[ P E R S O N A L I S AT I O N ]
THE FOCUS
OF THE
COMMUNICATION,
HE SAYS, MUST BE
ON THE CUSTOMER –
AND NOT ON
THE PRODUCT.
Using its My Starbucks Rewards programme as
the vehicle – the company reported the programme
had grown 28% year-on-year to 10.4 million
members in the US alone in the last quarter of 2015
– Starbucks has purchased sophisticated new digital
technology, including an app, with the objective of
achieving unprecedented levels of personalisation
when it comes to talking to members.
Among other things, the technology allows the
company to communicate with customers when
they visit a Starbucks outlet. Messages are based
on what it already knows about their preferences
and interests. The company im mediately provides
customers with relevant recommendations
(essentially, upselling) and, as appropriate,
incentivised offers. The idea, says Starbucks, is
to “catch customers in the moment” with more
targeted and personalised communication. The
technology is also designed to help Starbucks
manage its offers more economically.
One of the challenges of amassing data via
loyalty programmes is the complexity of the
information and how to use it effectively to
advance personalisation.
The good news, says Burnstone, is that while
brand managers of the future certainly will
need to rely on large amounts of data – collected
via surveys, questions or behavioural analysis –
the kinds of tools available these days make it easier
68 R E WA R D S & L O YA LT Y S A
to interpret this information. More challenging,
he says, is to get marketing teams to change the
way they view and use loyalty programmes.
Traditional marketing methods, such as
sending out mass messages in once-off campaigns,
will no longer do. Instead, messages need to be
tailored to each particular customer using regular
communication. In doing so, it is more important
to have relevant content than to have great
looking imagery alone.
Burnstone points out that when information
in marketing campaigns is relevant and content
informative, the response from customers is
six times greater than when information is not
targeted and irrelevant. Response is rated at just
1.35 when only images are used without call-to-
action messaging.
The focus of the communication, he says, must
be on the customer – and not on the product. This
is all the more important with almost a third of the
population made up of millennials who, unlike older
generations, expect brands to interact with them.
“Younger consumers really do not want to be
spammed, and if you do start spamming your
consumers, it’s going to switch them off,” says
Burnstone. “But what they are interested in is
relevant content. Why? Because they are a lot
more free with their personal information, and
there’s a natural expectancy that you are going to
communicate with them in a relevant way.”
He singles out Discovery Health’s Vitality as a
good example of a loyalty programme that uses
data effectively. It helps for efficacy that, in the
insurance company’s case, building connections
using the data available simply called for the
credit division of the business to share information
with the health division.
BRAND MANAGERS
SHOULD TAKE NOTE
OF WHEN CUSTOMERS
DON’T RESPOND TO
THINGS SUCH AS
SPECIAL OFFERS.
But, says Burnstone, regardless of how easy –
or not – it might be to access data, personalisation
can never be a substitute for a good product.
What’s more, an important part of offering a
good personalised experience includes responding
to complaints and ensuring that they are dealt
with in ways that make customers feel that
they matter.
In personalising rewards, he says, brand
managers should also take note of when customers
don’t respond to things such as special offers.
“If you send out special offers and your customers
never take them up, you should learn from that,”
he says. “Instead of stepping back and looking
closely at why there’s no response, companies
often communicate with greater intensity and
send more messages. This is a certain way of
alienating customers.”
When it comes to legal issues over privacy,
Burnstone says while the Protection of Personal
Information Act hasn’t yet come into effect, many
companies are readying themselves to comply. The
act specifies that customers must approve how and
what organisations choose to communicate with
them. Even so, he says, with increasing amounts
of personal information being made available,
companies are likely to be faced with plenty of tough
questions in the future around what constitutes
relevant content and what can be construed as
behavioural manipulation or the abuse of privacy.
Ultimately, when it comes to personalisation,
companies simply need to get some of the basics
right: “These include effecting culture change,
creating a single customer view with your data
sets and executing campaigns in a more efficient
manner,” says Burnstone. “It takes effort, but it’s not
an impossible dream.” ■
GETTING
PERSONALISATION
RIGHT
1
2
Know your audience. Personalisation
starts with segmentation, but
individual customer insight is at the
heart of a personalised approach.
Learn from messages that are
ignored. If customers fail to
respond to certain information, do
not continue bombarding them with more of
the same. Examine preferences and tailor
future communication accordingly.
3
Reveal relevance immediately. Do
not risk eliciting a, “Why are you
sending me this?” question from
customers. Show customers why your
communication is relevant to them instantly.
4
Instil trust. Be mindful about
how you use your customers’
information when communicating
with them. Personalisation can be an
effective tool to build engagement, but do
not risk invading your customers’ privacy.
Source: www.mycustomer.com
Relevancy then, says Burnstone, is the “holy
grail” of loyalty programmes. It will help customers
bond with the brand – without them feeling like
the messages and rewards are akin to spam.
The problem, he says, is that programme
organisers are often so busy keeping clients
engaged and recruiting new members that they
do not have the time or resources to achieve the
real value of personalisation.
As such, for some organisations, personalisation
remains limited to the circulation of personally
addressed monthly newsletters to members of
loyalty programmes. Others, however, are investing
heavily in the prowess of personalisation, among
them coffee giant Starbucks.