How do you design and deliver personalized and relevant customer experiences?

To take this a bit further, I suggest meeting the customer where they are and using that to shape interactions. This is a constant theme in Support where some users are inclined to pick up the phone while others will use self help until they get stuck. Understanding why customers use one approach versus another can be used to tailor your support model to help users get the answers they want in the way they prefer. Once you understand that you can bring to tailor and adjust content to increase adoption and build trust.

I think understanding your general customer base is key to this point. It’s important to know what types of communication they enjoy and like to partake in. For example, in my current role, our customer base is used to phone communication mostly, however we have a base of our customers that does also prefer to utilize email or written channels. As a result, our implementation of chat and chatbot has been extremely strategic to ensure we have a great experience and provide the right information, in the right way, to our customers. The key to this implementation is to ensure even the chatbot has somewhat of a personalized feel to it.

Firstly, the company must be clear about who the customer should be. These strategic considerations are important, as not everyone can be everything to everyone. The second step is to understand the customers better. It is about their needs and how your service creates value by satisfying the specific needs of your target customers. Real conversations with real customers or even just observing them at the point of service delivery will provide a lot of information for initial improvement. Later, tools (feedback management, surveys, CRM) can help to systematise learning and improve the use of data. The willingness to learn from the customer is the prerequisite, not a technical device or process.

To understand customers beyond their shopping behaviour, surveys are a great starting point. Using analytics approaches like conjoint analysis and psychographic profiling, one can try to understand what really matters to each customer.

When mapping the customer journey, it's important to remember two points: 1 - Design the appropriate experience for each stage of the customer journey 2 - Design a 'bridge' to move the customer as seamlessly as possible to the next stage of the customer journey The second point is often overlooked. It's important to remember that this IS a customer JOURNEY. They are taking a specific path to purchase a product, and it's your job to create experiences that shepherd the customer through the process.

Once the customer journey has been mapped, businesses should then consider ways to optimize the customer experience. This could include streamlining the checkout process, improving website navigation, or enhancing customer service channels. By making these improvements, businesses can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, ultimately leading to increased revenue and growth. In today's competitive business landscape, mapping a customer journey has become an essential tool for success. By understanding the various touchpoints and interactions that a customer has with a company, businesses can optimize the customer experience, improve overall satisfaction, and ultimately drive growth and success.

Hyper segmentation is possible with the right platform, and that platform should be sophisticated enough to help you deliver the message at the right times. A manual way to do this is by exporting data that shows you the purchases by the hour and by the day. Then you can schedule messages in advance of those days and times knowing most people open an SMS message within 24 hours and Email in about 1-3 days. Time it right and pair it with content that is highly relevant for successful campaigns.

It is necessary to understand and overlay the customer's current context to her/his shopping behaviour history. The content and tone of the communication should reflect this reality. You can use campaign response modelling to understand which mediums are most preferred by customers and at what time - do they typically engage well on WhatsApp, and if it is shared between 6 to 7 pm when it comes to promo messages etc. One then needs to align the content, medium and time for a greater customer connect and engagement. This needs to be personalised for every single customer and interaction.

Personalised communication with millions of customers, based on their journey triggers, their context, medium of choice and preferred timings, requires 1. Significant analytics & computing power to understand what and when to communicate/offer 2. Ability to create personalised content at scale. With now ability to personalise not just text, but images, audio, image and videos, the underlying technology, available to deliver at scale is very important. Fortunately there are many SAAS / In-prem platform providers, who continue to build great capability to support such requirements.