Are you being served?

What customers want and what businesses think they want are often two different things. Here’s what customers are looking for. Anyone who has gotten an unsolicited and irrelevant offer related to something they’ve done online knows that creepy feeling that someone is watching me. This kind of reaction is the third rail of today’s drive to personalize interactions with customers. To better understand what customers really value, we asked 60 shoppers to create mobile diaries of their personalized interactions with various brands over two weeks. With over 2,000 entries in total, we were able to see what kind of personalized communication works for customers and what doesn’t. 1. Give me relevant recommendations I wouldn’t have thought of myself. 2. Talk to me when I’m in shopping mode. 3. Remind me of things I want to know but might not be keeping track of. 4. Know me no matter where I interact with you. 5. Share the value in a way that’s meaningful to me.