Customisation makes you feel empowered...

Customisation has really taken new roads today. From getting options in car colours (either a white or a black ambassador car in India) to designing clothes that fit your body scan, customisation has really come a long way. I was browsing through an article recently that got me interested in this space. Firms are taking the age old adage “Customer is the king” rather seriously.

Take Starbucks for instance, the global coffee maker brand has a website where you can make you own flavoured coffee (virtually of course!) from scratch. So right from selecting the fat content in the milk, to the coffee flavours, to the whipped crème option you can choose your flavour from over 5-7 choices at a time on the screen. While this engages the customer more as he/she finds it endearing that their ‘round-the-corner-coffee-shop’ is taking that much interest in their choice, it helps Starbucks in knowing their customer better.

It reduces that distance between their target audience and their brand. Their customer feels privileged to have been given the choice to make his/her own coffee (sounds so lame right, and still we walk right into the trap!) while Starbucks gets the relevant and priceless data on their customers. They know which flavours are demanded more across markets and which combination works best for a majority. Currently they did not ask for my demographic details such as age, location, etc. But these would also help them identify the best possible combination across segments.

Customisation analytics is a big field today. Companies are all for getting to know their customer better and quicker than their competition. In today’s world the customer, knows what’s being offered across the globe by a particular brand, is very hard to please and to retain. The concept of loyalty is fast losing ground. There exist firms offering better (maybe?) and cheaper options to any brand, delivering anytime, anywhere. There are options available and nothing is indispensible. Customers are well educated because of the social media connect and reach. They already know of the models old and to be launched and have read/heard of their reviews that have already prejudiced their minds.

So what should a company do to retain their customers? The (not-so) simple answer would be to design a customisation program.

·         Identify and highlight the USP of their product

·         Get to know their customer better through constant interaction

·         Make the customer feel involved in the decision making process

·         Reach the customer either directly or through the supply chain links; and of course be better at this than your competition

Starbucks is doing this so are other global brands. And it’s a win-win for both the firms as well as the customers; both not only get what they want but also feel empowered.