CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT: THE GROWING NEED FOR PERSONALIZATION

With over 90 percent of today’s customers reporting they are more likely to interact with brands that recognize them and provide relevant offers or recommendations1, it is vital for businesses to implement a personalization strategy in order to remain competitive.

Gone are the days when simply placing a customer’s name on an otherwise generic sales or marketing email suffices as a personalization strategy. The modern customer expects brands to provide highly relevant engagement and offers that account for who they are, what they need, and when they need it. In fact, more than 74 percent of customers are frustrated by receiving irrelevant, impersonal content.2  For companies that wish to survive in today’s aggressive economy, it’s all about engaging the right customer with the right message or offer, at the right time.

Benefits of personalizing engagement

By collecting and interpreting data and insights about customers’ behaviors, circumstances, and preferences, businesses can anticipate what their customers need in order to deliver tailored engagement and offers at precisely the right moment. For instance, displaying an ad or sending a retargeting email to a prospect who recently searched for a related product or service. Personalizing engagement helps not only attract more qualified leads who are more likely to complete an initial sale, but increases overall conversion rates while improving the ROI of marketing and sales efforts.

Furthermore, by tracking every interaction a customer has with the business and what their preferences and needs are, companies can provide customers with individually tailored recommendations and services – from product or service add-ons that can address additional concerns, to proactive service that identifies and resolves issues before a customer even has to ask for help. All of this helps to secure ongoing customer relationships that keep them feeling satisfied and valued, and most importantly, keeps them coming back.

As 44 percent of customers report they are more likely to repeat business with a brand that provides a personalized experience,3 it’s clearly worth the extra effort to implement an individually-tailored customer engagement strategy.

To learn more about the importance of data-driven customer engagement, read the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights e-Book developed by Cadence Preferred, “Digitally Transforming Customer Experiences.”