Retail and the Consumer

My kids are all over 20 and I did not own any dogs, never had, and never bought pet food, not one time. I opted out of the program.

The other two companies sent me offers that were relevant, so I stayed with both, allowing each to go to the second principle. One then failed trying to go to the third principle; making each interaction relevant and of value to me because I already owned six suits from them and really did not need a new suit every two weeks. I needed shoes; they have shoes, and I have never bought shoes from them. Their data should have showed them I bought suits, and that most people with suits may buy shoes. I never received a single shoe offer.

The wine store was the only retailer to achieve the third principle. They are a case study I bring up and use often. You might say you can only drink so much wine—how can they achieve the third principle and maintain their relevancy? Well, wine is often given as gifts, so I started getting interactions that talked about “wines as gifts”—different wine at different price points. If I had purchased a lot of wine one week, I got a thank you note recognizing the purchase and that next interaction was more about wine accessories, bottle openers, decanters, etc. etc. They also have homemade pasta and bread for sale as well as wine-based dinners. You get the point: all of these offers were communicated at the right time to a very engaged consumer.

Like many of you, I have a favorite airline that I love to fly. I fly them almost every week and they know almost everything about me as it related to air travel. I buy a monthly pass from GOGO inflight Wi-Fi; the airline must know this, yet every time I book a flight they serve up an ad to have me buy Wi-Fi for this flight at a reduced price. What a waste of valuable screen space when they must know I have never bought this product from them at time of booking. Their assumption must be that everyone wants to buy Wi-Fi at this time.

My point is that most retailers have more data then they understand and most don’t seem to have the expertise to leverage it in the form of customized interactions for their most valuable consumers. People continue to say that this is very hard and I actually take the opposite view. I feel this is actually easy if you take the time, truly respect your customers and abide by these three very important principles. Retailers should remember that one to one, long lasting, relevant and mutually beneficial engagement is a marathon and not a sprint.

I recently stayed at a luxury hotel in Punta Meta and I don’t think you can find a customer of that hotel that has anything bad to say about the interactions before, during or after his or her stay, and this particular high-end luxury hotel chain has over 44,000 employees across the globe. I say this to show that extremely high quality retailer-to-consumer interactions can happen and are happening if you look for them. Retailers need to find them and learn from them for their own business.

My premise is not that consumers won’t continue to have more information that is available to them as we continue down the path of more and more mobile computing; I believe the winners in this game will be the companies that understand and create the most relevant interactions for each consumer when they want that interaction.

Every retailer should strive to maximize the power of the data the company already has through careful analysis and thoughtful application when it comes to communicating with consumers. Truly understanding your customers before and during your interactions will pay off in dividends down the road, and, in more than one way.

And to all the CMOs reading this article, remember: “Don’t try to sell them dog food if they don’t have a dog.”