Loyal and returning customers are always the best customers. They are better for your bottom line and overall company growth. For this reason alone, e-commerce businesses must be competitive in offering the best customer experience to their new and returning customers through e-commerce personalization.
Personalization offers tailored experiences to visitors. And this improved customer experience can encourage long-term interactions with returning customers, triggering brand loyalty. With that, let’s find out how e-commerce personalization can drive customer loyalty and make a ripple effect to increase revenue, improve customer satisfaction, and promote brand recall.
E-commerce personalization is the overall practice of building a tailored experience for customers. It can be through creating content, improving user navigation, or building campaigns based on the buyer’s data, such as demographics, geographic location, buying intent, browsing history, recent purchases, wishlist, and device used.
In a sense, e-commerce personalization is more than just offering a product or service to a certain user. It’s the combination of all e-commerce personalization tools, efforts, and strategies to provide holistic experiences and meet the desires and preferences of customers.
Personalization and customization in e-commerce both offer multiple benefits in improving customer satisfaction and increasing revenue. However, the two processes are not exactly the same. Personalization is not synonymous with customization. Today, many e-commerce companies still don’t know the difference between the two, which is a big problem if one wants to target new users and retain loyal customers.
Knowing the difference between personalization and customization will help you use them at the right place and for the right audience. That’s why it’s important to know the difference when you aim to meet users’ preferences and expectations.
As mentioned before, e-commerce personalization is a business’ combined techniques to offer the best user experience. Customization, meanwhile, is more user-specific. It is an option for the user to prescribe a particular feature of a product or service based on design or functionality. It can then affect the e-commerce site’s content, types of display, and search settings based on what the user intends to see.
As mentioned before, e-commerce personalization is a business’ combined techniques to offer the best user experience. Customization, meanwhile, is more user-specific. It is an option for the user to prescribe a particular feature of a product or service based on design or functionality. It can then affect the e-commerce site’s content, types of display, and search settings based on what the user intends to see. Customization is solely driven by the user. The e-commerce website or business will only provide a framework or structure, then it will be up to the user to execute changes to the product or service.
Since customization is a user-driven process, it does have its limitations when it comes to offering the best browsing and shopping experience. It requires a set of actions from the users, such as creating optimizations or filtering content, so users need to offer extra time and effort to find what they’re looking for and finalize their decisions. This, however, is not exactly a disadvantage. Personalization and customization in e-commerce are both useful tools. When used right, customization can further improve user experience and drive customer loyalty alongside personalization.
Given this, there’s no denying that personalization can help e-commerce target and retain customers over and over again. And here are the different ways personalization does it:
Personalization is now part of every modern, secure, and responsive website. And all users and customers today know that. If an e-commerce site can offer superior or noticeable personalization, users already know that this certain business is trustworthy. Traditional methods of engaging with new and loyal customers, where data is kept in one system or program, cannot adequately deliver the personalization, transparency, and responsiveness customers demand today.
E-commerce personalization tools are now much superior in understanding the buyer persona. Personalization allows the continuous and evolving use of customers’ data every time they visit. So, while legitimacy and responsiveness are big factors to consider, most customers understand that personalization using their personal data is a key to a modern, omnichannel world where everybody gets what they want.
Returning and loyal users find comfort and familiarity with consistency. They want an e-commerce business that can always deliver to meet their preferences and satisfy their demands, regardless of how often they purchase products and services from certain e-commerce businesses.
E-commerce personalization can improve customer interactions and build a seamless and consistent experience for all customers. When these customers start to enjoy and become familiar with what you offer, it will improve trust and loyalty.
E-commerce personalization offers many benefits to new and loyal customers—with more emphasis on the latter. It subtly tells that loyal and returning customers can get more benefits when it comes to deals, loyalty programs, incentives, and other promotions.
Delivering personalization to new users increases trust since it fosters an emotional bond that can lead to new users returning to purchase more products or services. On other hand, delivering personalization to loyal customers strengthens brand loyalty and trust. It can send a message to returning customers that they are relevant and important to the business, so they will get a consistent premium treatment every time they visit the store.
The benefits of personalization to e-commerce can both be felt by new and returning or loyal customers, so it simultaneously defines and closes the gap between the two.
Cart abandonment rate in e-commerce is a crucial part of brand loyalty. Loyal customers can always return to your site, but their loyalty cannot guarantee the decrease of your cart abandonment rate. They can always postpone their purchases or change their decisions.
This is where e-commerce personalization comes into play. E-commerce personalization is one way to tackle your store’s cart abandonment rate. When you provide a personalized offer to a returning customer, you can entice them to finalize their decisions and fulfill their current order. This also works for other user actions and micro-conversion processes, such as signing up for a newsletter, getting a subscription promo, or liking a business page.
E-commerce personalization can efficiently drive brand loyalty in a certain group through geo-location targeting or location-based marketing. It can help divide the users you aim to target based on location and further personalize their experiences by showing relevant options and offers to groups with different preferences and persona.
As such, e-commerce businesses must prioritize the importance of brand loyalty when driving profit. And of course, one way to do that is to invest in e-commerce personalization. Here are some of the best personalization strategies that you can use alongside your e-commerce personalization tools to increase brand loyalty:
While you can always give welcome presents to new customers, you should offer unique and systematic reward systems to loyal customers. Everybody loves presents, after all, especially if they are unique or personalized.
E-commerce brands and businesses with unique loyalty programs can build personalized offerings based on customer data alone. Loyalty programs can then serve as building blocks of brand loyalty.
Forge a bond with your client through personalized messaging and other e-commerce personalization tools. When you’re promoting your products and services through email marketing or encouraging a return customer to fulfill their orders on their carts, use a message that they can understand and connect with—like you actually know them personally.
Part of personalizing your message is your intent, tone of voice, and language, so make sure you carefully consider these factors, too. Each adds another layer to the message you want to tell your new and returning customers.
Data is the bloodline of your e-commerce personalization strategy. When gathered and used the right way, data can change the way you acquire new customers and retain returning customers. The more you know about your customers, the easier it is to give what they want.
Real-time data is the most powerful data you can use for active customers visiting your site, so make sure that you also use the right e-commerce personalization tools to get the data you need and execute the website elements you intend to offer. Find the right tools or software that fit your budget and satisfy your current personalization strategy.
Customers, new or returning, are always clear about their expectations when they visit a certain e-commerce site. So, e-commerce businesses must also be clear in introducing their brands, offering products and services, and providing user experience. E-commerce requires two-way communication from both parties to conduct a seamless transaction.
