offer three to four pricing plans tailored towards different buying needs, as opposed to a flat fee for everyone. And make sure you provide all possible customer support options, from knowledge base to email to social media to live chat, so your customers can use what suits them best.

But, make sure that there aren’t so many options that customers find it hard to choose. Accenture sums it up nicely: “The endless aisle sounds great until you are the one having to walk down it.”

And this is where data collection will help you achieve the right personalized customer service – by allowing you to narrow down options based on what your customers need. 

6. Respect privacy

Personalized customer service is only possible when customers agree to share their data with you. Despite widespread concerns about data collection and privacy, 83 percent of customers are willing to share their data to enable a personalized experience. But, here’s the thing: they expect transparency and they are unlikely to tolerate you using or collecting their data without their knowledge.

In the European Union, privacy laws like GDPR already provide guidelines about how you can build trust with consumers regarding the processing of their data. But even if you’re not bound by such laws, it’s important to find ways to tell customers what data of theirs you collect and what you’re going to do with it. And, you should also make sure you protect that data with proper security systems.

For example, you can easily add a pop-up window informing customers about your terms and conditions and what data you collect. Or a consent box when you collect email addresses. You can provide clear links to your privacy policies in email communications or through your website. Having these assets available helps build trust with your customers.

And, keep in mind that there are personalization techniques that customers find “creepy” – most notably, using their specific location to offer them deals (e.g. sending texts when someone walks by a store). Try to avoid these practices. Martha Mathers, former managing vice president at Gartner, said :

“Brands need to be extremely thoughtful in how they personalize their content today. Instead of utilizing every piece of customer data available, brands should focus on showing customers you can help them first, then layering in the right balance of data to boost message relevance, without making things too personal.”

7. Just be human

The busy schedule of many professionals may leave them simply going through the motions when it comes to interacting with customers. This is understandable, but it can have a negative impact on how customers see your brand. If you don’t convince them you’re personable and care about them, they won’t stay loyal for long.

So, try to build a culture of open communication. Help your team be open, teach them to introduce themselves by name when talking to customers and to show empathy. Customer support should put themselves in the customer’s shoes, and sales should focus on providing personalized solutions instead of pushing for deals. 

In the end, personalized customer service means embracing the fact that the interactions between customers and companies are basically human communication. We all make mistakes, and we may not have all the answers all the time – but what’s important is to treat everyone as a person instead of a dollar sign.

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What is Personalized Customer Service?

Making your customer service communication lines as easy, frictionless, and specifically targeted to individual members of your audience as possible is imperative in a world where a great deal of emphasis is placed on using digital technology and social media to provide elevated customer experiences.

 Making a quantifiable impact on customers is facilitated by implementing a tailored customer service approach. According to a Twilio survey, just 35% of businesses believe they effectively use omnichannel customization, indicating that most still need to figure out the financial return on investment.

It’s evident that personalization is now essential, and companies should concentrate on giving customers a tailored experience that meets their requirements and preferences.

It’s crucial to comprehend the idea of individualized customer service before adjusting to the changing ways customers behave.  

What Is Personalized Customer Service?

When consumers think of personalized customer service, they often recall conversations and chats in which they were addressed by an agent using their first name.

Although this is an exciting technique, customization is much more than that.

Using consumer information to create a customized experience for them is known as personalized customer service.

When you employ customer service customization correctly, your consumers will feel more appreciated and appreciate your efforts.

Numerous studies have shown how vital customization and customer service are to consumers. Over 80% of consumers are willing to pay more for superior customer service alone. They are willing to spend more for more costly products!

Customer Service Personalization Examples

Here are some real-life customer service personalization examples:

Using AI and machine learning, Amazon’s tailored shopping experience examines your previous purchases. It makes your shopping experience efficient and pleasurable by offering suggestions for goods that align with your tastes. To increase consumer happiness and loyalty, Amazon also customizes the material on its site and makes recommendations for movies, books, and other items.

Spotify is excellent at customizing accounts. You can make and customize playlists, follow other people’s playlists, and discover new music. Based on your listening history, its AI-powered recommendation engine proposes music and playlists. Spotify’s user-friendly design allows you to pick themes and create profiles, establishing a feeling of community among music enthusiasts.

Bank of America

Bank of America’s 24/7 customer service is made possible with AI and tailored chatbots. These virtual assistants can analyze user data and respond appropriately. This way, they may increase client trust and pleasure by proactively sending account activity updates and relevant information depending on your choices.

Starbucks’ mobile app and loyalty program demonstrate their mastery of individualized customer care. Customers may use the Starbucks app to pay with their smartphones, order ahead of time, and get incentives. Starbucks’ use of consumer data to provide tailored incentives and promotions is impressive. Starbucks could send you special offers or discounts on the drink or snack you choose if you’re a frequent customer. This degree of customization not only encourages brand loyalty among consumers but also keeps them coming back.

The most popular streaming service, Netflix , is well known for its tailored content suggestions. It examines your watching habits and past selections using advanced algorithms to provide personalized movie and TV program recommendations. Whether you favor romance, science fiction, or documentaries, Netflix’s suggestions make it simple to find new shows and movies you’ll like. This degree of customization is an excellent example of improving the streaming experience since it keeps people interested and subscribed.

Strategies to Deliver Personalized Customer Support

It is essential to include customized customer service in your customer relationship management strategy for many reasons. It’s advantageous for your company’s bottom line as well as for the welfare of your clients, who may end up becoming repeat business.

Let’s take a look more closely at some of the strategies to deliver personalized customer support:

Leverage Customer Data

Use the customer data you’re gathering—more than you probably realize—to your benefit. Find information about the browsing and buying patterns of your clients so that you may customize your messages to their particular preferences.

This eliminates uncertainty in your dealings with customers. Based on your client’s interests, you may, for example, utilize this information to create tailored emails or provide well-informed product suggestions.

Create an Omnichannel Customer Service Experience

An omnichannel strategy may significantly increase the effectiveness of individualized customer care. It offers assistance and cross-channel troubleshooting in addition to assisting companies with marketing and sales of their goods and services.

Omnichannel increases consumer comfort when connecting with you and helps you minimize friction between touch points. Because the purchase process is consistent, it further boosts client retention and brand loyalty.

You may get insights into the behavior and intents of your customers by implementing an omnichannel approach. In light of client expectations, you may enhance your response system, value propositions, and brand communication.

Train and Coach Your Agents

Documentation, such as pre-written responses, may be used to give guidance to customer interactions. However, it’s also a good idea to give your support workers the leeway to deviate from the script and make each contact with a customer their own.

Providing coaching and training opportunities only adds the personal touch we discussed before but also allows you to adapt to each customer’s specific demands. Having agents manage the relationship makes it seem more authentic.

Humanize Support Interactions

Everyone who interacts with your company should be handled with respect and kindness, no matter what channel they use or what point they are at in their customer journey. That’s the very least you need to provide for your consumers to avoid starvation: the gas station sandwich.

For example, using the customer’s name in conversation is an easy way to communicate that you care about them beyond their problem. They won’t be made to feel like just another number to be processed and moved along.

Using the customer’s name in the conversation establishes a personal connection and shows you care about solving their problem. Using one another’s names can help build trust and camaraderie.

Offer Recommendations and Custom Solutions

Most companies are beginning to understand the importance of data and analytics management. An ineffective understanding of the client journey will arise from the neglect of customer data.

Find out what experiences your customers have had with your company. You can use text analytics or customer sentiment analytics to determine their dislikes, preferences, and pain areas. This apporach can enable you to effectively adjust internal processes, training methods, and other areas to elevate their experience with your brand.

Customer feedback data may be used to address negative experiences instantly. Using technology to gather customer data is an additional choice— customer Relationship Management (CRM) software for monitoring user behavior and past purchases.

Identify Customer Preferences

A customer journey encompasses all the stages a customer takes while engaging with your company, from discovery to conversion.

The customer journey map helps you visualize the many phases that make up the process. It is a system that provides a real-time summary of each customer’s experience at different points in the trip.

As a result, you can see the areas where the customer’s expectations are not being met and fix them before they become worse. Using a trip map makes it easier to identify and resolve problems in your conversion cycle without completely stopping it.

It enables you to provide an exceptional client experience, which boosts conversion retention and happens quickly. It also promotes client loyalty and lowers attrition. 

Utilize Business Analytics Tools

With customer service analytics , you can learn more about your consumers based on how they use and engage with your company rather than just what they tell you. The process of monitoring is intricate and tricky. It requires sifting through a large number of raw data to get a contextual understanding of your consumers’ expectations. However, the benefits of such an investment in individualized service to customers may be substantial.

Provide Options

You may significantly improve your customers’ perceptions of your service quality by tailoring the support experience to their preferences and past actions.

As a first step in customization, you may utilize the customers’ actual names. They will feel more appreciated, allowing you to make an excellent first impression. Through an omnichannel strategy, you may also enrich the experience by furnishing customers with resources like frequently asked questions (FAQs), knowledge bases, blogs, articles, and industry studies that are tailored to specific phases of the customer journey.

If there are any snags in the sales process, they can locate assistance and contact you from any touch points. Providing clients with individualized discounts or the option to earn loyalty points might help increase their likelihood of purchasing.

Enable Automation

Automation of customer service has advanced significantly. It may save expenses, optimize your workflow, and lessen strain and conflict for your staff and clients. Many, however, believe that automation is inherently hostile to customized customer care.

This is only sometimes the case, however.

Automation may be a powerful tool for customization if it is implemented with the consumer in mind, giving them the option to make their own decisions.

For example, providing an automated shopping system to guide clients through their purchases may be helpful, especially if they are repeat consumers and already know about your goods. It’s quick, effortless, and practical.

Make Use of Chatbots

There may be various drawbacks to using human representatives at a customer care desk. This is especially true when managing the massive volume of data gathered from many platforms to optimize and build a customer profile.

However, the problem may be effectively resolved by integrating AI technologies into customer support systems. Chatbots are advanced AI interfaces that can gather consumer insights across channels, build precise customer profiles, and utilize the data to answer routine questions tailored to the user’s preferences.

These chatbots can recognize the online behavior of customers using real-time customer data and respond appropriately. In addition, you can program the chatbots to respond to the most frequent questions automatically. It finally improves the client experience by increasing your availability and reaction time.

Offer Self-Service Options

Offering self-service options is a win-win for businesses and customers alike. By providing user-friendly interfaces, comprehensive knowledge bases, and AI-driven tools, companies empower their customers to find answers and resolve issues independently.

This not only saves time and resources but also enhances customer satisfaction and loyalty. Self-service options are the key to delivering efficient and personalized support, ensuring that customers can access the assistance they need on their terms.

Ask For Customer Feedback

The last step is to conduct consumer surveys to learn more about their needs and wants. Gathering client feedback can help you fine-tune your approach to customized customer service based on how consumers interact and feel.

Your customization features’ usefulness and popularity may be tracked via user reviews, and any modifications can be implemented once the data has been analyzed.

Deliver Proactive Support

Delivering proactive support is the future of exceptional customer service. Instead of waiting for customers to reach out with problems or questions, proactive support involves anticipating their needs and addressing issues before they arise. By using data and AI-driven insights , businesses can provide timely solutions, offer personalized recommendations, and enhance the overall customer experience. This approach not only prevents issues but also fosters customer trust and loyalty, making it a strategic imperative for modern businesses.

Why Is Personalized Customer Service Important?

When a company offers personalized service, they focus on meeting customers’ unique wants and requirements. Customers who get personalized experiences tend to have stronger brand loyalty.

Among the many advantages of personalized customer service are the following:

Improved Customer Satisfaction

Having customized service solutions in place provides your company with the data required to create very intimate connections with clients. Sometimes, it’s as easy as using the customer’s name up front instead of requiring them to provide it or use a placeholder.

Businesses may build deeper relationships with their consumers and boost customer satisfaction through personalization.

Enhanced Customer Interactions

Faster service delivery means happier customers who can get on with their day sooner rather than later. In addition to making clients feel that the company cares about them, personalized service will demonstrate that it is adaptable to their specific requirements.

Businesses may reap benefits from providing speedier customer care, including increased productivity among customer-facing staff, better use of available resources, and shorter response times.

Increased Loyalty and Trust

Personalized customer service may assist in enhancing customer loyalty by forging a stronger bond between the company and the client. Businesses may develop trust and trustworthiness that is difficult to obtain via more general marketing tactics by personalizing messaging, goods, and experiences to specific consumers.

Providing individualized service demonstrates to consumers that you care and helps them feel valued and appreciated, resulting in loyalty and retention.

Increased Retention

Personalization may also contribute to higher customer retention rates by lowering the churn rate, which is the rate at which customers leave a company. Customers are less inclined to explore other options when they have a tremendous and customized experience with a company they patronize.

Ultimately, by providing a more tailored and relevant experience for consumers, customization may have a significant influence on customer happiness and loyalty. Personalization methods help firms build more significant connections with their consumers, increasing customer happiness, loyalty, and engagement and eventually leading to better business results.

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10 Easy Ways to Deliver Personalized Customer Service (Better Than Your Competitors)

Published: August 22, 2022

Goodbye one-size-fits-all customer service, and hello personalized customer service.

Did you know that 54% of consumers say they expect all of their experiences to be personalized when they interact with businesses? Plus, over 90% of customers are likely to spend more money with companies that can offer the personalization they're looking for.

In this article, we'll discuss what personalized customer service means along with 10 easy ways to make things feel personal (in a good way) for your customers. Let's get started.

Personalized Customer Service

What is personalized customer service? The short answer is: It's all about getting to know your customers and using that information to tailor the customer experience. No two customers are alike. Personalized customer service allows you to treat customers as individuals based on the attributes, behaviors, and preferences that are unique to them.

Now that you know what personalized customer service is, let's discuss why it's an important strategy for your business.

Why is personalized customer service important?

Personalizing the customer journey allows you to build deeper relationships with your customer base. The more you learn about your customers, the easier it is to understand how to make (and keep) them engaged with your company. Personalization can also show your customers that you value them as individuals, and that you're willing to go the extra mile to meet their specific needs.

All of these factors can lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty , as well as improved sales and profitability. In fact, your online conversion rate alone can improve by roughly 8% when you include personalized consumer experiences.

The sum of it is: If you want to keep your customers happy and retain their business , you'll need to truly understand what their needs are and tailor your services to each individual customer accordingly.

So, it's clear that personalization is an important part of customer service. But the how is just as important as the why when it comes to implementation. We'll discuss that next.

How to Provide Personalized Customer Service

As shown in the image below, you can personalize the customer experience in a number of ways. This includes collecting customer data and using that to provide a more individualized experience or offering custom solutions to meet your customers' specific needs.

Below, we've included a full list of the best 10 ways to deliver personalized customer service at your company.

10 Ways to Deliver Personalized Customer Service

• Learn (and use) your customers' names.
• Be friendly and human.
• Collect and leverage customer data.
• Offer custom and unique solutions.
• Get to know your customers on a personal level.
• Provide a VIP experience for your best customers.
• Use technology to your advantage.
• Train and empower your support reps.
• Create a seamless omni-channel experience.
• Get feedback from your customers.

1. Learn (and use) your customers' names.

Chances are high that you already have the names of your existing customers, so don't be afraid to use them. And for new customers? Ask and capture them. This way, customer service reps can easily greet their customers by name over the phone, in an email, or via live chat.

Why this works: It's simple yet effective. Knowing someone's name is step one when it comes to building relationships. Plus, it feels a lot better to be referred to by your name than a generic 'customer12345' placeholder.

2. Be friendly and human.

In addition to knowing your customers' names, treat your conversations like you're talking to a friend or family member. Don't skip the niceties or miss an opportunity to turn even the toughest of conversations into a positive interaction .

Why this works: When you humanize the conversation, it's a lot easier to make customers feel like you're focused on them and their problems as an individual. And kindness and positivity both go a long way when it comes to customer delight .

3. Collect and leverage customer data.

You're already collecting more customer data than you probably realize, so use it to your advantage. Learn about your customers' browsing habits and purchase behaviors so you can tailor your communications to their specific interests.

Why this works: It takes the guesswork out of your customer interactions. You can use this data to make informed product recommendations or send targeted communications based on your customers' preferences .

4. Offer custom and unique solutions.

Once you learn more about your customers, it becomes easier to customize your products and services based on their needs. This could involve providing custom quotes to meet customer specifications or designing unique products to align with a specific customer's request.

Why this works: This goes back to the fact that one-size-fits-all customer service is going out of style. Not all customers are the same, and offering custom products and services shows them that you understand how to satisfy their needs as an individual.

5. Get to know your customers on a personal level.

As a business, it's important to build relationships with your customers. Take opportunities to learn more about your customers — beyond just their order history. This includes their interests and hobbies, as well as their likes and dislikes.

Why this works: The more you know about your customers, the better your relationship will be. And customers who build a strong relationship with your brand are less likely to churn .

6. Provide a VIP experience for your best customers.

Show your best customers that you appreciate them for being, well, the best. You could offer special discounts or freebies to your repeat buyers. Or show your longest-standing customers that you care about them by giving them exclusive access to new products or services.

Why this works: Perks are a great way to keep your customers happy and engaged with your company. And by recognizing that an individual customer has bought from you multiple times or been with your brand for a lifetime shows them that you appreciate their business.

7. Use technology to your advantage.

There are a number of ways you can use technology to provide a more personalized customer service experience. For example, a chatbot is a great automated tool that you can use to answer common customer questions or inquiries.

Why this works: Speed is one of the most important principles of customer service . Automated technology like chatbots can help your support team address a larger volume of individual customer requests more quickly and effectively.

8. Train and empower your support reps.

Documentation like canned responses can be helpful guidance for customer interactions. But it's also a good idea to give your support reps the tools to go off-script, and encourage them to make each customer conversation their own.

Why this works: In addition to adding that human element we talked about earlier, this gives reps the flexibility to tailor the conversation to the individual customer. Plus, the conversation feels a lot more real when agents have the power to control it.

9. Create a seamless omni-channel experience.

Saying goodbye to one-size-fits-all customer service means the same for communication channels too. The reality is that customers want to be able to access your products and services on multiple platforms . So make it easy to do so, and keep the customer experience consistent.

Why this works: When a customer can access a single profile or customer hub regardless of the channel they're using, that means they don't have to repeat themselves or keep restarting the customer service process for the same issue. Customer frustration avoided.

10. Get feedback from your customers.

The best way to show customers that you value them as individuals is by asking for their feedback on how well your company is meeting their needs — and how you can do better. Surveys are the perfect tool to collect this level of customer insights and data.

Why this works: When you ask for feedback, this gives you the opportunity to take a step back and actually listen to what your customers are saying. But implementation of this feedback is the key to creating the ultimate personalized customer experience.

Now that we've covered the what , why , and how of personalized customer service, let's take a look at a few examples of businesses that are doing it right.

Personalized Customer Service Examples

Amazon, Zappos, and Starbucks are three examples of brands that do a good job of personalizing their customer service strategy.

We'll take a look at each in more detail below.

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Amazon is a prime (no pun intended) example of a company that provides personalized customer service. They use data collected about their customers to provide a more customized experience.

For example, Amazon uses purchase history data to make product recommendations and send targeted emails with special offers based on customer interests.

They also offer custom solutions to meet customers' specific needs, such as their Amazon Prime (OK, pun intended) service which provides free shipping and exclusive deals for members.

Zappos is another company that excels at personalized customer service. They take the time to get to know their customers on a personal level and build relationships with them.

How do they do it? They make an effort to learn about their customers' interests and hobbies, as well as their likes and dislikes. And they tailor the communications for each customer based on the information they capture.

Zappos also provides a VIP experience for their best customers by giving them exclusive access to new products or services and offering special discounts.

Starbucks is also doing it right in terms of personalized customer service. They use technology to their advantage by using chatbots to answer common customer questions and AI to provide personalized food and beverage recommendations.

Starbucks is another company that tailors to their best customers through the Starbucks Rewards program, where customers can rack up stars for freebies and other tasty benefits.

Get Personal With Your Customers

Personalized customer service is a key element of success for any business. By taking the time to get to know your customers and offer custom solutions to meet their needs, you can create a loyal customer base that will keep coming back for more.

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Personalized Customer Service: Best Practices and Examples

In this article, I’ll walk you through the benefits of personalized customer service and some actionable tips on improving it.

Imagine a café in your neighborhood that greets you by your name and suggests your usual order during every visit. Now imagine another cafe across the street that offers you and all its other customers the same service. Which café are you likely to revisit?

It’s probably the first café unless the other café offers significantly better coffee, ambiance, or value for money.

In this article, I’ll walk you through the benefits of personalized customer service and some actionable tips on improving it. Towards the end, I’ll share real-world examples of two companies that have leveraged personalized customer service.

Let’s dive in.

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What is personalized customer service.

Personalized customer service means offering tailor-made experiences and support to your customers. It’s based on their previous interaction(s) with your company. 

For digital businesses, personalization requires using data from each stage of the customer journey. With data, you can create high-converting email content and measure customer satisfaction .

As a result, personalized customer service makes the support experience faster and more relevant, leading to enhanced customer experience.

Why Should You Personalize Customer Service?

Accenture’s Consumer Perception Survey indicates almost 70% of consumers want companies to personalize their communications. With personalization being a key differentiator for customer satisfaction, it provides an excellent area for companies to capitalize on.

Imagine a person who contacted the customer support of a technology company to ask questions about installing software they purchased. If you are dealing with a tech-savvy person, such as a developer, the agent can use more technical language to their questions. 

However, if you are dealing with a layman, it is essential to use words and expressions that are easy to understand. Otherwise, you risk the customer ending the interaction with more questions than before.

Providing personalized service is, above all, understanding that each client is unique and, therefore, deserves special attention.

Here are some ways personalized customer service can help your business:

• Improved customer relationships – People remember their interactions with companies. When you address your customers with their names and pay attention to their specific needs and expectations, you show that you notice, remember, and value them. As trust grows, they are more willing to engage.
• Higher customer retention – It is easier and cheaper to retain a customer than to acquire it. A Gartner survey showed that companies risk losing 38% of customers due to poor personalization in email marketing and communications.
• Higher conversions and increased sales – Customers who find personalization appealing are also likely to be your most valued buyers. Customizing your communications based on the customer’s location, purchase history, and previous interactions with your brand can help convert those on the fence. An Epsilon research shows that 80% of consumers are more inclined to purchase when brands offer personalized experiences.

6 Ways to Improve Personalized Customer Service

You need a solid customer service plan to enhance customer loyalty , exceed their expectations, and improve customer retention and conversions. Here are 6 best practices to deliver personalized customer service.

1.Know your customer

Here are some ways to know your customer better:

• Create multiple buyer personas – To provide outstanding customer service, you first need to understand your customers, their pain points, buyer intent , and expectations. You can use multiple buyer personas to offer context-based support.
• Segment your audience – You can discover patterns among different audience segments by analyzing your website, customer relationship management (CRM) platform, and social media data. Segmentation helps you cater to the specific needs of your customers effectively.
• Review most common questions – Do your customers struggle to integrate third-party apps on your SaaS tool? Are you getting lots of questions from your long-term customers about the restructured dashboard? Do many prospective buyers ask about a specific feature? Reviewing frequently asked questions allows you to find common user pain points. You can then use this information to create knowledge bases and employ those in customer support.

2.Use multiple customer service channels

Each customer engages with businesses differently. Some interact through your website, some are your regular podcast audience, and some follow you closely on social media. While most brands focus on sales across multiple channels, few pay attention to a unified customer service experience. Omnichannel customer service allows customers to contact you through multiple touchpoints. Your audience also gets to choose their preferred medium, from live chat to social media messages to emails to phone calls.

Different mediums usually entail different customer segments, needs, and urgency levels. Multiple service channels enable you to personalize the customer experience based on the audience and their behavior on each platform.

Another benefit of omnichannel customer service is the interlink with all channels. Imagine, for example, a customer sends a query to your company’s Facebook page through Messenger. Someone on your team responds and all the relevant information gets added to your CRM . 

A few days later, the same customer sends an email regarding the same query. With an interlinked customer service system, your customer support representative can view the customer history and provide more relevant and quicker support.

Another interesting finding came out of a Zendesk’s research. It shows that 37% of customers expect to communicate with the same customer support agent , irrespective of the channel. For a more seamless customer service experience, appoint dedicated agents to match with particular customers.

3.Leverage customer data and past customer experience

Personalized customer service is possible only when you have data on customer journeys and previous communication. The more data you have, the more personalized customer service you can provide.  Mapping customer journeys helps in one-to-one marketing. Instead of relying solely on templates, customer service agents try to understand individual customer behavior. In a Csat.ai survey, 84% of respondents indicated that their experience improves considerably when they feel an agent is not using a script.

4.Be proactive

One way to build a solid relationship with your customer is to answer their questions and solve their problems in the shortest possible time. In a HelpScout survey, more than 71% of respondents say that quick response significantly improves their service experience.

It also shows your audience that your company cares about their issues and tries to help them achieve the expected results.

Even if you can’t solve their problem at the time, offer a quick and personalized response. It makes them understand that you’re working on it.

5.Take advantage of AI

It’s a common misconception that automation is inversely related to personalization. For example, AI-powered chatbots can provide contextualized support by processing users’ language, even with typos and regionalisms. A Statista study shows that 64% of businesses trust chatbots to provide personalized customer service more than regular support.

These chatbots can process customer histories and your support database within a fraction of a second and respond instantly. In a chatbot perception survey by Userlike, 68% of respondents indicated that they like chatbots because of their quick response and 24/7 availability.

Chatbots save both customers’ and service agents’ time by helping users self-discover solutions to common issues. From sending triggered SMS alerts to guiding users through knowledge bases, AI has pushed the envelope of personalized customer service.

Humanized service is based on exclusivity and empathy. As much as technology and automation are there to help us, customers often need human interaction to feel that you care about their problems. If chatbots are stepping up their game, customer service representatives should too.

Your customer support team should be able to put themselves in the customer’s shoes and provide context-based solutions rather than pushing your products.

One of Dale Carnegie’s famous quotes is, “a person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” Calling customers by their names forms the base of personalized customer service.

But, you can take it a step further. If your company permits, you can use emojis, gifs, and a casual tone in your conversations. A RightNow survey shows that 73% of consumers fall in love with a brand due to its friendly employees or customer service representatives.

Personalized Customer Service Examples

Disney’s mymagic+ personalization magic.

Utilizing data well means anticipating customer needs in a way that they are pleasantly surprised. One example is MyMagic+ wristband technology. It gives Disney World employees all the information they need to provide visitors with memorable and personalized experiences.

When a visitor wears one of these Disney MagicBands and has reserved a table for dinner, they are greeted by name upon arrival. The restaurant receives a notification when the guest approaches and the kitchen starts preparing the meal. When the guest is seated, a receiver integrated into the table recognizes their MagicBand. Then, it relays the pre-programmed meal order to the server.

For the guest, all this happens as if by magic.

When you create personalized experiences, think about what would be useful for your customers – like Disney did with MyMagic+.

Walgreens’ excellent omnichannel customer service

Drugstore chain Walgreens uses personalization to create a seamless customer experience across all channels. It allows customers to pick up items ordered online in the store and also physically purchase in the store.

If a customer buys a health supplement online, a reminder email will notify them to buy it again after a month. When they shop at a physical store, the app notifies them that their scheduled prescription is ready for pickup at the pharmacy.

The tools also deliver tailored offers and specific product recommendations for other products to the customers based on buyer personas and their previous engagement.

Walgreens’ personalized omnichannel solutions make purchasing and support better for customers, and they can competently serve them everywhere.

Personalized customer service is all about the customer. From a cordial greeting to a quick solution to their problem, it shows that you care about them. You may need to experiment to figure out the types of personalization relevant to your customers. Test different offers, record the results, and learn what works and what doesn’t. It is an ongoing process, as consumer preferences are constantly changing. It is your job to adapt flexibly to the expectations of your audience.

How did you like this blog?

Jeremy is the founder of QuickMail.io, a SaaS company that enables personal one-to-one conversations at scale through automation – for outbound outreach, inbound leads, trial/onboarding, customer communication, and more. Before founding QuickMail, he worked for more than 15 years as a developer in the video game industry and in finance.

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• Customer Experience
• Customer Happiness

Personalized Customer Service: How to Deliver and Drive Loyalty

Personalized customer service builds loyalty, customer loyalty is an indicator of success and customer perception, what is personalized customer service, delivering personalized customer service means getting personal, personalized customer service gives customers a voice, using business analytics to deliver personalized customer service, ready to build better conversations.

Simple to set up. Easy to use. Powerful integrations.

In today’s market, customer service is a huge differentiator. When done right, personalized customer service can do wonders for customer retention and for your bottom line.

Today, customer service is carried out over multiple channels and platforms, and is more important to customers’ perception of your brand than ever. Personalized customer service can make your business stand out.

If a customer walks away from an interaction with your business dissatisfied at worst or indifferent at best, then you’ve wasted an opportunity to win their loyalty.

Customer loyalty should be a foremost objective for any business. Repeat customers spend more , and more often than first-timers. When a customer repeatedly chooses to do business with you, it’s because your product adds value to their professional or personal lives, and because your customer service left them satisfied and cared-for.

Moreover, loyal customers tend to tell the people around them about their fantastic experience with a given business, thus becoming brand ambassadors . Earning the loyalty of ambassadors is invaluable: their genuine endorsement rings more true than any ad campaign, and it does wonders for your brand.

In order to earn this kind of loyalty, your business needs to deliver personalized customer service. This means more than merely satisfying their needs. A gas station sandwich will fill a hungry stomach, but it’s not about to win the stomach’s loyalty the way a home-cooked meal would. And if that gas station sandwich isn’t even palatable, then that stomach — and the customer — will churn.

Personalized customer service goes above and beyond satisfying customers’ needs: it gives them a reason other than your product and their hunger to patron your brand. It represents the difference between a customer completing a transaction, then forgetting about you and becoming a loyal life-long customer.

Delivering truly personalized customer service is quite a feat. It entails making the customer feel like they are dealing with a company which treats them humanely, which caters to them by adding value to their life of which they might not be consciously aware. Personal customer service means making the effort of tailoring service to a customer’s specific expectations and underlying aspirations. A tall order indeed.

Many companies already boast excellent and personalized customer service. However, customers themselves beg to differ. Here are actionable ways to make your customer service more personalized, and earn your customers’ loyalty.

It’s notoriously infuriating to have to deal with an uninvested, disinterested, robotic customer service representative. It gives customers a negative perception of your company and its involvement in the success and happiness of their patrons. Delivering personalized customer service means adding a familiar, human touch to every interaction.

Show your human side

Regardless of the channel they choose or of the stage of their customer journey, anyone who contacts your business should be treated humanely and pleasantly by your team. That’s the bare minimum, the gas station sandwich which keeps your customers from starving.

In order to foster an atmosphere of respect and cordiality beyond mere utilitarianism, your agents must display a personal touch.

Use the customer’s name, and your own. This may sound silly, but it makes good sense. Using the customer’s name in conversation will show that you’re invested in their situation as an individual. They won’t feel like another numbered ticket to be dealt with and dispatched. Using your own name will make the customer trust you more, and give them the certainty that you are personally taking ownership of their predicament. Using names will foster a feeling of solidarity and mutual trust.

Show your face. Adding a little picture of your agents’ faces next to their name in an email, live chat, etc. will go a long way to give your customer service funnel a more human feel. Plus, image previews boost conversion rates.  Make sure to use actual photos, not a stock image of a grinning model with a headset.

Know your customers’ history

When a customer contacts your business, their interlocutor should be on top of who they are, and have a good idea of why they’re calling. Much like the patron in line at their favorite sandwich shop who is asked, “The usual?”, your customers will appreciate not having to detail their information and past history every time they contact you.

Personalized customer service strives to keep a record of the personal rapport customers have with your business. Thankfully, technology is on your side in this case. No longer reserved for enterprise-sized businesses, CRM systems , help desks, and varied support channels are accessible to a greater number of businesses. This lets everyone afford the tools to make their customer service more personal and efficient.

If you integrate your phone system , live chat, email, and so on to keep a record of every interaction with a customer and store it in their file, your agents will have all that information at their fingertips at the drop of a hat. You’ll be able to see the customer’s name, their past purchases and support experiences, their recurring problems or queries, etc. This information is available easily and can be collaboratively edited for the benefit of your whole team. This will save the agents’ time and energy. In addition to this, your customers will enjoy a more personal and dedicated form of service.

Personalized customer service aspires to be tailored to customer’s specific needs, abilities, and expectations. Rather that forcing customers to comply to an established service model, businesses now need to adapt their methods to their patrons.

This is a difficult line to toe, however. Some customers’ preferences might alienate others, be unfeasible, or inefficient. How to satisfy everyone, and still retain coherence and consistency? The trick is to give customers a choice in the matter and to let them speak up.

Give customers options

Customer service automation has come a long way. It can lower costs, streamline your process, and reduce effort and friction for both your team and your customers. However, many consider automation the natural enemy of personalized customer service.

This isn’t necessarily the case. If automation is carried out with the customer in mind, then it can be a formidable personalization tool: an opportunity to choose. For instance, offering an automated shopping system to coast customers through their purchases can be hugely beneficial for returning customers who are familiar with your product. It’s expeditious, low effort, and convenient.

But first-time shoppers might need more assistance navigating their first purchase. If you offer an option to talk to a human agent over the phone or live chat as an alternative to the automated assistant, those customers will find the help they need and won’t have the chance to abandon their cart. By consistently giving customers a choice, you shorten your odds of a customer not finding the option they personally prefer.

Add value to customers’ choices

If you’re giving customers the opportunity to choose the way they interact with your business and your service, you need to make sure that all the options available to them are worth their while. Giving choices to customers for the sake of paying lip service won’t make them feel better cared for. Choosing one option over the others should add value to their experience.

Adding value to a customer’s choice means considering the outcome of that choice. It could take lowering the effort they must expend to complete a task, reducing the time needed to solve their problem, or giving them the self-service tools to fix their issue on their own.

No matter which channels you make available to your customers, you need to be able to guarantee the same consistency throughout. Information silos are the main enemy to a successful omnichannel strategy . Picking one channel over another has no value if the two channels don’t complement and reinforce one another through the unification of customer data. The same is true of cross-platform customer service. It’s crucial to cater to mobile customers on the go. But the latter shouldn’t feel like your mobile service belongs to a wholly different operation. Context is key to delivering personalized customer service. But just as important as context is consistency.

Solicit feedback

The last link in the chain is to poll your customers to find out how to best meet their expectations. Feedback collection will show you how your customers engage with and react to your personalized customer support strategy, in order to refine it. Collecting feedback will let you monitor the usefulness and popularity of your personalization options, then analyse the resulting data, then implement relevant changes, then start all over again.

Customer surveys are the active solicitation of your customers’ comments. They allow you to engage with your customer base firsthand. The other side of that coin is business analytics: the measure of customer engagement in less direct but no less impactful ways.

Business analytics can help you better understand your customers through their usage and interaction with your business rather than through their given feedback. Monitoring is complex, and difficult to get right. It involves sifting through a large volume of raw data in order to obtain contextual knowledge of your customers’ expectations. However, it can pay off remarkably when it comes to personalized customer support.

Understand repeat behaviors and react in real-time

Business analytics can outline recurring patterns in your customers’ behavior. Are your customers asking the same support question over and over? Do they struggle to use your mobile platform? Are they failing to fully adopt your product? All these trends can be evident through business analytics, enabling management to make decisions to better accompany customers.

This is a transition from reactive to proactive customer service; trying to bring customer pain points to light and provide solutions before they even arise. For instance, by using location data in real-time can allow you to suggest choices to your customers which best suit their situation and save them undue effort.

Honor your customers’ trust

Many users balk at the thought of their usage information being retained or used to predict their behavior. This is completely justifiable.

If you’re going to make use of monitoring analytics to improve your personalized customer service strategy, your business needs to commit to transparency as well. Feeling observed and monitored isn’t exactly a catalyst for customer loyalty. Rather, accountability and candor will suit your purposes much better.

Have a limpid straightforward privacy policy. Leave customers a choice of whether or not they want to opt into anything. Being transparent will involve your customers more directly in your process. If you survey them, then show the results, it will make the link between them voicing their opinions and seeing change in your strategy much more obvious. Their direct effect on your strategy will show them that your business is truly committed to understanding them and providing a personalized experience.

Published on January 27, 2017.

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115 Customer Service Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Customer service is a vital aspect of any business or organization. It refers to the assistance and support provided to customers before, during, and after their purchase or interaction with a product or service. Writing an essay on customer service can help you understand its importance and explore various aspects of this field. To help you get started, here are 115 customer service essay topic ideas and examples:

• The impact of customer service on business success.
• The role of customer service in building customer loyalty.
• Analyzing customer service strategies of successful companies.
• The importance of effective communication in customer service.
• How technology has transformed customer service.
• The impact of social media on customer service.
• The challenges of providing excellent customer service in a globalized world.
• Ethical considerations in customer service.
• The connection between employee satisfaction and customer service.
• How to measure customer satisfaction in a service-based industry.
• The role of empathy in customer service.
• The impact of customer service on brand reputation.
• Strategies for handling difficult customers.
• The benefits of personalized customer service.
• The role of training and development in improving customer service skills.
• How to create a customer-centric culture within an organization.
• The influence of customer service on customer retention.
• The role of customer feedback in improving service quality.
• The impact of self-service options on traditional customer service.
• The importance of creating memorable customer experiences.
• The role of emotional intelligence in customer service.
• How to effectively handle customer complaints.
• The impact of language barriers on customer service.
• The influence of cultural differences on customer service.
• The benefits and drawbacks of outsourcing customer service operations.
• The role of customer service in the healthcare industry.
• The impact of customer service on the hospitality industry.
• Strategies for providing excellent customer service in e-commerce.
• The connection between customer service and revenue generation.
• The role of customer service in the airline industry.
• How to recover from a customer service failure.
• The impact of word-of-mouth marketing on customer service.
• The role of customer service in the banking sector.
• Strategies for managing customer expectations.
• The importance of effective time management in customer service.
• The influence of technology on customer service in the retail industry.
• The role of customer service in the insurance sector.
• The impact of customer service on online reputation management.
• Strategies for handling customer service in a crisis situation.
• The connection between customer service and employee motivation.
• The role of customer service in the education sector.
• The influence of customer service on customer lifetime value.
• The benefits of proactive customer service.
• The impact of self-service kiosks on customer service.
• Strategies for providing excellent customer service in the telecommunications industry.
• The role of customer service in the automotive industry.
• The influence of customer service on customer loyalty programs.
• The importance of personalization in customer service.
• The impact of customer service on customer perception.
• Strategies for providing excellent customer service in the hotel industry.
• The role of customer service in the technology sector.
• The influence of customer service on customer referrals.
• The benefits of a multi-channel customer service approach.
• The impact of customer service on customer satisfaction surveys.
• The role of customer service in the fashion industry.
• Strategies for managing customer service in a call center.
• The connection between customer service and customer trust.
• The importance of consistency in customer service.
• The role of customer service in the food and beverage industry.
• The impact of customer service on customer retention strategies.
• Strategies for providing excellent customer service in the airline industry.
• The connection between customer service and social responsibility.
• The importance of empathy in customer service interactions.
• The influence of customer service on online reviews and ratings.
• The role of customer service in the healthcare sector.
• The benefits of self-service options in customer service.
• The impact of customer service on customer trust and confidence.
• Strategies for managing customer service in a retail store.
• The connection between customer service and customer loyalty.
• The importance of communication skills in customer service.
• The influence of technology on customer service in the banking industry.
• The role of customer service in the entertainment industry.
• The impact of customer service on customer lifetime value.
• Strategies for providing excellent customer service in the hospitality industry.
• The connection between customer service and customer satisfaction.
• The importance of personalization in customer service interactions.
• The influence of customer service on customer referrals and recommendations.
• The role of customer service in the telecommunications sector.
• The impact of customer service on customer perception and brand image.
• Strategies for managing customer service in an e-commerce business.
• The connection between customer service and customer loyalty programs.
• The importance of emotional intelligence in customer service interactions.
• The influence of customer service on customer reviews and ratings.
• The role of customer service in the automotive sector.
• The benefits of self-service options in customer service operations.
• The impact of customer service on customer trust and loyalty.
• Strategies for managing customer service in a hotel.
• The connection between customer service and corporate social responsibility.
• The influence of technology on customer service in the healthcare industry.
• The role of customer service in the fashion sector.
• The impact of customer service on customer retention and repeat business.
• Strategies for providing excellent customer service in the technology industry.
• The connection between customer service and customer satisfaction surveys.
• The importance of personalization in online customer service.
• The influence of customer service on customer referrals and word-of-mouth marketing.
• The role of customer service in the food and beverage sector.
• The benefits of self-service options in customer service delivery.
• Strategies for managing customer service in a call center environment.
• The connection between customer service and social media engagement.
• The importance of communication skills in customer service interactions.
• The influence of technology on customer service in the hospitality industry.
• The role of customer service in the entertainment sector.
• The impact of customer service on customer lifetime value and revenue.
• Strategies for providing excellent customer service in the banking industry.
• The connection between customer service and customer satisfaction indices.
• The importance of personalization in face-to-face customer service interactions.
• The influence of customer service on customer reviews and online reputation.
• The role of customer service in the telecommunications industry.
• Strategies for managing customer service in a retail environment.

These essay topic ideas and examples provide a wide range of areas to explore in the field of customer service. Choose a topic that interests you the most and delve into the various aspects, challenges, and strategies related to providing excellent customer service. Remember to conduct thorough research and support your arguments with relevant examples and evidence to make your essay compelling and informative.

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• 6 Ways to Personalize Customer Service (With Examples)

​​Once considered a cost center, customer service is shaping up to be one of the most powerful ways brands can ensure sustainable growth, outshine its competitors, and build an army of loyal advocates.

According to a 2019 Microsoft report , 90% of respondents said customer service has a significant influence on the brands they buy from—and stick with long-term.

Today, many customers care more about experience than product or even price. That shift is linked to the rise of e-commerce, mobile, and social media, which gave customers more choice over what they buy and from whom. AND— it connected them to reviews from real people just like them.

And that was all before the pandemic--an event that forced consumers to rethink what they want from brand interactions.

Per a recent Ultimate.ai survey, 60% of customers say experience is more important to them now than it was pre-COVID. 75% predict the brands that navigated the pandemic with high levels of empathy and support will see a positive impact on long-term loyalty.

So, where does personalization fit into this narrative? The short answer is--pretty much everywhere. Below, we’ll explain how personalizing customer service is central to the entire customer experience--and what that means for your business.

Why Personalizing Customer Service Is Important

According to McKinsey , companies that can deliver highly personalized service to millions of individual consumers using proprietary data are at a significant advantage. The logic there is, unlike products or services, great experiences are hard to imitate because every journey and interaction is unique.

At its core, great service experiences are about building bonds with your customers.

As an example, consider your various "IRL" relationships. We’re talking about romantic partners and close friends, the B2B vendors you interact with on the job, even the barista at your favorite coffee shop. All of these relationships--close or not--were formed by sharing information, remembering it, then building on it during the next conversation.

By contrast, consider how it feels when someone you’ve met several times can’t remember your name--or worse, doesn’t remember you at all. It might hurt your feelings or make you angry -- or, best case scenario, you forget about it.

The same is true for customer-brand relationships. In other words, if you don’t personalize, there is no relationship.

Here’s a look at some more specific ways personalization benefits your brand:

Personalized customer service builds trust

PwC’s June 2021 Global Consumer Insights revealed that 35% of customers cite trust as one of their top three reasons for choosing to buy from a specific brand. Personalized service helps build trust from the first point of contact.

By demonstrating empathy and expertise throughout the entire journey--from brand new lead to prospect, customer, and ideally, promoter or advocate, you’ve proven yourself as a trusted source who always acts in customers’ best interests.

Essentially, that consistency shows customers that you listened to their feedback and took the time to understand their needs and responded with hyper-relevant content, products, or solutions.

Over time, effective personalization lays the foundation for a successful referral program---which allows you to bring in new customers without upping your ad spend or cranking out more content. Happy customers recommend you to their friends--who are more likely to trust you because someone they trust had a positive experience.

Long-term, your referral program will generate more and more growth--while you focus on finding more ways to create value for customers.

Personalized customer service re-engages cold leads

Chances are, you’ve got some stalled-out deals hanging out in your sales funnel. And yes, some aren’t interested, don’t have the budget, or aren’t a fit.

But there are plenty of others who just got busy and forgot to finish what they started. They might have filled a shopping cart, then had to jump on a Zoom call. Or, maybe the checkout page got lost in a sea of open tabs. Maybe they stopped looking for a new CRM because COVID brought new priorities to the surface.

Whatever it is, personalized customer service can help brands get things back on track--assuming they demonstrated interest in the past.

Here, you might send a friendly email offering the hands-on guidance they need to take action. For complex, B2B products, it might mean reaching out with a custom demo or a guided tour of your product’s most relevant features. Or, a financial services company might have a sales rep send a personalized report, along with insights explaining what current trends mean for the recipient.

For retailers, it might mean offering customers a discount and eliminating friction points. For example, you might offer browsing and checkout directly from Messenger , so customers don’t have to visit a second location to complete the purchase.

Personalized customer service increases engagement and conversions

According to Instapage , nearly 75% of customers say they’re frustrated when a website fails to personalize its content. And, 80% of consumers will make a purchase from a brand that offers personalized experiences:

SmarterHQ found that 70% of millennial consumers are frustrated by irrelevant promotional emails, and 36% of shoppers told Retail TouchPoints they wish retailers would do more to personalize the experience.

Generic, irrelevant messaging does little to drive interactions because you haven’t given them a compelling reason to learn more.

Personalized customer service improves customer retention

Personalized customer service makes customers feel valued--much a thoughtful friend that remembers important life events, likes/dislikes, and provides practical, judgement-free advice.

That’s not to say you don’t enjoy your less-dedicated friends -- it’s just that they don’t make you feel seen or cared for.

Emotions aside, personalization prevents customers from churning--which is critical if you want your business to grow. Gartner predicts brands could lose up to 38% of customers due to poor personalization practices .

What Type of Personalization Do Your Customers Want?

While you’ll need to do your own research to determine what your actual customers want from your brand, here’s a look at some of the areas customers want--and expect--personalization across the board.

Website or email offers for special discounts on relevant products

Personalized offers might include things like discounts for customers’ birthdays or early access to a big sale--so they can do their shopping before their size runs out. Or, if you’re a SaaS/B2B brand, you might try something like Evernote does here:

This example could feel a bit more personal, but it rewards existing customers with an extra six months of access if they pay for a year upfront. That, in turn, comes with the added benefit of preventing cancelations for at least 18 months. Plenty of time to establish the kinds of habits that lead to years-long relationships.

Promotions via a website, email, or digital ad for relevant products or brands

Another common use case is suggesting relevant products based on shopping habits.

Here’s an example of how you might promote cross-sells/complimentary items during the shopping experience:

Suggested products based on previous purchase history

According to Salesforce , 75% of customers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer tailored product suggestions. And interestingly, SmarterHQ data revealed that close to 50% of shoppers head to Amazon if the brand they’re shopping with doesn’t personalize recommendations.

Reminders to re-purchase items that are due for replacement

While your customers probably don’t need to set up a "subscribe and save" for toilet seats, they probably purchase many other products on repeat.

If you sell things like skin care products, cleaning supplies, or pet food, customers will likely appreciate a proactive reminder before they run out of essential items.

Abandoned shopping cart reminders

Personalizing customer service is also an effective way to reduce cart abandonment . The idea here, links back to the fact that customers are more likely to respond to ads or messages that are relevant to them.

This example performs double duty--the abandoned item is featured up top, with a curated selection of other items the recipient might like (just in case they abandoned the original item on purpose).

How to Personalize Customer Service

There are countless possibilities when it comes to personalizing the customer service experience. Your strategy should be driven by your business model, customers, and the channels you use to keep in touch--so naturally, every brand will approach this differently.

That said, here are a few ideas you can use as a jumping off point:

Be available 24/7

Offer real-time support around the clock, so customers can get the help they need no matter what time it is. Note that this doesn’t mean you need to hire people to man the system at all hours. Instead, you can use self-service options like knowledge bases, chatbots, and offline messages when agents are unavailable.

Here’s an example we use on the JivoChat home page:

Because it’s a general page, we present a few different options to help guide visitors quickly find the right page--so they don’t get frustrated and leave.

Ask for feedback

Feedback can help you improve service, save money, and increase customer satisfaction. You’ll want to capture and analyze feedback from multiple channels--support tickets, communication records, social media, your website, and so on.

You’ll also want to gather feedback directly via surveys and interviews. Make sure you ask one question at a time--and that each question is focused around a specific experience/goal. A few examples:

• To determine what to build/sell: What products/services/features do you think we’re missing?
• To measure the overall experience (NPS): On a scale from 0 (very unlikely) to 10 (very likely), how likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend or family member?
• To learn where customers are coming from: Where did you hear about our brand?
• To gauge quality of service: Did X rep answer your questions?

Give them options

So much of customer experience success hinges on giving customers the ability to engage on their own terms. Present them with a variety of ways to connect with customer support, offer different shipping and payment options, maybe even the option to personalize products.

For SaaS companies, you might make it easy for customers to change plans--for example, allowing them to downgrade their plan instead of canceling.

According to this 2020 New York Times piece , customers want more custom options--and brands specializing in things like made-to-order shoes, tailored clothing, jewelry, and even medical implants are finding success in catering to the individual.

Address them by name

Addressing customers by name may seem like a minor detail, but it can have a big impact on their impression of your brand. Using customers’ names in conversation gives them the feeling that they’re not just a number. You’re instead telling them you’re invested in solving their problem.

It’s also a good idea to use your own name, as it signals you’re willing to take ownership of the problem, while also building a sense of familiarity and trust.

Avoid overusing customer names--you’ll come off like a caricature of a sleazy sales rep with those blatant persuasion tactics. Instead, treat them like a friend or coworker.

Offer omnichannel customer service

Omnichannel is often misunderstood as a strategy focused on being on as many channels as possible. It’s really about weaving all relevant channels (and internal platforms/departments) together to create a consistent journey for your customers. The goal is to close gaps and remove friction--so customers experience your brand as a single channel that meets them where they are at that moment.

In a 2019 white paper , TTEC urges companies to shift away from channel-centric strategies, as they create fragmented experiences, departmental silos, and inconsistent messaging, policies, and processes. All of which mean trouble for brands. Think waste, friction, confusion, even legal or reputational repercussions.

Omnichannel customer service allows brands to track all interactions and provides full visibility into the entire journey. This enables you to measure the impact of each campaign, phone call, offer, etc. and use that information to improve.

Customers benefit in several ways, too. They never have to repeat themselves, can engage brands on preferred channels, and receive offers/solutions/content based on past interactions, behavior, demographics, and personal preferences.

Reward loyal customers

Finally, you’ll want to make sure you reward customers for being loyal--you know, to let them know you appreciate them.

You might offer:

• Referral bonuses for bringing in new customers
• VIP content
• Exclusive offers
• Early access to sales/new products
• Access to special events, online communities

The list goes on--but the key thing is making sure any reward you offer is valuable to your customers.

Technology for Personalizing Customer Service

As Deloitte states in its 2021 tech trends report, technology is the enabler for pulling off an omnichannel experience, tailoring experiences around the individual, and scaling 1:1 interactions.

We won’t get into it here, but it’s worth noting that in order to execute any personalization strategy, your organization must be able to capture, process, and interpret data--and understand how to use insights to drive action.

More generally, here are a few solutions that can help:

Marketing automation software

Marketing automation software allows you to craft relevant, personalized journeys at scale, across all channels. Users can orchestrate SMS and email campaigns, generate personalized ads, and automate many of the behind the scenes tasks that once made it impossible to scale personalized messaging.

While marketing automation is a powerful part of the stack, it often comes with a steep learning curve. You won't learn the ropes in a day via YouTube.

E-commerce tools

E-commerce tools can help retailers engage audiences, share promotional offers, and offer support on all channels--from one central hub. There’s a lot of variation within this category. Though many options include inventory management tools, customer segmentation, and the ability to manage your presence across marketplaces.

Online chat tools

Online chat tools like JivoChat are one of the easiest ways to start personalizing customer service--in high-impact areas. Use them to address long wait times, provide always-on support, and engage audiences across all channels. with relevant insights from your CRM and other connected platforms.

Here’s a look at the JivoChat widget, which allows agents to handle several cases at once without switching apps:

Final Thoughts

Personalizing the end-to-end journey takes time, patience, and some serious strategic planning.

But JivoChat’s omnichannel messenger platform can help you step up your personalization game in the areas that matter most.

Sign up for a free account to experience first-hand how JivoChat can support and nurture your bond with customers.

• Communication /

7 Ways to Provide Personalized Customer Service (Plus Benchmarks and Stats)

Tips on upping the personalized customer service you provide as part of overall experience

Customer support is more important to gaining loyalty than ever before. And when it comes to support, customers have high expectations: immediate resolutions, getting support on their channel of choice, and personalized experiences. 

Personalization has been table stakes in marketing for years. Personalized emails with curated product recommendations. Cross-platform ads based on the exact products you’re actively searching for. And when it comes to getting customer support, customers have the same expectation for tailored, individualized experiences. Almost 70% of consumers want companies to personalize their communications, underscoring the importance it is for customer service.

What is personalized customer service? 

Personalized customer service boils down to remembering who your customers are and treating them as individuals. It tailors experiences to a person’s past interactions and leverages user data to take into account a person’s specific profile attributes to customize the experience. It can be as simple as greeting a person by their name, pulling up their order automatically by an email or phone number, or more complex by implementing proactive customer care.  

Why does personalization matter?

Personalization has a major impact on loyalty and retention, as well as the bottom line. Consider these key customer experience personalization stats: 

• 80% of consumers are more inclined to do business with a company if it offers a personalized experience. 
• 93% of companies experience an increase in conversion rates from personalization.
• 65% of customers say that personalization influences their brand loyalty. 

It’s clear from these stats (and there are tons of other studies on the topic) just how important personalized customer service is. 

What data can be used to customize experiences? 

By integrating your customer relationship management (CRM) platform with your agent desk software (i.e., Zendesk, Freshworks, Gladly, Zoho, Salesforce, etc.), your agents will be able to access all that valuable customer data: past orders, lifetime value, interactions with customer service, customer feedback to surveys. This access empowers your agents to address customers individually and solve issues on a very personal level. 

Give your customers instant answers to up to 85% of customer service issues with our Zoho chatbot

There are a few different ways to personalize customer service experiences. By persona / segment or by individual customer data. While persona and segment-based personalization works for marketing, personalization in customer service needs to be on the individual level. Acknowledging the last time they reached out to support to make sure there were no other further issues, for instance, is a perfect example.  

What are 7 easy ways to provide personalized customer service?

Personalization in customer service can take many forms. Here are the seven most effective strategies to provide personalized support. 

1. Greet customers by name . 

The easiest way to personalize your customer service is by greeting a customer by name in emails, live chats and phone calls. While this seems obvious, many companies are failing to do even this. In our Customer Service Benchmark reports, we’ve analyzed the personalization of customer service for various industries.

We’ve found that only 68% of eCommerce companies and 49% of telcos greet a person by their first names in customer service emails. For global travel and hospitality brands , a whopping 28% of companies did not respond to a customer by their first name in email responses or on social media. 

2. Keep customer data trails and look up information on the back-end .

When you use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform, you’re able to holistically look at a customer’s information. You are able to see their entire relationship and history with a company. You’re able to access preferences, past orders and interactions with customer service so you don’t have to ask a person to repeat themselves.

As soon as you’re able to identify a customer by based on email address, phone number or order number, you should never have to ask them for basic information. As much as possible, try to limit the questions you have to ask a customer and never make them repeat themselves. 

Exploring a new CRM solution? Learn more about two of the industry leaders in our  Intercom vs. Zendesk  review.

3. ensure fluidity across channels..

There’s an increasing number of support channels . In an environment where channel preferences change based on the type of issue, frustration breeds when a customer’s context is not carried forward as they move between channels. A single customer profile should exist across channels. If a person has to reach out on multiple channels for the same issue, they should never have to restart the conversation or repeat themselves.

4. Ask for feedback. 

One way to show customers that they are appreciated and valued is by asking for their opinion in Customer Satisfaction Surveys . It’s not enough to ask for feedback with binary and scale questions Companies should also invite customers to provide open-ended responses on their experience and what could have been improved.

Personalization comes from truly listening to feedback and implementing changes based on what your customers are saying. As a result, you can expect to gain customer loyalty: 97% of consumers are more likely to be loyal to a company that implements their feedback . 

5. Empower agents to personalize the experience . 

Whether signing off using their own name or simply asking about a customer’s day as they are pulling up information, empower your agents to humanize their interactions. Don’t force them to stick too closely to a script, but encourage them to have human-like interactions.

Zappos, well regarded for its customer experience, says on its website that “Customer interactions often include personal topics, such as weddings, pregnancies, graduations, birthdays and anniversaries. It’s not uncommon for customers to be pleasantly surprised days later by a mailed greeting card from their new friend at Zappos!” We love this personal touch. 

6. Deploy intelligent self-service .

Self-service is becoming more and more common in customer service via robust online knowledge bases and AI chatbots. Intelligent customer self service leverages machine learning to deliver the content that’s most relevant to the individual customer. This integration is based on their purchase history, browsing history, where they are in the customer journey, and more. Using data-driving insights, you can help people become better and more efficient at solving their own issues. 

7. Be proactive.

Let’s look at an example. Makeup brand Glossier is often recognized for its top-notch customer service . There’s countless stories about the brand going above and beyond to wow customers and show customers they are valued and appreciated. One such customer recounts a time when, during the busy holiday season, her order was delayed.

Solve issues before your customers realize there’s ever an issue in the first place or has to interrupt their day to reach out to you. This predictive hyper care makes your customers feel like you’re really looking out for them and have their best interest at heart. 

Before she had a chance to inquire on the status, Glossier proactively reached out, letting her know that they noticed a delay and had already sent another order on rush.  Not only did the Glossier customer service team alert the customer to a potential issue, but it provided a solution all without the customer having to ask. Can customer service get more personalized than this? 

The next generation of personalized customer service is here 

Your customers aren’t faceless consumers. They are individuals and expect to be treated as such.  They want you to remember who they are and their relationship with your company. Customer service can no longer be one-size-fits-all.

Modern consumers today demand personalized experiences and will take their business elsewhere if these expectations are not met. Learn more about companies using chatbots for customer service . 

Interested in more info about AI and customer service ? Get in touch today . 

For more information on customer service, visit:

• Customer Service Tools : The Pros and Cons of AI in Email Support
• Best Help Desk Software Platforms In 2021 [Features, Pricing, and More]
• Zendesk vs. Freshdesk : Which Is Better?
• Virtual Contact Center : What Is It?
• Chatbot Evaluation Metrics : Measures of Success
• Best Chatbot for a Website in 2022 and Beyond [Review and Key Features]
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Importance of Personalization in Customer Service

“ Personalization wasn’t supposed to be a cleverly veiled way to chase prospects around the web, showing them the same spammy ad for the same lame stuff as everyone else sees. No, it is a chance to differentiate at a human scale, to use behaviour as the most important clue about what people want and more important, what they need.” – Seth Godin

The quote is a true definition of personalization in customer service – unless a company’s efforts creates stronger ties and long lasting relationships with customers, it would need to keep trying. Personalization in customer service is about keeping customers happy and satisfied in its association with the company. Without customers there is no business – they can either make or ruin a business and hence to take good customer relationships to great, personalization in customer service must remain a consistent effort. Personalization in customer service is the route to establishing trust and confidence with customers, which in turn leads to repeat business, loyalty, and brand advocacy from them.

The need for personalization in customer service has become more pronounced now since customers are now a more demanding and fastidious ‘breed’. They expect to be treated well and receive individual attention – with so many competitors for a single company, customers know that companies will comply. Customer needs vary – we know that no two customers are alike and hence they cannot be served by an ‘umbrella’ kind of service, leading to the need for personalization. Customers have evolved – are more involved, have a wider knowledge base and are unwilling to compromise on the standards they set. With such wisdom and experience in dealing with companies, it has become tough for companies to give them anything but the best. Higher expectations of standards in service have led to companies aiming for personalization in customer service in every interaction, with each customer.

Personalization in customer service leads customers to feel more connected and engaged with a company. These feelings ensure reduced opportunities for strife and customer churn – customers would feel proud to be associated with a company and would do their bit to let others know of their happy experiences. Positive word of mouth would attract other potential customers to explore business relations with a company – this is a more potent form of advertising than any other method. Through personalization in customer service, companies gain a better and more in-depth understanding of their current and potential customer base. The greater the understanding of the customer needs and expectations, the more individualized products and services a company can create for its customers. The demand for such products would definitely be greater, leading to higher sales and profits for the company.

Customers are a discerning lot – when they perceive genuine efforts towards personalization in customer service, they are sure to reciprocate the company’s efforts. With consistent efforts on the part of the company, customers willingly take on the role of brand ambassadors and actively spread good things about the company and its offerings. Since people are more likely to become customers when they read reviews and comments of current customers, such brand advocacy bodes very well for a company.

Personalization in customer service also encompasses customized messages and content for customers. With so many choices and an overwhelming amount of information available to customers now, it becomes difficult for them to choose. In order to cut through this ‘noise’ and confusion, messages and content that are precise and lucid, hit home better with customers. Such messages also ensure that information passes to customers speedily and is readily usable. Speed, reliability, and usefulness are three extremely important factors for customers when deciding who they remain associated with and for how long. Through personalization in customer service, companies display their knowledge about the customer’s preferences, previous buying behaviour and history and their relationships with the company’s competitors. Customers in turn, reciprocate by willingly sharing information about them, which tells a company that a customer feels engaged and connected with it and would be happy to contribute to its success.

Companies that believe in the efficacy of personalization in customer service would invest in technology and systems that would enable them to process customer information more rapidly and efficiently. Customers expect that companies would make the effort to utilize such resources such that they can consistently develop tailored and customized products and services. In addition, the ‘feel’ of personalization in customer service must extend to online experiences as well. Customers now have a plethora of means to communicate with a company and can choose to buy either online or in store – they expect that their experiences in both realms would be the same – personalized and focused on them. Personalization in customer service, therefore, now has increasing impact and importance and those companies that recognize this have a better chance at success.

While most companies agree that personalization in customer service has its benefits, some seem to lag behind in their efforts in this regard. This is probably because such personalization poses some significant challenges, which not every company may have the bandwidth to overcome. Personalization in customer service requires in-house capacity to collect, collate, store and analyse huge amounts of data got from a plethora of sources and this requires specialized technology and training. Personalization requires the whole company to be aligned towards it, ensuring that every customer’s journey with the company is happy and beneficial. It implies an unspoken bond between the company and the customers – a bond that encompasses an understanding that the company would safeguard and utilize, customer information provided, judiciously. In turn, customers would willingly present ideas and recommendations, which the company can use to become more efficient and produce more customized offerings.

There are a number of ways that a company can display its commitment to customers and increase the levels of personalization in customer service. Ensure that your company is always there for the customer – round the clock service, due attention to their needs and meticulous service whenever they connect and through whatever means. Adding a smile, pleasantness, and courtesy to each interaction is crucial to maintain personalization in customer service. Customers want to trust the company it is doing business with – it is the onus of the company to ensure that it keeps its promises to the customers, in order to keep that trust.

Show personalization in customer service by addressing each customer by name. This increases engagement and builds a personal connection with them, making them feel valued and important. Think back to your own experiences as a customer – was it not a great feeling to be addressed by name and a genuine smile? A company can display personalization even in the messages it sends out by adding the customer’s name to the message.

There a many ways that a company can show personalization in customer service and companies should make it a point to include as many of these as possible. Personalization leads to trust and can alter customer behaviour and buying patterns in favour of a company – for a very long time. Personalization in customer service comes about by genuinely wanting to serve customers, ensuring that employees are well taken care of, and raising the overall standards of using emotional intelligence prevalent in the company. What would you say is the level of personalization in your company?

Learn about a new approach to better customer service!

Interactive guides for superior customer service.

Create interactive decision trees for customer service management, cold call scripts or self-service. Improve sales performance metrics and customer delight across your call centers.

Personalized Customer Care Essays

Personalized customer care, popular essay topics.

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6 Personalised Customer Service Examples

The perspective of the modern consumer has shifted. Expectations have become more complex and today’s customers expect to receive more than traditional customer service protocols. They now expect a streamlined customer service experience. In fact, Kustomer research revealed 93% of consumers expect customer service to be more convenient. In reaction to effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies have made adjustments to cater to these new expectations all while experiencing labour shortages that required them to do more with less. 

Despite the constraints, companies are having success with customer service by personalising the experience to each individual customer. In fact, 84% of customer experience (CX) leaders predict personalization will become more important over the next three years. Why? Because nearly half of customers spend more when their experiences are tailored to their particular wants and needs, according to a study by Kustomer .

From feedback to virtual reality, let’s explore six different opportunities for companies to personalise their customer service experience. 

Personalised Customer Service Examples to Implement

1. be on a first name basis.

Building relationships with customers is what it’s all about. Customers are genuinely seeking out opportunities to create relationships with your brand, and the best way to foster those relationships is through your customer service agents. A simple but highly effective way to make customers feel welcome and heard is by getting on a first-name basis with them. This means greeting your customers by name in all communication channels and introducing yourself to them at the beginning of your conversation. Research shows that customers are keen on personalization , as it helps them remain in control, reduces stress and defeat, and helps them feel more empowered. Leverage your CRM to track these interactions and follow along with those unique customer journeys, personally engaging at every step to build a more long-lasting relationship. Something as basic as a quick introduction can make all the difference, and while it seems obvious, not all companies are doing it right now.

2. Ask for Feedback

Engaging with your customer in meaningful ways can take your CX to the next level. Keep in mind, CX is not a set-it-and-forget-it process. It’s a system that requires constant re-evaluation and improvement. The needs and expectations of the modern customer are frequently evolving, and it’s essential for businesses to stay on top of these changes and adjust their CX strategy accordingly. 

What’s the best way to find out what consumers are looking for in the customer experience? Just ask. By asking customers for feedback throughout the customer journey, you’re not only re-engaging them in communication, but you’re gaining valuable qualitative and quantitative insights that can help improve future interactions. The crucial next step here is to make smart, proactive decisions that implement logical change based on the feedback from your customer base.

Related: Top Zendesk Alternatives On The Market Right Now

3. Review Customer History

We all know the feeling of being bounced around from rep to rep, having to begrudgingly re-explain our same story to each individual. Our research showed that 74% of respondents reported that consumers dislike when agents use a script. The best way to get around this? Actually know your customer — their history with your company, past purchases, preferred method of contact — before diving headfirst into the reason you’re speaking with them. 

Most companies already have the advanced analytics systems in place to collect this data, whether it comes from the CRM, the chatbot or even phone conversations with customer service agents. Why collect all this customer data without intending to utilise it to make the customer experience smoother and less tedious for both the consumer and the brand representative? Nearly half of customers spend more when their experiences are tailored to their particular wants and needs, and the best way to do that is to access previously-attained customer data and streamline the process at every interaction. 

4. Leverage Self-Service Tools 

More than half of surveyed consumers reported that they prefer to solve customer service issues on their own rather than talking to a company representative. In fact, when asked to rank the top three preferred customer service methods or channels, consumers under the age of 35 ranked self-service among their top three. Live representatives communicating via email and phone calls do not need to be the only methods of personalised customer service. 

AI and chatbots have advanced their capabilities far beyond early iterations, and are now helping companies meet customer demands and deliver superior service, without overwhelming agents. If your customers are asking for ways to resolve their issues with automated solutions, why not utilise them? Do not underestimate the power of a highly informative FAQ page or community forum either. These are all tools to consider including in your arsenal when it comes to self-service options.

5. Personalise Your Chatbot

The preference for a personalised chatbot is growing rapidly. 77% of consumers under the age of 25 say that they find chatbots to be helpful. Continuing to tailor the CX strategy toward individualised customer preferences , powerful AI can leverage customer data and demographic information for major personalised customer service benefits. While automated responses are beneficial, some customers can be wary about talking to a bot rather than a human, so don’t shy away from getting creative with your chatbot — give it some personality and a cohesive branded feel to bring out the human element even in automated conversations.

6. Offer a Variety of Alternate Choices

Each customer brings their own set of unique preferences when it comes to communication, and they will expect to be given the opportunity to select from different communication options. Providing seamless communication methods across multiple channels ensures that your customers are able to engage with your brand in the method that is personalised to their preferences. Some customers prefer to interact with brands exclusively over the phone, while others would rather send a direct message to your company Instagram. Recognising these differences and offering each customer the option to choose is an essential step in improving your customer experience. 

Providing alternate choices also means staying up to date with the newest advancements in technology. With the rapid evolution of virtual assistants and virtual reality, there are significant changes in the way that personalised customer service plays out. Over the next three years, 43% of organisations are preparing to be able to provide customer support via virtual assistants, and another 26% are preparing to provide customer support via virtual reality. As mentioned earlier, consumer behaviour is perpetually evolving, and the only way to stay ahead is to embrace the future of customer experience technology. 

Drive CX with Data

Integrating personalization into your customer service experience is an essential method to engage your customers. Along the way, you’ll learn more about your customers on an individual level and drive stronger, more meaningful interactions. Today’s customer is not a very forgiving one when it comes to poor customer experience — without a concerted effort to enhance your CX strategy, your customers will take their business elsewhere. 

Interested in learning more about personalised customer service benefits and how to tailor the customer experience on an individual level? Download Kustomer’s guide “ Delivering Data-Driven Personalised Support at Scale ” today. 

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8 ways to Deliver Personalized Customer Service

Customers today expect to be treated as individuals and not addressed with standard, prefabricated responses. Ideally, it is now widely accepted that excellent customer service can be a key differentiator in building customer loyalty. Going by the trends, leading organizations are redefining their relationships with customers to create more personal experiences through focusing on the quality of interactions, initiatives that build deeper engagement, and ongoing management of a lasting relationship.

According to Econsultancy and Adobe global survey, 65% of organizations consider enhancing their data analysis a critical element in delivering a better client experience. Interestingly, 84 percent of businesses that undertake efforts to enhance their customer experience report an increase in income.

In today’s fast-changing business landscape, companies must share information about customer expectations early into product development cycles so that products don’t have nasty surprises at launch time. Customers want a personalized experience everywhere they go, and social media is influencing businesses to change their marketing strategies.

What Does a Personalized Customer Experience Even Mean?

Today, many companies use social media websites to communicate with customers and create a positive image of the organization; however, not all organizations are doing it well. Customers are not only expecting a response to their inquiry or complaint on social media, but they’re also expecting a personalized experience.

A personalized customer experience means that the company knows who you are as a customer, what you like and don’t like, and what you’ve purchased from them in the past. It also means that the company is aware of current trends and can make suggestions for products you may be interested in. When a company provides a personalized customer experience, it makes the customer feel special and appreciated.

Why Personalizing Customer Experience is Important

In today’s economy, it’s more important than ever for companies to make customers feel valued. Many of today’s customers are informed, and they know what they want before they walk into a store or log onto an online retailer’s website. Personalizing customer service with the correct information at the right time makes good business sense because research has shown that personalized experiences can increase conversions by more than 80 percent. It also builds trust between the company and customers, which will result in lifelong customers who share positive referrals about your products with their friends and family members.

It doesn’t even end there. You can also increase customer lifetime value (CLV) and reduce churn rates by personalizing customer service. CLV is a calculation that estimates the long-term profit generated from a customer relationship. Churn rate is the percentage of customers who discontinue their relationship with a company within a given period of time. Both CLV and churn rate are important metrics to measure because they indicate how successful a company is at retaining customers.

How to Deliver Personalized Customer Service

Delivering personalized customer experience doesn’t have to be a daunting task. Ideally, it should be a part of your organization’s culture, and there are some simple things you can do to create that personalized experience for every customer. The very first thing to do is knowing your customers

This means gathering information about them, such as their preferences, what drives them, what makes them happy, and what frustrates them. You can gather this information in a variety of ways, including surveys, interviews, focus groups, and social media listening. To deliver personalized customer service, here are eight more ways you can try:

• Build a relationship based on listening and understanding your customers’ problems before getting into solutions mode: The more knowledge you have about the challenges your customers face, the easier it will be for you to provide relevant answers at multiple touch-points in time. To build a relationship with customers based on trust, listen first without giving any solutions. Furthermore, respond to the issues you hear customers talk the most about.
• Always be aware of your customers’ changing needs and adjust accordingly: Today, customer expectations are high in terms of variety and flexibility. With the rise in technology comes an increased inconvenience for consumers, so companies must continually evolve their products and services to meet customer needs. When your company evolves along with the market, your customers will feel like their relationship is evolving too.
• Respond to your customers in a timely manner: A personalized customer experience requires that you be proactive and reactive at the soonest possible time; otherwise, you risk losing their business forever. Social media can help facilitate this by acting as a two-way communication platform for customers and brands.
• Connect with your customers through all channels possible: Customers now interact with companies through a variety of channels, such as traditional voice channels (phone, chat), digital channels (website, social media), self-service channels (FAQs, online forms), and indirect channels (partners, dealers, etc.). Make sure you’re covering all your bases by being where your customers are.
• Anticipate customer needs and greet them with a personalized experience before they even have to ask: Providing what your customers are looking for before they even ask will make the overall purchase experience much more satisfying. This can be done through careful analysis of data (customer history, demographics, and preferences) to understand their buying patterns and trends.
• Tailor your messages to each individual customer: Customers don’t want to feel like they’re just one of many faceless individuals that your company is trying to reach out to. They want to feel special, so take the time to personalize each message. In addition to tailoring messages for each customer, make sure that the message itself is also personalized – i.e. if a customer has already made a purchase from you, don’t send them a ‘welcome’ message – it will come across as insincere and fake.
• Provide multiple pathways of communication with your customers. To facilitate personalized communication, make sure that you have various channels available to connect with your customers. You can use social media or an online messaging system to provide both self-service assistance and assistance from a live agent whenever necessary. Also, don’t forget about the more traditional communication routes of phone, email, and live chat.
• Create an interactive website where users can help themselves before getting in touch with customer service when they need further assistance on something they cannot answer: Many companies are now providing a self-service option on their website that allows customers to help themselves before contacting customer service. This helps alleviate the pressure on customer service representatives, who are often bombarded with inquiries and complaints. Additionally, it allows customers to find the information they need without having to wait for someone to get back to them.

Bonus: Establish a presence wherever your customers are: Just because your company isn’t selling directly on Facebook doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t establish a page; this is where many of your customers will be looking for updates and product information, which will ultimately increase the likelihood of them making a purchase from you in the future.

Final Words

Delivering personalized customer service can be a daunting task, but if you follow the tips outlined above, you’ll be well on your way to providing an exceptional experience for your customers. Remember, it’s not about what you think is best for them – it’s about listening and understanding what they want and need. By taking this approach, you’ll be able to create a lasting relationship with your customers that will ultimately benefit your business.

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Personalized Customer Service

What is personalized customer service?

Definition: Personalized customer service is tailoring customer interactions and support experiences to each customer's individual needs, preferences, and history. 

The goal of personalized customer service is to make customers feel valued, understood, and catered to, leading to increased satisfaction, loyalty, and long-term customer relationships.

How to provide personalized customer service?

• Collect and analyze customer data : Gather information from various sources like purchase history, browsing behavior, and customer feedback to better understand individual preferences and needs.
• Be friendly : Train your team to be empathetic and talk to customers like they would talk to their dear firneds.
• Use CRM systems : Implement CRM software to centralize customer data and make it easily accessible to your support team during interactions.
• Address customers by name : Personalize interactions using the customer's name, which helps build rapport and make the customer feel valued.
• Personalize communication channels : Tailor communication based on customer preferences (email, phone calls, or social media), and adapt your tone and approach accordingly.
• Offer customized solutions : Use customer history to provide personalized recommendations and anticipate potential concerns.
• Remember customer preferences : Keep track of customer preferences, such as product choices or communication styles, to create seamless and consistent experiences across interactions.
• Ask for feedback : Request customer feedback to understand their experiences and expectations, and use this information to refine your personalization strategy.

Examples of personalized customer service

Amazon is one of the best examples of personalized customer service. 

Amazon analyzes customer browsing and purchase history to suggest relevant products , making it easier for customers to discover items they may be interested in.

They send customized emails and notifications featuring deals, discounts, and new releases based on customers' interests and shopping patterns.

Amazon also provides personalized order tracking and status updates , ensuring customers are informed about their purchases' progress and estimated delivery times.

They even adjust search results based on customer preferences and behavior, presenting items more likely to align with their interests.

Amazon Prime subscribers receive personalized recommendations for movies, TV shows, music, and books based on their consumption history and preferences.

And most importantly, Amazon's customer service team has access to customer account information and order history, allowing them to provide tailored assistance and resolve issues efficiently.

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Home Marketing 30 Killer Examples of Personalised Customer Experiences

30 Killer Examples of Personalised Customer Experiences

According to research from Salesforce , 75% of business buyers expect the companies they buy from to provide personalised experiences , anticipate their individual needs and provide relevant suggestions.

Separate research has found that 57% of online buyers are happy to exchange personal data in return for personalised offers or discounts . While a similar majority of 58% say personalised experiences are important when buying from a company .

There’s a lot of talk about personalisation in the marketing industry these days but it’s important to understand this is a subject that matters to business and consumer buyers themselves. This isn’t just another buzz term doing the rounds at marketing conferences and tech shows; this is one of the trends that matter most to the people you want on your customer list.

If you haven’t got a sold personalisation strategy in place, you’re in danger of falling behind competitors who deliver the experiences your target audiences are really looking for. The aim of this article is to show you how widespread personalisation already is across brands of different sectors and sizes, as well as how many different approaches there are to provide a more compelling customer experience.

Here are 30 brands that are already killing it with personalised customer experiences.

• Pull&Bear’s navigational approach to personalisation
• Amazon’s product recommendations
• Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign
• Spotify’s account customisation
• StitchFix’s personalised business model
• Grammarly’s weekly reports
• The Venture Harbour Harbour personalisation plugin
• Starbucks’ gamified app
• Very’s weather personalisation strategy
• Personalised lead generation

#1: Pull&Bear’s navigational approach to personalisation

Every conversation about marketing personalisation seems to revolve around user data, suggesting it’s not possible to deliver personalised experiences without getting your claws on personal info. While it’s true that you can do so much more when you have relevant data on your side, you  can create personalised experiences without it and you don’t need to wait until you’ve got users handing over data to start doing so.

Clothing retailer Pull&Bear is proof of this with its navigational approach to personalisation. For new visitors, the session starts by asking users if they want to browse women’s or men’s clothes and the site continues to navigationally personalise the experience from there.

This doesn’t require any data whatsoever but it does create a more relevant and personalised experience that’s intuitive every step of the way. Pull&Bear does ask users for consent to store their data for future sessions but the experience doesn’t rely on this data exchange and users are never denied access to anything for refusing to give consent.

User choices can be remembered via cookies and the experience becomes even more personalised when users create accounts, buy products and engage with the brand. But Pull&Bear is providing personalisation from the very first visit for  every user, regardless of when they convert.

#2: Amazon’s product recommendations

One of the most famous examples of personalisation is also one of the most successful. Amazon’s product recommendation engine reportedly contributed to 30% of the e-commerce giant’s revenue by 2015 and, in theory, it’s recommendations should only be more effective with five years worth of additional data running through its algorithms.

There are plenty of product recommendation engines on the market, promising to deliver a similar experience for B2C and B2B retailers. Keep in mind that product recommendations are routinely cited by customers as one of the most desired forms of personalisation.

#3: Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign

Coca-Cola offered up another example of (mostly) data-free personalisation with the Share a Coke campaign , which was created by Ogilvy.

With 50% of teens and young adults having not enjoyed a Coca-Cola in the previous month alone – we had to reconnect with our key audience. We printed the 150 most popular Australian names on Coke bottles and cans and invited Australians to ‘Share a coke’. The rest is History.

The campaign ran in over 80 markets over a seven-year period, featuring popular names in countries from Australia to Vietnam. The campaign reversed an 11-year consumption decline in the US and helped the drinks brand boost its presence across international markets.

It also proved offline personalisation can be effective, too.

#4: Spotify’s account customisation

Spotify’s music recommends are designed to keep users engaged with the platform and consuming content but this isn’t the only way it uses hyper-personalisation. In fact, I would argue the streaming app’s most effective use of the technology lies in the extensive user account customisation that’s made possible.

Spotify encourages users to create their own playlists, essentially building an entire library of music on their account. Over the past ten years or so, I’ve gradually created hundreds of playlists with thousands of tracks assigned to my account – I couldn’t even guess what the actual numbers would be.

Why does this matter?

Because I can’t image the prospect of ditching Spotify and recreating those playlists on another platform (or losing them altogether). I’ve invested way too much time into Spotify and, as a result, I’m locked into paying for a premium account – quite happily, too.

#5: StitchFix’s personalised business model

Some of the most impressive examples of personalisation come from brands that turn it into an entire business model, delivering 100% personalised experiences for every customer.

Clothing retailer StitchFix turns the online shopping experience on its head by treating every customer as an individual. The startups isn’t merely selling clothes, it’s selling personalised style recommendations – entire wardrobes curated for each customer, based on their personal preferences, sizes and feedback.

Users provide relevant data about themselves – sizes, style preferences, favourite colours, etc. – and StitchFix analyses this data against the clothing patterns of consumers with similar tastes.

That’s not all, though.

StitchFix also has a team of more than a thousand human personal stylists who assess user profiles and provide expert stylist recommendations. Users then receive their recommendations in the post to try for themselves and they only buy what they like.

Humans and machines, working together in harmony.

As a result, StitchFix delivers a truly personalised customer experience from the very first interaction – and the service only improves as it learns more about individual users.

#6: Grammarly’s weekly reports

Grammarly makes use of all the data it collects from its users to deliver weekly reports, providing an analysis of their writing technique. For the end user, this allows them to see how their writing has progressed since they’ve been using the app and pinpoint areas where they still need to improve.

Crucially, though, the real function of these reports is to show users how valuable the app is to them, establishing it as a vital tool for content creators, writers or people worried about silly typos in their emails. It also acts as an upselling strategy, reminding users that they’ll get even deeper insights into their writing habits and fix more problems if they upgrade to a paid account.

#7: The Venture Harbour Harbour personalisation plugin

Twice a year, the entire Venture Harbour team goes on a retreat to teach each other new skills, solve interesting problems, and build new products.

After a morning experimenting with content personalisation platforms, we realised that most content personalisation tools suck. Between GDPR limitations, annoying flicker effects and clunky user interfaces, we felt as though most of these tools had sold the sizzle well… but no sausage.

There was also no tool that simply allowed us to personalise content based on the answer to a question, without having to configure JavaScript variables, custom attributes and blah.

So, in an afternoon during our retreat, the team built one!

The WordPress Content Personalisation Plugin .

Within 7 days we saw a sharp increase in engagement:

• 37.59% increase in average time on page
• 12.9% reduction in bounce rate

In addition to this, we saw an 88% increase in people clicking through to an email marketing tool, almost doubling the affiliate revenue generated from the content.

We also saw a sharp increase in rankings (resulting in a 53% increase in search traffic) within 3-4 weeks of adding this content personalisation. As this was one of the only changes we had made to this post in a long time, it’s possible that the improved engagement metrics were a contributing factor to increase rankings.

You’ll struggle to find a more simple personalisation technique that has this kind of impact.

#8: Starbucks’ gamified app

Starbucks’ mobile app has been so successful it was the most commonly-used platform for mobile payments until late 2019 when Apple Pay finally overtook the coffee brand.

Let’s be clear, the Starbuck’s app is not an online payment platform but it continues to dwarf the likes of Google Pay and Samsung Pay users in terms of online payments made in the US.

That’s how popular this app is.

The reason for this popularity has a lot to do with the popularity of Starbucks itself but the personalised experience the brand delivers through its mobile app is the key to its success. Customers can place orders and pick them up in-store and Starbucks has also gamified the customer experience by rewarding them with points for every purchase, which can be exchanged for freebies at a later date.

#9: Very’s weather personalisation strategy

Weather patterns impact the way people buy online and Very has responded to this by testing personalised content based on local weather patterns for users. So, if you’re sweltering in the summer heat, Very can deliver content and product recommendations for light, cool clothing options.

On the other hand, if you’re caught in a downpour and realise you haven’t got a suitable waterproof, Very can anticipate your needs based on the weather in your local area.

Brands have been slow to use weather data as a personalisation tool, despite it playing a huge role in a wide range of purchase decisions. This is something that needs to change and Very was an early adopter of the technique.

#10: Personalised lead generation

Marketing Automation Insider personalises the lead generation process by asking users what they need.

Users provide information about their software needs, which refines the options the website provides as recommendations. The more info users submit, the more relevant the recommendations will be and Marketing Automation Insider allows users to get a free report sent to them by email.

It’s a great example of personalised lead generation, instead of generic content downloads.

#11: NetFlix’s content recommendations

After Amazon’s product recommendations, this may be the second-most famous example of personalisation. In terms of usability, Netflix’s content recommendations mean users don’t need to browse the platform to find something new to watch.

However, more importantly, the machine learning algorithms behind it allow Netflix to learn more about users and make compelling recommendations that will keep people using the paid streaming services. This is an important example of how content personalisation can keep subscribers paying for a service.

#12: Evergage’s personalised search results

Search functions are crucial for online retailers but Evergage doesn’t want brands to deliver generic search results. Instead, its personalisation platform allows brands to deliver individualised search results, based on the interests of each user.

Visitors who use your on-site search functionality are telling you exactly what they’re looking for, and it’s beneficial for you to help them find it quickly before they move on. Direct them to the products that they are looking for right in the search bar itself by using algorithms to surface the most relevant items for each person based on the brands, categories, price ranges, etc. they have already shown affinities for on your site. Search results that consider each person’s preferences and intent will show products that are relevant to the individual, not just to the search term, for maximum relevancy .

That makes a good case for delivering personalised search results, instead of returning the same set of results to everyone submitting the same query.

#13: easyJet’s personalised customer stories

Back in 2015,  easyJet  embarked on a hyper-personalised marketing campaign to celebrate its 20th anniversary. In a year when the likes of eBay and FT.com were also marking their 2oth birthday’s, easyJet’s campaign stood out above them all because it put its customers at the heart of its own celebrations.

The multi-channel campaign was centred around TV and social media ads featuring images from easyJet customers on their travels over the previous 20 years. The company later printed these images onto the side of one of its planes and compiled curated “top 20” lists and travel guides from its customers.

A lot have brands have tried to make the most of user-generated personalisation in recent years and many have failed spectacularly. However, easyJet nailed this with its anniversary campaign by aligning its business journey with the best and most memorable moments its customers have enjoyed from its services.

This campaign wasn’t really about easyJet; it was about its customers and this is what the end consumer wants to see from hyper-personalisation.

#14: Tesco’s Clubcard

Tesco’s Clubcard program has been around for so long now, it’s easy to forget it’s one of the most successful personalised marketing campaigns ever run in the UK.

The UK retailer has upped the game this year with its Clubcard Plus subscription service that promises to save customers even more money and deliver a wide range of extra benefits for £7.99 a month.

The role of Tesco’s traditional Clubcard service was to assign purchase data to its customer’s personal data: demographics, budgets, other purchases, etc. Now, the retailer is attempting to bring big spenders back into its stores and only time will tell whether it is as effective as its predecessor.

#15: Secret Escape’s website personalisation

This example was featured in a Smart Insights article back in early 2019, entitled  The best examples of essential personalizations from across the web . Essentially, travel brand Secret Escapes adapts its on-site experience, depending on the keywords typed into Google Search.

As you can see, the copy and images on the site are delivered to match the purchase intent of the user.

Secret Escapes is by no means the only brand using this technique and it’s a relatively easy strategy to implement, using truncated URLs.

What’s great about this personalization is that updating content based on PPC search term is relatively easy since information about the paid search ad group and campaign is available in the referring URL query string.

This is a good example of tapping into Google data to deliver a personalised experience that matches the unique desires of individual users.

#16: Argos’ personalised social Xmas campaign

Christmas campaigns are traditionally dominated by the like of John Lewis with their emotionally-driven storytelling ads. However, these days, the likes of Amazon, Lidl, ASDA, M&S and just about every UK retailer seems to be pumping out the same type of festive ads that collectively fail to distinguish themselves from each other.

In 2017, Argos tried something a little different with its Christmas ad by ditching the sentiment aspect and focusing on personalisation. Here’s what eConsultancy had to say about the campaign:

It’s a decent enough ad, however, in order to build further hype and engagement Argos is also giving consumers the chance to be featured in a personalised version. Encouraging parents on Facebook to submit pictures of their kids, it will send winners their own ad to share on social media, as well as pick a lucky three to feature in ads aired on television.

As eConsultancy points out, this campaign worked for Argos but many brands like Walkers and the National Lottery have failed miserably with similar campaigns that were hijacked by users submitting controversial content and failing to deal with this eventuality.

However, done correctly and with the right safeguards in place, these user-oriented campaigns can work wonders.

#17: DeepSky’s personalised calculator

DeepSky calls itself the “Entrepreneur’s Accounting Department,” promising to help creative business minds measure, visualise and hack their ventures to success. To boost lead generation, the company has integrated a personalised calculator in the Free Tools section of its website.

In a similar way to the Marketing Automation Insider examples, we looked at earlier, DeepSky’s calculator asks users questions about their business and provides a customised response based on the information they provide. The calculator is then able to provide users with an estimate on how much they should be paying on accounting per year in order to maximise business performance.

Once again, this helps DeepSky generate engaged leads but the data users submit also allows the company to score and prioritise leads, based on the value of them to the company.

#18: Care/of solving personal problems

Care/of essentially uses the same business model as StitchFix, which we looked at earlier: providing 100% personalised services for every customer. The difference is that, rather than offering up fashion advice, it aims to solve an even more personal problem.

The homepage leads with the following message on its hero section:

Take care of your energy, diet, stress, sleep… life

All users need to do is take a quick quiz and Care/of creates a plan of vitamins and supplements designed to help them feel better and boost their everyday health.

This plan changes as people progress through their initial course and their health reaches certain landmarks – all of which is logged in the mobile app. Users receive new recommendations as their journey progresses and everything is 100% personalised to their unique needs.

#19: NakedWines’ score-based recommendations

Naked Wines takes has created a personalised customer experience that revolves around wine recommendations, based on user reviews. Basically, customers rate wines they’ve tried and the site then recommends other wines to try based on their feedback.

Naked Wines isn’t a huge company and it doesn’t have the vast array of user data to work with that brands like Amazon and Netflix are built around. However, the UK retailer proves that effective personalisation can be achieved with a relatively modest amount of customer data.

#20: ModCloth’s online window shopping

Clothing retailer ModCloth understands that people sometimes want to window shop while other times they might want to buy on impulse or take their time with a more calculated purchase decision. The company also understands that the same person can choose to shop in all three ways (and many others) when the mood takes them.

So the retailer has created a website that allows users to like items, save them to lists and browse without any pressure to click the buy button (when the mood doesn’t take them).

The website is all about engagement but the soft-selling approach also allows ModCloth to build a larger dataset for each user, based on their likes and interests. This provides all the info the brand needs to target users with highly-relevant email offers, product recommendations and updates.

#21: House of Kaizen’s targeted landing pages & email strategy

House of Kaizen increased the online ROI for Nuffield Health by delivering personalised emails based on landing page interactions.

House of Kaizen was tasked to increase click-through rates and lead generation conversion rates. We used highly tuned banners and emails that drove traffic to bespoke and optimised landing pages, where traffic was funneled through to conversion.

House of Kaizen achieved this by creating dedicated banners and bespoke emails including designs and content to power the online marketing campaign:

• Emails: Custom-made for each traffic segment.
• Banner ads: Tuned to each affiliate network.
• Relevant content strategy: Formulated to increase engagement, convert leads, complete goals, lower exit rates, and reduce Cost per Lead.

By integrating multiple strategies, House of Kazen was able to achieve significant results from relatively simply personalisation across multiple channels.

Healthy snack company Graze is another brand built around data-driven personalisation. Customers share their snack likes, dislikes and allergies and receive a regular subscription box full of personalized goodies. This data allows the company to deliver personalised snack recommendations comprising of around 500 products and 200 million possible combinations.

Graze says its algorithms use 300 million customer ratings of its products at a rate of 15,000 an hour, as well as other factors. This allows the brand to customise snack boxes are based on data straight from the consumers, along with other elements like nutrition and variety.

This is a fine example of how data-driven personalisation is one of the most effective modern business models.

#23: Unbounce’s Dynamic Text Replacement

More than an example of personalisation, this is a feature that will allow you to deliver personalised experiences. Earlier, we looked at how Secret Escapes delivered on-page experiences based on the keywords users type into Google Search and Unbounce’s Dynamic Text Replacement feature is designed to do just that.

It works by matching the copy in your PPC ads to the copy on your Unbounce landing pages, so you can deliver relevant content to users based on the same message that encouraged users to click in the first place.

#24: Henri Lloyd’s fitting recommendations

StitchFix isn’t the only online retailer that wants to find the perfect fit for every customer and Henri Lloyd ensures its users never need to worry about ill-fitting clothes – one of the biggest frustrations of buying clothes online.

The website prompts users to enter details like height, body shape, weight, etc. so its algorithm can make personalised size recommendations throughout the experience.

#25: Vi, the digital personal trainer

Vi is a personalised digital training app designed to encourage people to get out and run more often. The app promises to help people hit their fitness targets or give them their money back. The idea is to provide feedback data from every run and build a journey of progress that motivates users to keep reaching milestones.

Vi learns from user data to set realistic goals, provide valuable tips and integrate with other apps like Google Fit, Apple HealthKit and Spotify Premium. The app also allows users to run as part of an online community and compete against each other while also rewarding users for reaching achievements – all for a one-off fee that’ll cost far less than a year’s gym membership.

#26: Adidas’ gender email segmentation

This example of personalised email marketing is brought to us by Campaign Monitor , courtesy of Adidas. As the Campaign Monitor article explains, “rather than sending a generic email to all customers with all their shoes, Adidas segments their lists based on gender. Then they can send an email highlighting hip, new men’s shoes to their male customers, and cute women’s shoes to their female customers.”

This is a simple but crucial example of personalisation for brands looking to maximise email engagement, conversion rates and customer retention.

#27: Mack Weldon combines cart abandonment and recommendation campaigns

Another tried and tested method of creating personalised customer experiences is cart abandonment campaigns. However, Mack Weldon has taken this one step further by combining abandonment campaigns with product recommendations to bring users back to their cart and tempt with similar options.

Instead of trying to convince users to complete the same action they failed to complete first time around, these campaigns aim to tempt users with fresh options and refresh their purchase intent.

#28: Monica Vinader makes it personal

In another Campaign Monitor example, Monica Vinader combines the classic name insertion technique with personalised images to include the initials of people on their email lists.

The entire email campaign is built around the principle of items made for individual customers, which makes the personalised content feel genuine. A lot of campaigns like this feel forced and you can tell many brands personalise names in emails because they think it will transform results, instead of creating campaigns that truly engage with customers on a one-to-one basis.

#29: Todoist proves its worth

Earlier, we looked at how Grammarly proves the worth of its app by sending reports to users, showing them what they’ve achieved with the tool. Todoist takes a similar approach with its email marketing efforts and this is a crucial strategy for any software platform that promises to boost productivity, business performance, fitness levels or any other performance/achievement orientated metrics.

As a productivity platform, Todoist needs to ensure its users understand the full value its software provides. In other words, what they’ll be missing out on if they don’t continue paying that monthly subscription fee.

Make This a More Personal Year

With the examples we’ve looked at in this article, you should have all kinds of inspiration and ideas about how to create personalised customer experiences that add genuine value to engaging with your brand and buying from you on an ongoing basis. So make sure you’re not getting left behind by the brands already nailing personalisation and make this the year you get more personal with your customers.

Aaron Brooks is a copywriter & digital strategist specialising in helping agencies & software companies find their voice in a crowded space.

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• Landing page builders
• Lead generation tools
• Marketing calendar software
• Transactional email services
• Webinar software