Putting the "Personal" in Personalization

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”?Maya Angelou

Joe was our most loyal customer. He came to Canada in the mid 1940s along with many of his fellow Ukrainians fleeing the Soviet occupation of Ukraine. He eventually settled in an industrial neighborhood just northwest of Toronto in the nineties where my family owned a little convenience store. As a young teenager at the time, my first job was working at my parents' store. My younger brother and I worked there every day after school and on weekends – it was part of our chores. We’d stock shelves, mop the floors, and eventually run the cash register to serve customers when we were old enough, which according to our dad, was fourteen years old. If you’ve ever seen the CBC television show Kim’s Convenience, a show about an immigrant Korean-Canadian family running a convenience store in Toronto, it would be an eerily accurate depiction of our life growing up (seriously!).

Our customers were a colorful bunch, worthy of being characters on a television show in their own right. They spanned a wide range of personas from the loitering disgruntled teens to the compulsive lotto ticket gamblers looking to hit the big jackpot. And of course, we had our regulars who would just drop by to get their daily fix of cigarettes or snacks, or even just to shoot the breeze. One of those regulars was Joe.?

Joe would come to the store every day to buy a newspaper and whatever grocery list item he was checking off that day: milk, bread, the occasional candy bar. A few times a week, he’d play some sports lottery. He was a stout man in his seventies, with thinning white hair and an uncanny resemblance to Benny Hill, a popular British comedian from the eighties. When he came to the store during my shift, he’d always greet me with his signature raspy voice and broken English: “Hey Cho, it’s me Joe! Big game tonight?” (he found it quite amusing our names rhymed). He would ask what games were on that day that he could wager on. His favorite team was the Toronto Maple Leafs 一 as is mine 一 so we immediately bonded over the pain and disappointment of being a Leafs fan.

Whenever he’d visit, we’d scan the games of the day, scrutinize the Leafs latest performance, and play arm-chair coach about all the things the Leafs should be doing better. That became our thing. At Joe’s age, he had some vision problems, so I’d help him fill out those little bubbles on the lottery ticket. He’d call out the teams he wanted to bet on, and I’d fill in the bubbles on the lottery slip for him. Sometimes he’d ask me to pick the teams for him, but mostly he wanted to go for the improbable long shots. “Hey, you never know, eh?", he’d always say. "Why not?!" After selecting three or four teams, he’d place his usual modest $2 bet and mused how he’d split the winnings with me if he won.

Like clockwork, every single day he’d come to the store, buy a Toronto Sun newspaper and immediately pull out the sports section while discarding the rest of the paper like it was a candy wrapper (but not before checking out the daily Sunshine Girl 一 a full-page spread in the paper that featured a bikini-clad model 一 and giving me a sly smirk and a wink. Joe was like that). He’d make a beeline to the sports section to look up the scores from the previous night to see if he’d won. This was Joe’s daily routine. More often than not he didn’t win but it wasn’t about winning with Joe 一 it was more about the daily routine of getting out of the house and socializing with others. I had a distinct sense that his visits to the store were the highlights of his day. I knew he lived alone so I often wondered if the visits were one of the few opportunities he had to socialize with others.

One of the perks of owning a convenience store (other than unfettered access to junk food and literally eating the profits) was that the vendors we worked with would sometimes give us gifts as tokens of appreciation for being a loyal client. One time, our magazine vendor gifted us two tickets to a Leafs game at the historic Maple Leaf Gardens. Usually, my younger brother and I would leap at the chance to go, but we both had our own hockey games to play that night. However, I knew a certain someone who would love to go.

The next day when Joe came in, after commiserating about how badly the Leafs played, I asked if he would actually like to see how bad the Leafs were live and in person. As he chuckled, I offered him the two tickets to the Leafs game. I’m not sure if I can explain with words the expression I saw on Joe’s face, but it definitely contained a mixture of shock, confusion, but mostly joy. The only response he was able to mouth with his lips was “wow”. I found out later that he took his grandson to the hockey game. It would be the first time going to a Leafs game for both of them.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but my small daily interactions with Joe over all those years were building and deepening his loyalty to the store. So much so that he insisted his neighbors come to our store instead of the chain store that was located right next door to us in the same strip mall. He’d even stand outside the store and accost patrons walking towards the other store to come to ours. He was like one of those roadside sign-spinners, dancing and jumping around promoting our store. He was our biggest advocate.

Personalization isn’t simply about inserting a customer’s name in an email, recommending products or retargeting ads to them...it’s about transcending the transaction and making genuine and lasting connections with your customers.

As a marketer, this is the ultimate state of personalization and customer loyalty we strive for. That is, how to codify a capability that creates a kind of relationship that deeply understands customers, anticipates their needs, and connects them with the types of experiences that will wow them. Personalization isn’t simply about inserting a customer’s name in an email, recommending products or retargeting ads to them 一 those are transactional interactions. Instead, it’s about transcending the transaction and making genuine and lasting connections with your customers. It’s about delivering meaningful experiences that take into account who they are, what you know about them, and ultimately, solving for their unique individual needs. It’s not enough anymore to just provide a good product or service. What matters most of all is how you make your customers feel.?

That’s what happened with Joe. His experience visiting the store and having conversations about his passion for the Leafs connected that happiness with his experience in the store. And when that happiness was connected to the social interaction, it created an experience that Joe wanted to repeat over and over again.?

One day, Joe’s son came into the store to tell us that Joe had suddenly passed away. He mentioned how Joe would always talk about his visits to the store and the conversations he’d have with us. He felt like he almost knew us personally. We shared some fond memories and learned from his son just how much of a role we played in Joe’s daily life. He invited us to attend Joe’s funeral.

As we paid our respects, I remember seeing a collage of pictures framed in a giant gold-colored frame in the lobby of the funeral home. The pictures celebrated Joe’s life. There were a few black-and-white childhood photos of him; some were of Joe as a young handsome-looking man growing up in Ukraine; many were of him with his children and grandchildren. But the one prominently displayed at the center of the collage: a picture of Joe with his grandson wearing matching Maple Leafs jerseys at that Leafs game I gave him tickets to. According to his son, that was one of Joe’s favorite moments in his life.?

My motivation for writing these newsletters isn’t only about sharing my experiences in an attempt to help empower you to build better, more meaningful relationships with your customers 一 although I hope they will. My primary motivation is anchored in advocating for brands to create meaningful experiences for customers like Joe. As brands, we offer products and services to our customers which is why they seek you out in the first place. But it can – and should – be so much more than that. Because I believe every customer is truly a gift and brands have a responsibility to honor that privilege by providing the very best experience customers deserve.

Afterall, the story of any successful company – whether a start-up or an international conglomerate – starts with customers like Joe. Those first customers who take a chance on you. The ones who stick their neck out to vouch for you, give you honest feedback on how to improve, and tell all their friends how great you are.

When we take the time to truly understand someone's needs and preferences, we show them that they matter to us as individuals. And when we make that effort consistently over time, we create the kind of deep, lasting relationships that can transform our businesses and our lives. So let us embrace the power of personalization, not just as a tool for driving business, but as a way of building human connections that matter. Because when we do that, we tap into a force far more powerful than mere transactions: the power of empathy, compassion, and love. And in a world that often feels disconnected and cold, that kind of power is truly inspirational.

Louis Cho is a globally experienced Marketing, Data & Analytics, and Customer Experience Executive with 20+ years of experience in leveraging data, digital and technology to drive customer loyalty, engagement and growth.