The ultimate guide to creating personal experiences for your customers

The way organizations address and engage their audiences is critical to how they're perceived. Delivering personalized experiences is key to building customer loyalty, standing out, and boosting engagement. When a brand tailors its approach, customers feel valued, leading to higher satisfaction and better long-term relationships. Personalization also offers insights for future strategies, creating a stronger connection between the brand and its audience.

What is a personal experience?  

A personal experience is unique to an individual and can involve any kind of interaction or activity. In business, 'personal experience' often means 'personalized experience,' tailored by an organization to fit an individual's circumstances, preferences, and expectations.

Personal experiences differ from impersonal ones, where individuals aren't addressed based on unique traits. Most marketing falls in between, targeting audience segments with shared characteristics instead of treating each person differently.

Why is personal experience important for customers? 

Customers value personalization. A GBH Insights/Epsilon study found that 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences. What’s true of consumers is also borne out in the B2B sphere.

According to Salesforce research, three-quarters of business buyers expect the companies they purchase from to provide a personalized experience.   

Looking more closely at why customers feel this way, here are six primary reasons.

1. Humans seek validation 

Personal wellbeing is rooted in society's affirmation of individuality. Validation meets our basic need for acceptance and connection, crucial for emotional and mental health. It helps people feel seen and accepted, boosting self-esteem and reinforcing belonging.

2. Repeating yourself is exhausting 

Repeating information often leads to frustration and inefficiency, wasting valuable time in B2B. This disorganization can weaken customer relationships and cause dissatisfaction.

Systems that communicate effectively reduce friction for customers and prospects. For example, if your website offers relevant content at the right time, customers are happier and more engaged than if they have to search for it.

3. A personalized address will grab attention

Receiving generic communications like "Homeowner" or "Dear Customer" suggests the message isn't tailored to you. With so many communications, it's important to prioritize what deserves attention.

Generic messages rarely meet individual needs. Personalized offers can help customers focus on relevant messages amidst the noise. 

4. Personalization builds trust

A personal experience is positive when it aligns with individual wants and needs. Organizations can create a seamless brand experience through numerous 'micro-experiences'—small engagements and interactions.

Once trust is established, customers are more likely to try new products, enhancing retention rates. It's crucial that personalized experiences evolve as customers change to maintain this cycle.

5. There’s a clear purpose for giving up your data 

Consumers easily understand that brands can offer personalized experiences by using personal data. A common example is receiving targeted offers on social media based on recent online behavior.

Many customers reluctantly accept this, feeling uneasy about sharing personal data it's unless justified. According to Accenture, 83% of consumers are willing to share data for a personalized experience. Brands can alleviate concerns by showing their commitment to delivering valuable personal experiences in exchange for data.

6. Upfront reassurance in case something goes wrong 

Hearing personal stories about experiences can be enlightening. People often praise great customer service for its attentiveness and thoughtfulness. However, the most impactful stories often involve customers who initially felt anxious about a purchase or service.

Imagine how you'd feel after a personal connection in scenarios like your first nervous flight, visiting a new restaurant with serious food allergies, or taking out a mortgage for the first time. Consider how likely you'd be to return and share your experience.

How to offer a personalized experience 

A concerted and strategic attempt to deliver good, personalized experiences requires some planning. Here's what you should consider when going about creating personal experiences for your customers. 

1. Put aside time and budget 

Understand that personal experiences go beyond simply being thoughtful and nice to customers—they require time and money to implement. The goal is to create a perception that your business is entirely customer-focused and can deliver this commitment consistently to all customers.

2. Personalization is about anticipation 

Brands can anticipate the customer journey, allowing them to manage planned steps and unexpected events. This creates a foundation for delivering personalized experiences by leveraging an understanding of the overall customer journey and individual insights to make each experience unique.

3. Personal experiences start with personal data 

Customers should be treated as individuals with specific needs and preferences. Before you get to that point, establish your foundations with the basic data you’ll need to personalize their experience with you. 

Then set an objective to get to know individual customers better than just the personal data you can easily harvest. For example, for B2B customers, find our what their deadlines and internal processes are around procurement.

4. Harness digital technology 

Get to grips with all the digital channels and touchpoints available to you. Stay abreast of technologies like augmented reality, artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies.

Examine opportunities around data analytics too, using historic customer behavior patterns – for example – to come up with personalized recommendations.  

5. Develop a customer-centric culture 

Make personal customer experiences the responsibility of everyone in your organization and truly customer at the center of everything. There are two main threads to this:  

• Start by conducting a comprehensive review of the customer journey, using customer journey maps to visualize and detail each point of customer interaction. These points of contact are your opportunities to influence the personal experience.   

• Help your team understand the importance of personal experiences, reward their achievements, and encourage contributions to best practices. Training is crucial, especially on collecting customer data to improve personal experiences.

6. Become a beacon of exceptional customer service 

Customer service greatly influences personal experience. Dealing with support can be stressful if you have to repeat yourself or aren’t treated individually. It's a make-or-break moment affecting whether a customer stays loyal or goes elsewhere based on the personalized experience provided.

7. Measure customer metrics 

To provide a good personal experience, listen to feedback on the experience you're offering. Collecting regular customer metrics through surveys is fast, accurate, and efficient. You can measure things like:

• How satisfied customers are with a specific aspect of their experience 

• How satisfied customers are to see trends over time and map them against drivers influencing them 

• How much effort customers have had to go to in order to complete an action 

• How likely customers are to recommend you through metrics like NPS (Net Promoter Score)

Metrics are useful since they spare customers from lengthy questionnaires. Long surveys reduce the personal experience and are often ignored or deleted. Simple one-click surveys with just one question can achieve higher response rates.

8. Continuously collect and act upon customer feedback 

Collecting diverse customer feedback throughout the journey is crucial alongside metrics. Fresh feedback reveals current strengths, weaknesses, and preferences. The aim is to act on this information, either by addressing immediate issues for a personal experience or using it to shape future developments. Feedback should be continuous, as people, products, and contexts evolve.

The use of business email for personalized customer experiences 

There's an important distinction here between business emails—those exchanged between individuals—and marketing emails, which are promotional. According to MailChimp, the average open rate in email campaigns is 21%. We know that click rates are far lower, at just 2.5%, so the amount of emails being physically read probably sits somewhere between those figures.

Now consider business email; perhaps someone at a company replying to an emailed customer enquiry. The chances of that email being opened are close to 100%, the chances of it being read must surely be around the same level.   

Many marketers are tackling this imbalance by exploring the potential of blending business emails with customers’ personal experiences. They do this by using the email signatures of company employees and associates to ensure a smooth customer brand experience. Specifically:

1. Ensuring email signatures consistently reflect branding and messaging across the organization. Employees should not use outdated logos or ones that are incorrectly sized, misshapen, or do not display properly on all customer email clients and platforms.  

   
   

2. Using the ‘real estate’ of the email signature space (or email footer) to communicate pertinent marketing banner promotions and calls to action. 

   
   

3. Using segmentation data to include different signature campaigns in email signatures based on the sender and recipient of the business emails. 

   
   

4. Embedding features like customer feedback surveys and response icons in email signatures to gather fresh, relevant, and trusted customer insights.

By using business email, organizations can stand out in their market, leveraging every channel to create consistent, responsive, and personalized customer experiences.

Create personal experiences with email signature software

Email signature software like Exclaimer ensures your business emails are consistent, professional and always on-brand. By creating standardized email signatures for all employees to use, you can deliver an improved customer experience that meets expectations.

Features such as banner campaigns let you tailor marketing messages to specific audience segments based on data gathered from the recipient’s details stored in your CRM system. For example, promotions targeted at a particular industry or geographic location – or both.

You can also gain feedback through email signatures using one-click surveys and response icons, using Net Promoter Score (NPS) functionality, too. This feature lets employees send custom messages to customers inviting them to rate their service experience. This is a scalable, efficient and automated way to gain customer insights.

Start crafting personalized experiences for your customers with Exclaimer and explore our email signature management platform with an online demo.