Accenture’s ‘Personalization Pulse’: Consumers Clamor For ‘4 Rs’
How does a company serve each and every consumer in a personal way without overwhelming?
How does a company serve each and every consumer in a personal way without overwhelming?
That question was a key driver for Accenture Interactive’s “Personalization Pulse Check 2016” report, based on a survey of more than 1,500 U.S. and U.K. consumers between the ages of 18 and 60. The study looked at their shopping behaviors to better understand which personalization tactics they value most.
The key finding: Consumers want to be recognized, remembered, and recommended to, and they want relevance.
“That’s what we call the 4R framework,” said Jeriad Zoghby, managing director and global lead of personalization and media optimization at Accenture. “If you think about your best experience when you’re at a coffee shop or a person cuts your hair or your dry cleaner’s, it’s that they recognize you when you walk in the door because you go there all the time. They remember your preferences without you having to remind them. And really good ones go beyond that by not just remembering what your preferences are but also understanding why you have those preferences.”
Accenture found that 56% of consumers are more likely to shop at a retailer online or in-store if the merchant recognizes them. Sixty-five percent said they are more likely to shop with a retailer that remembers their past purchases, and 58% said that recommendations of what to buy based on past purchases make them more likely to buy. Lastly, 65% said that they are more likely to buy from a retailer that sends them relevant and personalized promotions.
“Marketers say, ‘My digital channel is super-important to me, but it’s 5% to 15% of my business,’” Zoghby said. “But if they thought of it less as a channel and more as a store, the biggest store they have, they would be more successful.”
The study also found that while consumers are open to personalization, they have a number of conditions. First, they want transparency in how their data is used (70%). They also want control of their data (75%) and for their data to be used to serve them better (70%).