Companies can increase revenue with personalised communication that creates exceptional customer experiences

Read the original Danish article by Christian Bartels in Børsen here. 

Almost two-thirds of consumers expect personalised communication from the companies they buy from. That’s why experts want companies with first-party data to personalise communication with customers. If they manage to create a good customer experience, the business potential increases significantly.

Many companies use the latest marketing technology to communicate with customers and consumers. But few master the art of automating and personalising this communication across channels and at scale. And because they don’t do it, they miss out on great commercial potential, says Emre Gürsoy, CEO of Agillic.

“The potential in personalising the customer experience is impressive. But if you need to personalise the customer experience across channels in real time, it’s physically impossible for the marketing department to deliver that manually. Therefore, companies will have to use technology to help them reach even more customers,” Emre says. 

He continues, “By automating personalised messages, you can reach your customers with the most relevant communication. At the same time, automation can free up resources for better strategic planning and creating content that creates increased growth and turnover.” 

Many companies don’t get enough

According to a study by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Agillic, only 20% of European companies can be classified as “leaders” in the discipline of personalising and automating tailored communications to customers.

This means that up to 80% of European companies are not yet positioned to get the full benefit from their technology. 

It’s basically about optimising the customer experience and thus maximising the commercial potential. For this, you use an omnichannel marketing automation platform or a Cross-Channel Marketing Hub (CCMH). These are software systems that collect, sort and systematise, for example, first-party data across platforms, channels and customers. 

By putting data together, accurate insights into consumer behaviour can be extracted. The more insights, the better opportunities to know when to present them with which message. These messages are put together by marketing based on insights from the company’s functions and gain scale when technology accelerates the process.

It doesn’t have to be a steep learning curve

With the right software, marketers can accurately control how the company hits the individual customer with personalised communication — communication that is experienced as meaningful and relevant to the customer and should preferably result in increased loyalty or consumption.

Add to this equation the software’s ability to automate the processes, and you have a platform that enables you to reach an audience of millions with individual, tailored messages. The endless possibilities of technology are possibly what keep companies from buying and putting effort into using them. 

Emre Gürsoy says, “It requires a lot of resources to purchase and start using modern software, which is still developing, to carry out automated and personalised communication. Many may not realise the full potential. At the same time, the market is characterised by complex systems that take time to learn how to use fully — that’s why we at Agillic work to simplify and consolidate the technology behind the customer experience in one platform with fast time to value.” 

Customers want personalised communication

It’s no secret that consumers expect or even demand customer experiences in the form of personalised communication.

In a study by the consulting house McKinsey, more than two-thirds of the consumers questioned expressed that they expect personalised communication from the brands they do business with. And 76% of consumers say that they become frustrated when they find that the communication isn’t relevant to them.

Later in the survey, three-quarters say that the right communication has made them reconsider buying from the brand. This is because tailored communication works as a way of awakening brand preferences among consumers.

The right setup increases revenue 

Overall, Agillic’s CEO believes that with a fully developed and implemented marketing automation solution, you should be able to recover approximately 25-30% of revenue from the software. A claim backed up by another study by McKinsey.

“Companies that were born digitally, have a customer database and communicate directly with consumers can, according to McKinsey, return an average of 25% of the turnover for personalised communication. 

There are many companies of a certain size that have the prerequisites to build volume on the customer database by getting involved through concepts and products. They are well below the 25% level, and thus do not utilise the potential of their resources,” says Emre Gürsoy.

Too few good examples

Agillic’s CXO Rasmus Houlind, a returning jury member and judge for Dansk Erhverv’s E-commerce Award and the marketing award Danish Digital Awards, has listened to companies’ pains in finding good examples of personalised communication that suit them.

He finds that companies find it challenging to look beyond their own industry when scouting for examples of use cases for marketing automation.

“Everyone is looking for beacon examples in their specific industry that they can be inspired by. But perhaps you need to look up a little and look for good examples in a wider community.

The football club FC Copenhagen and the Royal Danish Theater are very different, but in many ways have quite similar prerequisites and both do it quite well. They have many different contact points with different customer groups, and they’re good at combining them and offering up-sells and cross-sells both before, during and after a physical event,” Rasmus says.

And regardless of whether the audience sits on the rafters or in the theatre, Emre Gürsoy emphasises that the future will only increase the demand for technology that communicates meaningfully to both target groups.

“Technology continues to develop and change, and using one’s first-party data for personalised communication creates both a short-term gain by increasing the relevance of their communication and a long-term gain by increasing the customers’ lifetime value. The companies that master the technology and provide customers with an exceptional customer experience are very likely to experience success in the coming years.”