By learning customers’ preferences up front, brands can design a personalized experience that attracts the customers and makes it easier for them to buy.

In the last decade, customers have grown accustomed to high standards of user experience and convenience. And with that comes the real challenge of retaining them—customers are only loyal to brands that meet their needs and offer a personalized experience. Meeting those personalized expectations starts with understanding each customer, their needs, and their preferences. By learning customers’ preferences up front, brands can design experiences that attract the customers and makes it easier for them to buy what they like with minimal decision barriers.

Here’re a few numbers that explain the importance of personalized experiences. A Monetate survey says,

• 93 percent of brands with an advanced personalization strategy experienced revenue growth in 2018
• 77 percent of brands that exceeded their revenue goals had a documented personalization strategy in place
• 44 percent of customers said that they are likely to become repeat buyers after a personalized experience with a company
• 37 percent of customers will stop doing business with a brand that fails to offer a unique experience
• According to a Salesforce report*, 64 percent of brands are making personalized experiences their priority

Anticipate customers’ needs

According to Google data**, 84% of Americans are shopping for something in any given 48-hour period, and 63% of shopping now begins online. With COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across the U.S, online shopping has become more prevalent. Online eCommerce sites personalize customers’ experiences using browsing and search history. Every time a shopper visits an online store, the recommended products are more tailored to their past activities on the site. A personalized experience does not mean loading the customer with loads of product options. Rather, it is all about simplifying purchase decisions for customers.

Skeps uses its deep technology to help brands make credit accessible to all credit tiers (prime, near-prime, and subprime) in a highly targeted and personalized way. Using Skeps, brands can offer personalized loan options to their customers. This not only eases the checkout process but also decreases the cart abandonment rate.

Develop a relationship with customers

Understanding customers means seeing them as more than conversion targets. It is about knowing what they want and working on their pain points to offer goods and services that meet their needs. The most digitally savvy brands are learning this as directly as possible. Business-to-business (B-to-B) companies, for example, use feedback tools and mechanisms to understand brands’ unique needs from the very start of the relationship. They then use those insights to fuel their sales funnel and develop a more personal relationship with the brands. By leveraging customer insights brands can create a memorable experience that helps drive the kind of loyalty that gets customers coming back time and again.

Nurture customer relationships

Ultimately, a personalized experience is key to driving loyalty. BCG research^ states that brands that use advanced personalization methods have realized incremental revenue growth of 10 percent. As customers’ personalization expectations are rising at an unprecedented pace, companies like Skeps, have developed a product to help brands anticipate their customer’s needs and make personalized loan offers even before the customer thinks of buying something. With this kind of a targeted system, it is easier to unlock better retention and more loyalty. You can read more about the importance of upfront financing in our article.

Edge over competitors

Highly personalized experiences, when offered to millions of individual customers by using proprietary data, are difficult for competitors to imitate. When executed well, such unique experiences enable brands to differentiate themselves and gain a sustainable competitive advantage. Research by Mckinsey has shown that personalized experiences drive up customer loyalty and retention. And, a study^^ conducted by Bain & Company says, increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95%.

Getting started with personalized experiences

Given the potential impact of personalization, it makes sense for brands to begin their personalization efforts. Building the right strategy around personalization will help accelerate brands’ progress toward results: a more distinctive experience, better retention rates, greater customer loyalty, increased revenues, marked differentiation, and a sustainable business.

*Salesforce: State of Marketing – Insights and trends from 3500 global marketing leaders
**Think With Google: How search enables people to create a unique path to purchase
^ BCG: The Next Level of Personalization in Retail
^^HBR: The Value of Keeping the Right Customers