Personalization and targeted messaging are powerful. The future of mailed communications lies in organizations’ ability to message individual customers using known or inferred information. Statistics from studies and surveys consistently show positive effects from personalized communication. Marketers report measurable lifts in response because of personalization, reducing customer acquisition costs by as much as 50%. Consumers buy more often from businesses that communicate with them on a personal level.
The benefits of personalization are clear, but companies seeking to capitalize on the strategy assume some risk. Personalization gone bad can have swift and severe effects.
In one study, 98% of consumers said incomplete or incorrect content dissuaded them from completing a purchase. According to Salesforce, 65% of B2B buyers say they are likely to switch if brands don’t personalize their communications.
Have You Made These Mistakes?
Challenges with generating personalized customer communications have plagued businesses for decades. Incomplete testing or inadequate data quality practices can cause production of customer-facing documents that lack personalized elements, are formatted incorrectly, or include entirely wrong information. Faulty data can produce stunningly embarrassing documents
Common errors include:
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Failing to program default values or behaviors if data is missing
- Dear ‹CUSTOMERNAME› , We’re thrilled you’ve put your trust in our company…
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Name format inconsistencies (first and last names)
- As a loyal customer Smith, John A. is entitled to exclusive discounts
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Name format inconsistencies (capitalization)
- Great news! We are inviting the entire Mcdonald family to a special event
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Geographic errors (purchase location and current address mismatch)
- Drop your car at our convenient service center! (mailed to customers now living out of the market area)
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Inappropriate images
- Postcards featuring photos of young families mailed to senior citizens
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Merging and matching mistakes
- Missing information or insufficient matching criteria (such as matching on surnames only) causes data from unrelated customers to be merged. Privacy issues ensue.
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Language errors
- Spanish language letters sent to English-speaking customers
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Multiple address field mix-ups
- Property taxes based on owner mailing address instead of property address
Mailers make all the mistakes listed above. Many incidents are reported in the news media causing embarrassment, customer backlash, and financial impacts to the businesses whose customers were affected.
Multi-Channel Can Make it Worse
Electronic messaging hasn’t eliminated communication problems caused by improper personalization. Sometimes, the risks are even greater. Companies feel their internal resources can produce customer email, for instance. Email tools with personalization features are easily acquired and simple to use. Unfortunately, staff people lack experience with bulk messaging and data manipulation. They bypass testing and quality control procedures document professionals typically apply before hitting the “send” button and mistakes are instantly delivered to customer inboxes.
We live in a data-driven society. Customer expectations about personal relationships have never been higher and fulfilling those demands should be near the top of the list as you position your company against your competition. Some companies are taking on responsibilities for data quality themselves and others are outsourcing these tasks to specialists. Either way, you must review and test the data driving your customer communications before you release the documents for delivery.
With our new workflow tools, Shelton Connect can help you with these tasks. You’ll experience more visibility into the process than ever before, allowing you to preview documents and distribute them only when you are satisfied with the quality. Contact us to find out how this works.
Take advantage of the benefits message personalization provides, but invest in data quality software and staff to ensure accurate results. If you don’t have the tools and resources, outsource the work to data quality service providers and use Shelton Connect to produce your content. We can evaluate your data and exercise the safeguards necessary to avoid costly mistakes.