Businesses in the current climate tend to isolate their departments and expect them all to function independently of one another. However, to be successful, departments need to find ways to work together in ways that will create a more streamlined customer experience.
This means that new ideas need to be tested, delivered backward and retested in order to create the ultimate in customer satisfaction. Many of the fundamental consumer engagement issues come down to dismissing the needs of the customer in an attempt to make the business itself function more smoothly, but in a competitive business market, nothing is more likely to result in lost profits. In the digital age, creating the personalised customer experience has never been more important or more complex.
The challenges of personalisation
There’s a sense that it used to be easier to create that personalised customer experience because businesses dealt with their customers on a regular, face-to-face basis. However, the fact is that customer experience has actually changed very little: it is merely the platforms that consumers use that have changed, with the integration of social media and email. This means that if you’re looking for ways to improve the customer experience, the fundamentals remain much the same. The only real difference is the matter of scale. For a business that covers a global or national customer base, the most consistent issue is treating customers as a similar entity, forgetting that they are individuals with needs and wants that require solutions.
Personalisation Solutions
The key to customer personalisation is a unified and coordinated approach that offers consistency in its approach to those all-important customer touch points, and that’s where technology can play a very beneficial role. Above all, consumers want to have choice, which should be the key to your customer personalisation strategy.
One of the most useful products that will aid a business in improving the customer experience is the Omnia SAP Customer Portal; this is because it allows for an entirely new level of interaction and response from your business response to customer interaction. Using weaveability.com to manage your SAP Portals, you are able to offer customers the personalised management of their accounts and purchases in the ways that they have come to expect. This can have a dramatic effect in terms of both customer loyalty and brand reputation, making it one of the more essential product suites available.
Furthermore, a simple customisation in emails and by actively responding to individuals over email or social media can make a world of difference. If it’s a customer’s birthday, send them a discount code that expires in 24 hours; if someone mentions you in a funny tweet, be sure to acknowledge it. Customisation and focusing on the customer experience has the ability to impress your demographic, but it could also make you viral.
In order to create a customer experience that is both personalised and seamless, it is essential that your business aims for a fusion of their clients’ needs with the best in technology. However, one of the easiest traps to fall into is to embrace new technology because it is there, rather than adopting its use for the benefits that it can provide your customers. It’s those customers that need to be at the center of every business decision, and only by doing so will you be able to fully customise their experience and satisfy their needs to the point that they will return on a consistent basis.