DAC was privileged to recently hold a Digital Roundtable at its Chicago Office, in which it had C-level executives from top organizations throughout the Chicagoland Area.
There were a number of different topics covered, but the main conversation was about how different organizations are engaging their customer and treating their customer in the ever-changing digital world. A consistent theme that kept on popping up, regardless of the organization or the industry they were in, was personalization and using data to make the customer experience more personalized. I won’t reveal anyone’s “secret sauce”, but some companies in some industries that you wouldn’t consider “digital savvy” are doing some pretty sophisticated things.
One thing that got me to thinking though, is the same personalization that is happening online, happening offline? And if it isn’t, I would argue companies are still missing out at providing a consistent consumer experience that is seamless regardless of the customer’s location, but providing a customer journey and a brand experience that is broken.
Take the following scenario: I buy suits from you online and you have all my data on file and use that data to send me emails about other suits, accessories for those suits, sale information on suits you think I might like, etc… Recently I started purchasing a suit online and then one day, I walk into one of your stores and I tell your sales associate who I am and I am met with a blank stare. The sales associate asks what I am interested in, what my sizes are, what suit style I am interested in, etc.… As a customer of yours, you have just broken your the customer journey to purchase.
To ensure a consistent and complete brand experience and consumer journey to purchase, the same attention and personalization applied to the online portion of the consumer journey, should be applied to the Offline portion of the consumer journey. As a brand, you don’t know exactly where or when I am going to convert, so unless you provide a seamless experience regardless of where I am or when I am there, you risk losing a purchase.
As online becomes a bigger part of the consumer journey, brands cannot forget that a majority of consumers still complete the consumer journey offline. Providing a seamless experience shouldn’t just apply to different devices someone uses to convert, but should also apply to the different methods they use to convert.
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