Personalisation in 2021: Retailers & experts weigh in on how to tackle this opportunity

Personalisation is a hot topic for many businesses right now, but there is still some uncertainty around what customers expect and when they feel it is invasive. To help shed light on this increasingly important topic, we ran a virtual panel session with Alex Dinsdale, Head of Digital Product at Sweaty Betty, Nino Bergfeld, Director of Retail Advisory at Salesforce, Aimee Hart, Strategy and Engagement Lead at Tryzens and Dan Jindal at Internet Retailing as host, to talk all things personalisation.

Armed with insights from Tryzens’ latest consumer research, and examples based on their own experiences, our panel talked about the challenges and opportunities around personalisation and how brands can tackle them.

We’ve highlighted some of the key themes that developed through the conversation below but you can hear from the experts first-hand through the recording of this session.

Data data data…

It’s important to remember that personalisation is a journey not a sprint and when you start on your journey, you should consider distilling the customer data you have so it doesn’t feel overwhelming at the offset. You need to develop a framework that takes into account your business vision, goals and audiences to help you identify where personalisation experience is needed most within each stage of the customer journey.

The customer journey

Personalisation has evolved far beyond personalising an email or product feed for your customers. Now there is an expectation that you should consider the complete customer journey – from awareness to purchase and loyalty – and personalise their experience at each touchpoint so your brand is as relevant and useful to them at each stage. By doing this you’re giving your customer a connected and seamless experience that will leave them feeling great about your brand.

Find the journey that best fits your brand story

Retailers are finding ways to deliver the same value and experience you would deliver in-store to help build customer relationships.

Brands like Sweaty Betty are building experiences like their ‘Leggings Quiz’ to better understand new customers and then use these insights to guide their first purchase, and recommend the right products, at the right time.

The intelligence that is gathered at different touchpoints also helps Sweaty Betty go the extra mile in delivering a first-class personalised experience across the customer journey as well as being more proactive in their customer support and aftercare.

Getting to the crux of all your data and using it in a meaningful way doesn’t have to be complicated. As an example, Sweaty Betty are using Salesforce’s Einstein AI technology to increase new customer conversion during sale. By using a predictive sorting functionality that takes into account stock, sales velocity and conversion rate of specific products, they can personalise what these customers see to increase their chance of conversion.

Transparency is key

Customers are increasingly savvy and more cautious about how their data is used or what they’ve been opted into. Tryzens latest consumer research shows that only 16% of consumers were happy to share browsing data, which speaks to their need to be in control.

To counter this, brands need to be as transparent as possible in their copy and really demonstrate the value it will drive for the customer in the long-term.

More importantly, brands should give customers the control to withdraw their data at any point or turn-off profiling on certain experiences.