It’s never too late to start personalisation, but the key to success is understanding why you’re starting. Very few retailers have done customer research to understand if personalisation is something their customers wanted – and what personalisation means to them. This can be critical in ensuring personalisation efforts are relevant and useful – not creepy or obtrusive, as well as shoring up the odds for success.

Please take a look at our top 10 takeaways from the discussion at our Connected Customer meeting about Personalisation:

1. Good personalisation should be “invisible”. If you’re too intrusive or imposing this could be seen as a negative by consumers.
2. Don’t personalise to the extreme that you don’t inspire anymore; personalisation to the consumer should be translated as “relevant to what I’ve done in the past but inspire what I might do in the future.
3. No one is championing personalisation and saying they’re fully immersed in it. Why is this? Lack of definition in the industry? Lack of data?
4. For some, personalisation doesn’t need to be 1:1 – it’s enough to address “group” factors.
5. You need someone focusing on personalisation full time to get the most from it!
6. Be careful with dynamic product carousels, these are proving to not be so effective. However real time personalisation/ suggestions is key.
7. Importance of customer privacy when serving browsing content e.g. pop ups.
8. Subscription model is the ultimate personalised experience.
9. Brands need to be better at communicating the benefits of the data exchange. As a customer, what’s in it for me? Personalisation has to be useful to the customer, not just the retailer.
10. Segmentation is still at early stages cost vs benefit of 1:1 personalisation is it worth it? Can anyone prove personalisation drives more profitable customers?