KEY IDEA: Great brand experiences are about using tech, or digital innovations in general, to remove friction and exceed customer expectations but brands are failing to have a unique conversation with consumers.

Per Rob Maille, retailtouchpoints .

As more data becomes available, businesses across industries are leaning on customer insights to stay competitive. A major problem in this pursuit is that brands end up asking for too much information from customers — some of which is not relevant for personalizing the experience. Because of this, customers feel overwhelmed and in turn, brands likely aren’t getting the insights they need.

All too often brands struggle to differentiate what is and isn’t important to each kind of customer they may engage with. As a retailer, companies need to understand how to approach each engagement with a customer and how to prioritize the different ways we shop — from in-store to online to mobile to subscription services and beyond.

Another missing piece is that brands often fail to maximize on the opportunity to have a more unique, one-on-one conversation with their customer. This is a big miss because these kinds of exchanges make the shopping experience feel like a conversation with a trusted friend for the customer. This type of engagement builds trust in the brand, which keeps the customer coming back beyond just one purchase, while also opening the door to options the consumer may not have been thinking about.

Tailor Communications To Reach Very Different Shopper Groups

According to a study by Fluent Commerce The most traditional group was the Old Fashioned, 69% of whom prefer visiting physical stores. Members of this group — who are not necessarily older people — also are very open to interacting with retailers: 37% check their email three times a day, 27% read all of their emails from retailers and 69% have never cancelled a retail subscription.

Another archetype identified in the study is the Complainer, a tech-savvy shopper who is on the lookout for the best deal and will complain about bad experiences on social media. While 71% of this group still expresses a preference for email communications, their actions show that standard promotional strategies aren’t connecting with them:

• Only 33% admit to opening a retailer’s emails;
• Another 28% say that over 40% of retail emails they receive go directly to a spam folder; and
• 84% are willing to provide their real email at checkout, but 51% opt out immediately after receiving a discount or other incentive

The opposite of the Complainer is the Browser. More than one fifth (22%) of these shoppers receive over 30 retailer emails a week, and 25% open more than 40% of them. Retailers can effectively leverage this group’s high open rate by examining their other traits. For example, Browsers admit they often store items in their cart rather than checking out due to indecision, making abandoned cart emails especially effective at turning their visits into conversions.