Why does personalization matter?
We’re in a universe that is shifting away from physically-based, intermediated interactions to digital channels and digital relationship-building. An essential component to good digital relationship-building and getting to relevance and trust is personalization. How do I parse the digital exhaust from this person interacting with me in digital channels in ways that are more value additive to them.
What is the opportunity of personalization
within financial services?
7-10X Differential in the value of deposits that are brought to institutions from a branch to those that come from digital.
Digital sales benchmarks show a differential of 7 to 10 times in the value of deposits that are brought to institutions from a branch to those that come from digital. That gulf points to the severity of the challenge and the height of opportunity. And it’s not just deposits. Digitally-acquired accounts are faster to run off and attrite and have shallower relationships.
How do you remedy the digital gulf?
In onboarding, early interactions are very critical. In a digital-first world, consumers are in the driver’s seat. Being able to be responsive to the tens of thousands of different paths in early relationships is increasingly important.
Why have personalization efforts failed to date?
The impact of personalization is potentially profound from a financial perspective, but the workflows drive you to points of diminishing return because they can be time and labor intensive.
At its core, personalization is a test-and-learn activity. We’re at a point in time where AI and machine learning is starting to disrupt and bring new modes of operating that take this paradigm and enable companies to move more quickly to rapidly test-and-learn. Moving to a place where you aren’t pre-engineering personalization and loading up platforms with content and stimuli that the platform can automatically test-and-learn at a microsegment level.
Traditional platforms assume a linear, narrow customer journey
Consumer Data
Create 5-8 Coarse Segments
Single Message Per Segment
Assumed Best Customer Journey
Run Campaign
What tips do you have for a practitioner starting
out on their personalization journey?
- PICK YOUR USE CASE WISELY.
Getting clear on the use case, the speed to impact and size of potential impact on an early use case can make all of the difference. There is a lot of experimentation around marginal edges. - GET CRISP WITH TEST DESIGN.
Just because you can test something, doesn’t mean you should. Test design is really important to getting personalization right out of the gate. - STAY TRUE TO YOUR BRAND.
Understand the pain points that you are best equipped to address and outperform on personalization and relevance.
