Profiling isn’t an annoyance, it’s a way to get customers instantly on board
As brands start to take UI seriously, CX Lavender’s Anna Karena explains how when done correctly, utilising data on your customers can actually make them lifelong fans.
A few years ago, I had an online customer experience that really stayed with me. Clicking around the internet, I got lured by an ad for a nice little jumper onto a fashion retail website – a hub that brought hundreds of online retailers together in one glorious feed.
While registering, the first window asked for the usual stuff: (first name, surname, email). Then I clicked next.
Before we get to what happened, here’s a human analogy: When you meet someone – let’s assume they’re your type and you’re feeling attracted – what sort of experience on the first date makes you want to see them again? Or actually get smitten? A rant about themselves and their awesome virtues while you’re sitting there biting your nails? Or a genuine and deep interest, in you?
I believe that you-ism is one of the most flattering and alluring forces of the universe. The boy, who across a crowded room picks you out. The thought that someone out there simply can’t get you off their mind. I’m deeply in my love analogy here, but you-ism can turn just some guy into a potential father of your children. Similarly, with brands, a demonstration of you-ism can turn a new and unknown customer into an instant devotee for life.
How? The answer is back in the jumper I was buying that day. The customer experience was a brand opener with charm: A visual Q&A with you-ism flowing through its veins that went something like this:
“Do you like Isabel Marant?” it asked me, helping me visually with a Marant montage. “Tick/Cross?”
“Tick!”
“Do you like Asos? Barneys? Saks 5th Avenue? Versace? Sportsgirl?”
As I answered each question, a new one slid in. I felt them having an interest in my taste. I felt someone wanting to get to know me. I felt a surging sense of power. Did I feel the need to cut to the chase? Get to shopping faster? No. In fact, I think I stuck in for around 30 questions.
And when I finally clicked ‘go to feed’ and arrived in an online mall that only stocked everything I wear, I was more than on-board. I was in love.
Instantly, snackably, on board.
My jumper anecdote from years ago was the first time I was inspired by a concept I now dub ‘instantly on board’. Since then, I’ve noticed other big brands see the beauty of it, too.
Apple Music, Acorns – or Raiz Invest, as it’s now known – are both newer examples that begin the customer experience with finding out more about you, via a snackable UI, then delivering evolving personalisation from the moment the curtain raises.
Customer profiling is a passion of mine, because it is the bridge between the data we collect, and the customer’s service experience of it.
However, the customer profiling of old, especially in collecting customer-volunteered data, was a bad customer experience.
Today, we have the power to collect volunteered data in exciting new ways.
My phone scans my face and knows who I am.
Imagine if my telco or bank or any other brand I deal with could do that, too. And how instant the playback that’s all about me – and love affair – could be.
Anna Karena is chief creative officer at CX Lavender.
The difference is that the attractive person asking questions about you is likely to have some scruples, social decency and interest beyond your bank balance.
The profiling brand is of course, a psychopath trying to get its blood funnel into your wallet.
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