Skip to main content

Personalization for customer relationship management

How to build authentic customer relationships that increase lifetime value

Share

  • Personalization
  • Customer experience
  • Marketing strategy
  • Business strategy

 

 

Personalization is more crucial than ever, according to Deloitte Digital’s recent research.* Since our foundational study in 2022,¹ consumer interest in personalization has increased 20%, and 50% more brands consider it a core component of their customer strategies.

 

Yet despite heightened attention, only a quarter of brands are delivering the kind of personalization consumers recognize and want. How do these standouts do it? They recognize personalization as a mutual exchange in which customers share information about themselves—and brands reciprocate by delivering spot-on experiences that bring value to customers’ lives.


In a new series of articles, Deloitte Digital is delving into ways that brands can unlock the potential of personalization. Relationship activation is one of these ways—it instills end-to-end strategies and processes that help brands build deeper and more sustained connections with their customers and drive business outcomes. 

 

A playbook for enduring relationships

Many brands are going all-in on personalization. Our research revealed that surveyed brands are pouring 51% of their total marketing budgets into personalization, and 62% are deploying customer relationship management (CRM) platforms aimed at strengthening their understanding of and outreach to customers. 

Yet despite investments in valuable platforms, most surveyed brands acknowledge that execution and coordination of personalization initiatives has been challenging. They cite shortcomings across a range of capabilities—from analytics, testing and measurement, to customer and market insights, to creative and design execution. Notably, only half of brands say their teams collaborate closely to achieve a cohesive personalization strategy—while the other half of brands describe siloed teams and limited cross functional collaboration. 

The result? Personalization that doesn’t feel relevant to the people who matter most. Surveyed consumers said that only 43% of their customer experiences feel personalized—despite brands claiming to personalize 61% of experiences. 

To bridge this divide, brands will need more than platforms and point solutions—they should develop a unified, coordinated playbook for relationship activation. When customer insights, creative strategy and campaign execution are in sync, brands can deliver personalized experiences that drive lasting value for customers and the business alike.

Instill an end-to-end framework

 

So how can brands make the most of their personalization investments to activate deeper relationships? Through Deloitte’s ongoing work with clients across industries and sectors, consumer-brand relationships are formed the same way that every human relationship is formed: through memories, moments and messages.
 

Our framework for relationship activation is based on these three, end-to-end pillars: 

 

 

1.  Honor your shared memories

In our everyday human experience, each interaction can shape a memory. The people you’re with carry these memories too: Your nana remembers your preference for birthday pie over cake. Your friend remembers the indie band you discovered together and buys concert tickets when it’s in town. Similarly, brands accumulate the memories of their customers—in the vast amounts of data gleaned in interactions. However, many brands fail to utilize this data effectively—sending offers, for example, on products already purchased. The key to overcoming this memory fog is establishing cohesive processes for collecting, organizing and augmenting customer data. Personalization standouts excel in this regard—in our research, 85% of top performers said they collect and use extensive data to achieve a 360-degree view of customers.

 

2. Find your moments

Which is more appealing: a marriage proposal on a mountain peak, on a busy street corner or at a Michelin-star restaurant? A job offer delivered via social media, phone or face to face? There’s no right answer: When it comes to life’s most resonant moments, the right when, where and how depend on the individual person. That’s why brands must identify the critical moments in the customer life cycle and determine the most impactful channels for different customer personas and segments. This requires clear, cross-functional processes for mapping customer data to moments. By breaking down organizational silos, brands can better recognize and act on the moments that strengthen relationships.


3. Make your messages matter

As humans, what we say to one another matters. And while that’s challenging enough in one-to-one situations, brands now face the unprecedented challenge of crafting consistent, resonant messaging  at scale and across numerous channels. While many possess the tools and technologies for creating and distributing content, they lack processes for adjusting and optimizing it in real time while remaining aligned with the overall campaign objectives. Brands must master a “test and learn” mindset, rapidly iterating messages based on performance insights to ensure their communications resonate and reinforce the relationship.

 

Of course, memories, moments and messages don’t exist in isolation. In our framework for relationship activation, every customer interaction feeds back into the system, informing richer customer memories, smarter awareness of key moments and more impactful messages. This continuous loop drives ever-improving, ever-more personalized brand experiences.

 

 

Strong relationship, strong results

Consumers crave deeper, more individualized relationships with the brands they engage with—and reward those that deliver. Consumers told us they spend, on average, 37% more with brands that offer meaningful, personalized interactions. The impact is clear: brands with robust personalization capabilities exceeded their 2023 revenue goals by 10%, compared to just 1.7% for brands with less mature capabilities. 

To achieve these kinds of results, brands must move beyond isolated tactics. Successful personalization stems from a unified activation approach that is anchored in the principles of human relationships while leveraging technology, data and operational systems. To learn more about Deloitte Digital’s relationship activation services spanning strategy, creative, data, operations and technology, reach out to us.

Get in touch

  

Tim Greulich
Managing director
Deloitte Consulting LLP

 

Kathleen Erickson
Senior manager
Deloitte Consulting LLP

 

 

* This report highlights results from a January–February 2024 survey of 500 business executives who are responsible for personalizing the customer experience at US business-to-consumer companies, plus 1,000 adult consumers who had interacted with a brand online or through an app in recent months. Unless otherwise noted, the statistics and insights highlighted in this article are based on that research survey.

 

1. Leala Shah Crawford, Embrace meaningful personalization to maximize growth, Deloitte Digital, July 2022, p. 2, accessed August 6, 2024.