Dotdigital and Paragon DCX are industry leaders who are redefining the way brands communicate with their customers. One of the ways they are doing this is by using SMS to streamline communication and processes. For instance, organizations like The Co-Operative Bank, Direct Line Group, Swinton Insurance, and Coventry Building Society are leveraging SMS to enhance customer experiences. In this blog, we explore how SMS is transforming customer experience in the financial services sector

How SMS can improve customer experiences in the financial sector

Real time SMS allows businesses in financial services to elevate their customer experiences. Here are some key strategies you can utilize:

Security and fraud prevention

The financial services industry needs to keep customers’ data safe and tell them about possible fraud. SMS goes straight to the point and doesn’t get lost in spam folders. This makes sure customers get important security alerts fast. 

In August 2023, The Co-Operative Bank sent almost 500,000 SMS messages to remind customers about the need to stop and think about whether a transaction is fraudulent. The message also provided recipients with the necessary details to contact the Stop Scams UK number if required.

Real time updates and transaction alerts

Financial services need to give customers real-time updates on account balances, transactions, and payment reminders. SMS is almost instant and perfect for this. While email and push notifications can also deliver updates, SMS notifications are more reliable in situations where internet connectivity is limited or mobile data is expensive.

Jane Ball, Senior Marketing Manager at The Co-operative Bank, praised the SMS solution offered by Paragon DCX, in partnership with Dotdigital. She said, “The SMS solution has enabled continuity of our customer communications, ensuring timely, reliable, and efficiently delivered messaging.”

Two-factor authentication (2FA)

Two-factor authentication is important for keeping customers’ financial information safe and secure. Sending one-time passwords (OTP) or unique codes through SMS lets financial services providers confirm customers’ identities and keep things safe.

High engagement and customer satisfaction

SMS allows financial service businesses to improve customer engagement by keeping them informed about new products, promotions, and policy updates. Unlike traditional email newsletters or app notifications that might get lost, SMS messages are concise, personalized, and more likely to capture the recipient’s attention.

Cost-effective customer support

Financial service businesses can use SMS to offer fast, inexpensive customer support and cut down on call center volume. SMS can send automated replies, confirm appointments, or follow up at a lower cost than phone support.

Regulatory communication

Financial services can use SMS for important alerts like overdraft alerts, insurance renewal reminders, and interest rate changes. While emails can work for this kind of information, SMS can also remind customers to check their email for critical, time-sensitive messages.

Final thoughts

SMS is a powerful tool for the financial services industry to make customer experiences better. Using SMS in communication strategies helps financial service businesses improve customer satisfaction and success. By using SMS, financial service businesses can continue to do well in the digital age.

If you want to learn more about using SMS for important, time-sensitive messages, reach out to Paragon DCX to see how our combined services can help you talk to your customers quickly and effectively.

With this shift comes a change in the way a business develops its marketing strategy. Navigating the world of D2C marketing can be challenging, as you now own the end-to-end customer journey. Especially in a world where ecommerce sales continue to be on the rise and consumers are becoming more and more demanding of personalized digital experiences, it has never been more important to develop a strong digital marketing strategy in the world of D2C.

1. Build your brand story and foster new relationships

A key benefit of a D2C model is that you now have complete ownership over brand identity and the customer experience. As a D2C marketer, ensure you’re doing everything you can as a brand to convey your brand story to your target market.

Consistency is key when it comes to communicating across all channels. G2 states companies that focus on maintaining brand consistency across all channels have seen an average growth of 33%. The experience a customer has on social, or email, should have the same experience when hitting a website landing page from a campaign. Many brands also forget to focus on the post-purchase journey – messaging and branding should remain consistent across promotional and transactional messaging.

With an influx of new customers, make a good first impression on new customers. Email is an excellent channel to execute this – create an automated email welcome program that both converts and tells your customers what they’re in store for. More than 8 out of 10 people open welcome emails, generating 4x as many opens and 10x as many clicks as other email sends. An email sign-up indicates a super-engaged customer – take advantage of that engagement and focus on the USPs of your brand.

It’s also important to make sure your GTM is mindful of your current B2B relationships. Don’t become a competitor to your existing customers. The beauty of creating a great brand story is that when done right, it will only help your B2B partners succeed too. Compliment, don’t compete.

2. Focus on driving customer loyalty

Undoubtedly, a focus for D2C marketers initially will be acquisition. Acquisition is obviously very important, but D2C brands must not lose focus on retaining current customers. Acquisition is more expensive than retention – acquiring a new customer costs five times more than retaining an existing one.

Marketers can tap into Dotdigital’s marketing automation to help achieve this. After acquiring a customer, direct marketing channels like email and SMS act as a perfect way to continue to nurture the customer relationship and turn a first-time buyer, into a loyal advocate. You have the foundations to now understand important data such as purchase behavior, interests, preferences, and engagement with your marketing campaigns to curate a personalized experience going forward.

Shopify CEO, Tobi Lutke puts it perfectly; “There are only two things on the internet that you can own: your website and your email list. Everything else is just temporarily rented”.

One of Australia’s most recognized electrical wholesalers, Lawrence & Hanson, had to pivot during COVID-19 to focus on D2C and online ecommerce. During this change, they found huge success focusing on customer loyalty and building out loyalty programs that rewarded loyalty with benefits to drive retention and provided the foundation to succeed and grow their online sales and ecommerce offering. At the end of the day, loyalty boils down to trust. Lawrence & Hanson underpinned their successful loyalty programs with the use of personalization in marketing campaigns. 

Customers want to feel as if the brand knows and understands their wants and needs. Lawrence and Hanson did exactly that when shifting away from a ‘batch-and-blast’ email strategy and focused on 1-1 personalization which assisted in building trust with their customers.

B2B customer loyalty does differ from B2C. B2B relationships are more complex, lengthy, and considered sales cycles. But this doesn’t mean loyalty should be valued any less when looking at D2C loyalty. Reward loyalty, recognize it, understand who is buying and what drives them, and you will be able to create a community of loyal advocates.

3. Use data to enhance the customer experience

As the shift to D2C grows your customer base, there are new ways for marketers to look at managing relationships to deliver a personalized customer experience. Where many B2B relationships can be managed by sales/account management teams, D2C marketers must rely on data to effectively manage a larger customer to deliver a personalized customer experience.

• Integrate your martech: This helps you have a holistic view of a customer’s engagement with your brand. A great example of this is seen through leading packaging wholesaler Signet. Implementing an integrated tech stack, enabled the creation of data-focused personalized campaigns and allowed for effective data segmentation and tailored campaigns and promotions. Operationally, this is also going to save you and your team time and make processes more efficient.
• Make use of behavioral data you capture against customers: This will help you send the right message, at the right time. For example, understand the browsing behavior – what category are they frequently browsing? What products? What type of content are they opening, clicking, and resonates best? Use this to change the story you’re telling the customer and enable you to send more relevant content, which in turn will only increase engagement and conversions.
• Capture and leverage zero-party data: Give control to your customers – let them determine how they want to be communicated with. Within a preference center, the best practice is to capture data such as first name, channel opt-ins, frequency of messaging, interested products and categories, etc. Capturing the data is great – but it’s what you do with the data that counts. Place customers in segments and even tailor messaging through the use of dynamic content in email.

D2C marketing strategy summary

To wrap it up, as D2C business models continue to evolve and gain traction, it’s important for businesses to adapt their marketing strategies for long-term success. By concentrating on crafting a coherent brand story, nurturing customer loyalty, and harnessing data for personalized experiences, companies can effectively navigate the world of D2C marketing.

In this follow-up Q&A, Julie answers key questions related to the business value of AX, the right channels for its implementation, and typical challenges businesses may encounter. She also shares her views on the potential risks of brands overstepping the mark with AX and suggests metrics marketing teams should consider when evaluating their AX efforts.

A huge thanks go to Kevin Davis, Chief Data Officer at More2, and Dotdigital’s Juliette Aiken and Steve Shaw, who joined Julie in the webinar to share their knowledge.

Don’t miss the chance to learn from an expert and discover the potential of data-driven anticipatory experiences in your marketing strategy.

Q&A: How to leverage anticipatory experiences

How do anticipatory experiences (AX) translate into business value?

Anticipatory experiences deliver a broad set of business values. Since the design point for AX is delivering consumer convenience, improved customer satisfaction and delight top the list. When consumers are task-oriented or need peace of mind, they will prioritize convenience or speed —the next business value in operational cost savings.

When companies serve customers more proactively with status updates, reminders, and more, customers are less likely to reach out to a contact center (i.e., higher cost than self-service) to get help or information. Finally, when customer needs intersect with business needs, there is an opportunity to sell consumers more products or services. Forrester calls this variation of anticipatory experiences (AX) –  the next best experiences (NBX). NBX experiences optimize customer life time value (CLV) when making suggestions to customers.

Is there a risk of brands overstepping the mark with AX? When does proactive verge into creepy or even obnoxious?

There absolutely is a risk. Everyone remembers the 2012 story of Target sending prenatal vitamin promotions to a teenage girl whose father did not yet know she was pregnant. Just because a brand can anticipate a customer’s need does not mean the brand should act on it. Brands must constantly make judgment decisions on timing and actions based on a holistic view of the customer – not just a single business function’s view – as well as objective ethical functions. Smart brands will prioritize the needs of customers (e.g., eat less sugar, save money, mitigate risk, etc.) over their own needs. 

AX experiences must also evolve over time as customers learn to trust brands based on the value the brands deliver – what Forrester refers to as a “value flywheel.” Brands should ask customers for a little bit of data and then provide a little bit of value. This initial exchange builds trust. Consumers will provide a little more data in exchange for even more value. 

You talk about how anticipatory experiences are constantly evolving. Can you provide examples of the most recent trends or expectations?

AX experiences are evolving along three distinct dimensions. First, brands are evolving how much action they are willing to take on behalf of their customers. Today, many can send content (e.g., “It’s time to board your flight”). In the future, more will send suggestions (e.g., “You should leave now to make your flight” or “Do you want to reload your stored value card?”) and ultimately act on behalf of their customers as they build mutual trust and confidence.

Second, brands will deliver AX on increasingly complex customer journeys. They will start with well-understood journeys (e.g., food delivery, boarding a flight), then watch and listen to their customers so that they can react quickly (e.g., detect potential fraud and pause charges to a credit card), and then ultimately truly anticipate the need of a customer (e.g., if the customer has a stroke). Finally, brands will evolve from a static assembly of moments to a dynamic assembly or construction of moments (e.g., who, what, where, and when) in real time based on insights.

When thinking about creating anticipatory experiences, what channels should be top of the marketers’ list?

Forrester recommends that marketers understand how their customers use technology to access digital experiences – and then marketers should choose their use cases before making technology or channel decisions. For example, nearly all consumers use email, SMS, and push notifications – but fewer consumers may feel comfortable with audio or haptic notifications on their smartphones or smartwatches. 

Marketers should choose channels based on how well matched that channel is to the use case. For example, mobile notifications work best when immediacy is important, and the content is simple (e.g., a short text message or image). Email is more appropriate for longer forms or less urgent content. 

Creating anticipatory experiences is reliant on having real-time information to act on or trigger from. What are the biggest challenges businesses face here?

Decision makers – people or technology solutions – need access to accurate, real-time data or insights that take into account a holistic view of the customer. According to Forrester’s 2021 Global Emerging Technology research, 46% of executives surveyed believe that they are collecting all the customer data they need – but only 34% assemble it into a single profile, and just 14% distribute it to enable critical decisions. Other inhibitors to delivering more anticipatory experiences that executives cited included a lack of automation and the complexity of integration into existing platforms. 

What metrics of success or engagement should marketing teams consider when thinking about AX?

Ultimately, marketing teams want to measure (1) a decrease in time (i.e., for a customer to complete a task) and (2) a reduction in inbound engagement, whether to a contact center or on a mobile app. These metrics purely focus on a customer’s convenience. However, they should use more operational metrics as they start their journey toward delivering AX and then evolve their metrics as they become more sophisticated. 

For example, initially many AX may be mobile notifications that give consumers peace of mind about the status of a process or the location of a delivery. Marketers can start by measuring how many consumers opt-in to receive notifications. They will also need permissions (e.g., use of location) and zero-party data to deliver more personalized and timely content. Marketers can measure the effectiveness of these tactics.

Next steps towards anticipatory customer experiences

If you’re looking to create anticipatory customer experiences, it’s important to use data and analytics to personalize interactions and anticipate customer needs. To get started on this, schedule a call with the Dotdigital team to discuss incorporating this approach into your customer engagement strategies. Visit our partner directory to find out more about More2.

Unfortunately, there is a significant disconnect between expectation and reality in CX. In research carried out by Adweek and Accenture Interactive, they found that while 80% of brands believe they deliver a superior customer experience, only 8% of customers agree.

Brands have to go further and break down boundaries to meet customers’ expectations.

What are interactive customer experiences?

Customer experiences have changed. Brands can do more with customer data. From personalization to augmented reality, savvy shoppers know brands can deliver exceptional experiences.

As a result, CX is less about fulfilling wants and needs and more about meeting increased expectations. Customers compare experiences with diverse brands across different industries. That means that a shopper who has a positive experience buying plants online expects a similar experience when buying anything; groceries, takeaways, jewelry.

Interactive experiences will help you continuously meet these experiences. Interactive content personalizes customers’ interactions with your brands and boosts overall engagement.

Think online questionnaires, web-based calculators, or gamified content. It’s content that lets users personalize and participate in it.

In-email customer experiences

Interactive experiences can come in many formats, but in recent years, email marketing has made massive strides towards providing customers with unique experiences.

AMP for email

AMP for email is a powerful tool that revolutionizes customer experience by allowing you to build web-like experiences right in their inbox. It allows readers to interact with your email and choose their own path.

This innovative feature is an excellent asset when it comes to showcasing various aspects of your brand, products, or services. While offering captivating and personalized customer experiences, you can also guide users towards accomplishing a specific goal. However, you also want to drive users to complete a specific goal. Using an AMP-powered carousel feature, email recipients can flick through your highlighted products or campaign photographs before clicking on your email’s main CTA. For example, a ‘register your interest’ button.

Similarly, customers can discover their own pathways by choosing what content they’d like to see in your email campaign. You can later use these insights to deliver a more personalized experience throughout their journey.

Real-time personalization

To create long-lasting relationships with customers, it’s important to provide a hyper-personalized experience. Real-time personalization is a way to achieve this by using up-to-date customer data. Typically, pulling in a subscriber’s first name using data field is an example of this.You can also use location data to provide location-based dynamic content, to make the campaign super relevant to the customer. By segmenting data and getting to know your audience, you can create targeted content that resonates with them. 

GIFs and videos

GIFs and videos bring joy and delight to your email openers. They grab your subscribers’ attention immediately, keeping them engaged and scrolling down your marketing.

Embedded videos have a great engagement rate which ultimately drives more conversions. Animations and videos make communicating complex ideas simple. In a matter of seconds you can explain your latest product launches and business updates.

Advice from interactive experience experts

Odicci helps brands boost customer engagement and drive customer loyalty with interactive experiences such as quizzes, games, and product finders. These are the top tips on creating interactive and engaging emails from CEO Founder of Odicci, Jacques Prothon:

Creating emails that work: how to jazz up your email design

Just because customers are interested in receiving emails doesn’t mean that you’re keeping them engaged. Thankfully, there are many things you can do to ensure your customers are engaged with your emails. We’ve listed six ways to jazz up your email with interactive experiences.

Gamification: can you beat the high-score?

By introducing gamification into your customers’ experience, you can enhance their engagement and increase clicks and conversions. By asking people to play a game such as a memory game or a matchmaker you are tapping into the creative potential of your subscribers. Add an engaging moving gif design to drive clicks and enjoy your dwell time stats go through the roof as people will be engaged for a long time on your website. Thanks to this pinball game Virgin Holidays experienced a 47% click-through rate.

FOMO: are you one of our lucky winners?

By using elements of accomplishment, envy, ownership, and scarcity you are driving your audience towards clicks. When signing up, subscribers are expecting to receive some type of value, such as a coupon, free gift, or a contest entry. If you want subscribers to continue being engaged with your emails, keep providing something of value and make them interact online with an online scratch card or shake your phone to reveal a prize. Feelunique is driving subscribers to an interactive summer spin for a chance to win special discounts.

Enhance customer experience: swipe your preference

To enhance customer experience Central England Co-Op used an interactive “Tinderesque” swipe survey behind email to collect customer preferences and deliver more personalized emails. The swipe survey running behind an email marketing campaign drove a 28% click-through rate with 20% of surveyed customers sharing their preferences. The swipe survey is a great experience to boost clicks and drive engagement.

Rewarding customers: thank you, here is something for you

Subscribers are looking for positive experiences with brands. One of the most popular customer rewards in use by many brands is when a subscriber reaches a certain level of a loyalty program. Paperchase uses various experiences to reward members of their TreatMe Loyalty program, here is an example of Spin the Wheel on PayDay for TreatMe members only.

With loyalty you can also combine experiences with other moments such as birthdays, special moments in the year, or the launch of a product by giving exclusive access.

Customer Feedback: how did we do?

After a purchase or a delivered service use interactive experiences to ask for feedback and make that experience engaging, fun and above all easy. TeamSport used a Net Promoter Score survey to get feedback from customers after their races. Valuable information is collected for each track and customers can be rewarded afterwards.

Intrigue: what does the future hold?

Instead of engaging your audience with a standard marketing message, use email to create interest, curiosity or intrigue. Use a clever hook to invite subscribers to an interactive personality quiz or a product profiler and deliver a personalized brand interaction

A great way to deliver the message and drive clicks from your emails to these engaging experiences is to use moving GIFs that demonstrate how the reward, game, quiz or interactive promotion works in a few seconds. Using moving GIFs is the perfect way to show what engagement and reward(s) subscribers can expect. To get the best results you can create moving GIFs that are personalized or tailored to a segment, or audience.

Summary

As we know email marketing is one of the best tools to drive sales and convert leads. With interactive experiences it is possible to substantially increase your click-through rates and conversions whilst delivering great value to your audience. Don’t be intimidated these interactive experiences can be published in just a few clicks. Give it a try or contact Odicci for more information about our pre-built interactive experiences, with more than 80+ out-of-the-box experiences you won’t be disappointed.

How to create a personalized customer experience

Here are 4 effective ways to create personalized customer experiences that set your brand apart from the competition: 

Welcome message

Welcome messages are essential components of a successful customer experience strategy. They set the stage for a positive and long-lasting relationship between a brand and its audience. When tailored to the individual needs and preferences of the customer, welcome messages can create a highly personalized customer experience that leaves a lasting impression.

Any honest store clerk who wants to make a sale goes out of their way to welcome each shopper with a friendly hello. They may even greet a returning customer by their name or inform them that the items they browsed last week are on sale now.

Ecommerce stores can take a leaf out of the successful store clerk’s book and display a personalized welcome message to their online visitors. For new visitors to your site, the lack of behavioral data doesn’t mean you can’t give them a personalized greeting. Famous Outfits starts the customer journey off with a welcome pop-up tailored to the visitor’s referring traffic source.

For returning visitors who didn’t make a purchase, use a popover to remind them of their last-viewed product. Shoppers will appreciate the gesture, as they don’t have to remember what they searched for last time. Include an image of the product and make it clear why the popover appears. This example from Cottages.com helps returning customers without obscuring the rest of the information on the page.

Navigation bar

Your website’s navigation bar is often the first touchpoint your visitors interact with to guide them to specific products or categories. So it’s crucial to ensure your navigation bar is both helpful and engaging. An uninspiring or frustrating navigation experience could result in site abandonment and high bounce rates. 

Make the most of your drop-down space by adding dynamic content that showcases product recommendations, special offers, and more. This approach kickstarts the personalized customer experience, helping visitors discover the best your website has to offer. Space NK showcases new arrivals in their ‘New In’ category, providing shoppers with real-time pricing information alongside each product. 

By recommending your latest products, you generate excitement shopping. This strategy is particularly impactful in sectors driven by fast-moving trends, such as fashion and beauty. For returning customers, you can tailor the highlighted products based on their preferred categories. This will personalize their experience and increase the relevance of the recommendations.

Product recommendations

Offering product recommendations is a tactic as old as retail itself. The successful store clerk who welcomes everyone to their shop will also look for opportunities to cross sell and up-sell by pointing out a shirt that complements the shopper’s jeans or suggesting the best brand of bird seed for the customer’s pet parrot.

Ecommerce is no different. Product recommendations are a proven conversion booster for online stores and can generate sales uplifts of up to 11%. For new visitors to your site where you don’t have any past purchases or behavioral data to judge by, show them trending products and bestsellers. Without the ability to try on, touch, and see products in the flesh, customers are more likely to be swayed by other shoppers’ opinions.

You can also use your visitors’ browsing data to personalize the customer experience as they shop. Killstar’s real-time homepage banners change once a shopper has browsed a handful of products, recommending products for males or females depending on what the shopper has browsed. Killstar keeps new shoppers engaged by showing them products that spark their interest. This is despite not having historical purchase data.

For returning visitors and customers, harness the power of familiarity and suggest products that this individual shopper has browsed or purchased frequently. This is a great option for newsletters where it’s appropriate to show a mix of different product types. Timeout uses an email newsletter to remind customers about products and experiences they are already interested in based on their previous browsing behavior.

Triggered emails

The most effective customer experiences are intuitive, reaching customers at the right time with personalized content that addresses their needs and interests. Triggered emails are a prime example of this, as they deliver timely and relevant content based on specific customer actions or behaviors. Marketers are empowered to treat customers as individuals by sending messages linked directly to their shopping behavior. 2 in 5 shoppers would consider not shopping with a retailer that emailed them every day with irrelevant information, making triggered emails all the more important. 

Cart abandonment emails are perhaps the most well-known examples of triggered emails, and for good reason. Along with browse abandonment emails, they’re a proven revenue booster. This email can include a reminder of the items left behind and personalized incentives such as discounts or free shipping. By reminding customers of their interest and providing incentives, these emails can help recover potentially lost sales and re-engage customers.

The average Fresh Relevance client doing cart and browse abandonment emails sees a 12% sales uplift. Rip Curl jogs shoppers’ memories with cart abandonment emails by including product images, descriptions, and prices. This helps shoppers recall the items they added to their cart. This tactic has paid off for Rip Curl, as they’ve seen a 10.3% sales uplift from their abandonment emails.

Another way to personalize the customer experience is with price drop emails. This is a triggered email that lets everyone who has shown interest in the product know that it just got cheaper. These emails encourage price-conscious shoppers and increase loyalty by providing useful information. 

With sales lifts for this specific type of alert averaging 3%, this is a triggered email tactic worth trying. Details of the browsed item should be included in the email to remind the shopper of what they looked at. This will make the offer more compelling, as Country Attire does in this example.

Back in stock and replenishment emails are another effective way to use triggered emails to personalize the customer experience and add value for your shoppers. By analyzing customer data, such as previous purchase dates, you can send personalized reminders when it’s time for a refill or when something is back-in-stock. 

These emails provide convenience to customers but also strengthen loyalty and encourage repeat purchases. As consumers are faced with more choices than ever, providing a personalized customer experience could be the difference between converting a shopper into a customer. This could mean losing out to your competitors.

Elevate your customer experience

In a competitive market where customers have numerous choices, creating a personalized experience is key to standing out. By implementing these tactics, brands can demonstrate their commitment to understanding and meeting their customers’ unique needs.

Personalization not only helps build stronger relationships and increase customer loyalty but also drives revenue growth. Brands that prioritize personalization will differentiate themselves from the competition and create a lasting impact on their customers, ultimately leading to company success.

What makes a customer journey complex?

In a world of options, too much choice can lead to decision-making paralysis. Social media channels like Instagram and TikTok bombard customers with inspiration, while Google makes it easier to discover new brands.

Travelers have an almost unlimited menu of choices when it comes to booking their trips. But with all these choices available to them, there are higher levels of procrastination and anxiety associated with making a decision.

All of this takes place during the awareness and planning stages of the customer journey.

To assist customers facing this paralysis of choice, brands need to go the extra mile to deliver relevant content. The more relevant you can make your marketing, basing your content on customers’ needs and reflecting the experiences they’re looking for, the more successful your marketing will be.

Personalizing chaotic customer journeys

It’s important to understand the customer’s journey, and even better, the stages along the way.

Using the travel and tourism industry as an example, there are five distinct stages:

1. Inspiration
2. Planning
3. Booking
4. In-trip
5. Post-trip

Inspiration: personalizing the awareness phase

67% of holiday goers will book with the brand that offers them the most help during the inspiration phase. This phase is about understanding the customers’ needs. They’re looking for inspiration and are open to possibilities.

Personalizing data capture popovers is a brilliant tactic for this stage. Travel brands can use browsing insights to personalize messages. “Not ready to book? Save this flight for later” or “Still interested in visiting Ibiza? Save your search for later”. This kind of personalization created a memorable customer experience.

By collecting travel preferences immediately, you’ll be able to understand what the customer needs to convert. What kind of experience are they looking for? What’s their budget? Are they open to cross-selling or upselling tactics?

You can better understand your target audience by developing detailed customer personas. You can segment customers based on common characteristics and behaviors, then create personas representing each segment. These personas act as archetypes to guide personalization and tailor customer experiences. For now, you have enough information to take them on a tailored welcome journey that will set the scene for the journey to come.

Planning: crafting tailored consideration communications

For travel brands, the planning stage is all about differentiation.

What makes you different from your competitors?

In this respect, it’s not much different from most other sectors. We’re all striving to stand out from the crowd.

But thanks to your personalized customer acquisition tactics, you already have the information you need to drive subscribers through the sales cycle. You know what browsers are looking for, so you should be delivering content tailored to their needs.

AI-powered product recommendations play a vital role in enhancing the travel customer experience. Using these, you can showcase tailored destination recommendations, hotel and activity suggestions, and personalized travel itineraries. These recommendations can be delivered through websites, mobile apps, or email marketing campaigns. Airbnb frequently employs this tactic to feature their most popular stays in the area users are researching.

Dynamic content is also a powerful tool to easily personalize your messaging. Displaying different content based on destination preferences helped Copa Airlines generate a 14% boost in revenue from its personalized email campaigns.

Booking: driving purchases with personal touches

A typical online travel consumer is exposed to over 38,983 micro-moments in a 60-day timeframe. During that time, they visit an average of 18 websites across multiple devices, all before making a single hotel booking. While this is slightly longer than your average decision-making process, it’s a great one to learn from.

It’s important to streamline the booking process to enhance your customers’ experience. As travel has one of the highest cart abandonment rates of any industry at around 81%. At this stage, the value of abandoned cart automation cannot be underestimated. Never let a shopper leave without sending them a recovery email.

To make it as easy as possible to continue with their journey, your recovery email should list the items in their basket or break down the details of their booking with a clear CTA. If there is something specific blocking their path to purchase, providing real-time assistance to customers’ queries live chat is a must. Together, you will be able to tip many uncertain shoppers over the line. 

You also need to tap into the FOMO effect by creating a sense of urgency. Countdown clocks and the limited number of spaces available are perfect to drive users to convert.

In-trip: personalize cross-selling and upselling opportunities

Travel brands know all about the importance of cross-selling and upselling. 38% of tour and activity bookings on vacation happen on or around the same day as doing them. 52% of travelers consider buying in-flight amenities and services when they’re delivered to their mobile devices.

Timing is everything.

To deliver the best experience possible you need to think about the many facets that will affect them. Reminders via SMS are perfect for any travel, event, or experience-orientated brand. Specific information like booking references, check-in times, and health and safety regulations will help customers have a smoother experience if they’re delivered into the palm of their hand.

Using geo-locations to know where your customers are can help you drive spontaneous decisions. You can drive customers to attend an event, join activities, or visit you in person.

This is also relevant for non-travel brands. Keeping customers informed about shipping times and delivery times will ensure their highly anticipated parcel doesn’t get sent back to the depot.

Armed with insights into their most recent orders and interactions with your brand, you can pull in relevant products, items, and services to cross- and upsell post-purchase.

Post-trip: drive long-term loyalty for an unforgettable customer experience

Good or bad, memories last.

47% of customers believe they would switch to a competitor within a day after a poor customer experience. The customer journey doesn’t end after the trip. Therefore, you must make your aftersales journey all about the customer. It’s all about making them feel like a valued part of your brand.

The best thing is, there is a whole range of automation programs that can help you deliver regular, personalized messages at key stages of the relationship.

Anniversary celebrations are a great way to demonstrate your appreciation for your customers. Pulling in their data, these emails can be used to highlight, how many miles a traveler has flown, or how many times a customer has shopped or attended one of your events. You could even consider sending follow-up emails with exclusive discounts or rewards for future travel. This will show your customers that you value their business and appreciate their loyalty.

You can also combine your feedback and review campaigns with your customer loyalty program and let customers earn points for every review they leave. Reviews are an essential part of the early stages of the customer lifecycle so the more you collect, the better. Adding incentives to these kinds of activities can help keep customers engaged with your brand, long after their journey is complete.

Summary

In the highly competitive travel industry, it’s essential to deliver a consistent experience across your customers’ journeys. By embracing personalization, you can create unforgettable experiences that leave a lasting impression, leading to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

What is customer experience?

Customer experience (CX) is how your customers think and feel about your company during their whole journey. It includes every touchpoint a customer has with your company throughout their lifecycle. By providing exceptional experiences at every stage of the lifecycle – from awareness to advocacy – you can create a strong emotional connection with your customers and increase their loyalty to your brand.

Why is customer experience important?

Customers today have high expectations and are more likely to switch to a competitor if their experience with your brand falls short. It’s therefore imperative that you provide a great customer experience so you stand out from the crowd. Also, customers are more likely to recommend your company to friends and family when they have a positive experience.

A positive customer experience is not just about making customers happy. It’s all about developing a relationship with the customer and earning their trust and loyalty. When a customer feels valued and appreciated, they are more likely to remain loyal to the brand.

With a positive customer experience, you can: 

• Stand out from your competitors
• Increase brand loyalty 
• Improve customer satisfaction 
• Drive customer retention 

How to improve customer experience?

The key to improving customer experience is to leverage customer data to gain a better understanding of your target audience. By collecting customer data, businesses can gain valuable insights into their customers’ behavior, preferred channels, and needs.

This enables you to personalize your marketing messages and tailor products or services to better meet your customers’ expectations. Additionally, customer data can help your company identify areas for improvement and develop targeted strategies to enhance and provide a more seamless customer experience. Overall, leveraging customer data is essential for companies looking to improve their customer experience and build stronger, more loyal customer relationships.

Let’s look at some customer experience best practices you can use in your marketing strategy.

Provide cross-channel journeys

Customers want a connected journey and a seamless experience when they interact with brands. You can meet this goal by expanding the number of channels in your marketing stack and leveraging cross-channel marketing. This involves interacting with customers through every channel in your arsenal, from in-store to social media, email, SMS, apps, and others.

It’s essential to engage customers through various channels so that they can reach you anytime and anywhere. This strategy makes the customer’s experience more personalized and convenient as they can communicate with your brand on their preferred channel.

Use AI and email automation to increase efficiency

You can use AI to hyper-personalize your customers’ journeys. With artificial intelligence, long hours spent sifting through data trying to identify trends are a thing of the past. AI-powered product recommendations can help you recommend best-sellers or other ranges to your customers based on their browsing behavior. This ensures that your customers have access to the right products and content in real time, making purchase decisions easier. 

Automating your email marketing is a valuable tool for improving customer experience and satisfaction. By automating repetitive email tasks, you can save time and look at customer behaviors to trigger timely and relevant communications. You can even use an automated abandoned cart program combined with AI product recommendations to improve your customers’ experience by providing relevant product suggestions. 

Personalize every touchpoint

You can improve customer experience by interacting with your customers in a human and personal way. Send personalized emails to your customers by addressing them by their names from the beginning, whether it’s in the subject line to grab their attention or on apps with push notifications. 

Personalized marketing feels more genuine and allows you to connect with your customer base. A single customer view will allow you to understand your customers, build a stronger relationship with them, and improve their experience. 

Create a seamless purchase journey

A buyer’s purchase journey is the process a customer goes through to purchase a product or service. Companies should provide a seamless purchase journey for a positive customer experience. By keeping the purchase process short and simple, you can reduce barriers to purchase. A four-step process should be followed:

• Logging in or guest checkout
• Shipping details
• Payment details
• Review

Adding integrations like Klarna helps streamline the checkout process. It allows customers to pay in installments, which is a game-changer for companies. Offering this option will increase sales and attract a wider customer base. 

Integrate customer support channels

You can improve customer experience by offering customer support channels. Having a live chat option on your website gives customer service agents a single customer view. This enables them to access customer information in real-time. By doing this, chat agents will understand customers’ needs and preferences quickly.

As a result, chat agents can provide personalized support with instant solutions to questions and concerns tailored to the customer’s specific requirements. Also, quick and efficient customer support removes barriers to purchase, making it easier for customers to convert. 

Include customer surveys

By collecting data via customer surveys, you can identify key areas for improvement and make necessary changes to enhance your customer experience. You can use online surveys to collect feedback and find out what makes your customers happy or what they are dissatisfied with.

This information helps demonstrate to loyal customers that their needs are being heard and addressed. It can also make customers feel connected and have a voice in the future of your brand. You can create surveys yourself or use data from well-respected sites like Trustpilot, Feefo, and G2. 

Implement user-generated content (UGC)

User-generated content (UGC) is a powerful tool for improving customer experience. UGC is any form of content, including images, videos, and reviews, created by your customers for free. This type of organic content can be leveraged and used in your company’s marketing strategy.

Reviews and star ratings are crucial in helping indecisive customers make their final decision. By featuring reviews and ratings from customers, brands can establish trust and credibility with potential customers. Also, UGC creates an emotional connection with your customers. When customers see their images or stories featured on your website or social media, they’ll trust your products, feel seen and valued.  

Summary

Following these tips will help you deliver a positive customer experience across their entire customer journey and build a loyal customer base. Dotdigital understands the importance of providing an unforgettable customer experience. Our tools are designed to help companies engage with their customers at every touchpoint, provide personalized content, and deliver exceptional customer experiences. If you want to enhance your customer experience, book a demo with us today. 

What is customer experience?

Customer experience (CX) is how your customers think and feel about your company during their whole customer journey.

What is a customer experience platform (CXP)?

A customer experience platform enables you to monitor and manage customer interactions. The platform helps you engage with your customers using multiple marketing channels, such as phone calls, chats, email, messaging, and social media. The platform then uses this information to create tailored recommendations, marketing campaigns, and preferences based on the customer’s preferences. 

A CX platform helps bridge the gap between your customer insights and customer experience. With the platform, your company can get a better understanding of your customers and the channels they enjoy to provide them with the best possible journey through your sales funnel. As a result, you will increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

What is customer data?

A customer’s data is information you receive from them whenever they interact with your company. You can gather zero-party and first-party data via your website, surveys, mobile applications, and marketing campaigns. 

What is a customer data platform (CDP)?

A customer data platform (CDP) is a unified, customer-focused platform that can be used as a foundation for developing data-driven marketing initiatives. The platform tracks customer data from multiple touchpoints and channels it into a single customer view. This unified view of the customer is then used to drive personalized experiences and targeted communications across channels. Explore Dotdigital’s partnership directory to discover our CDP and Data Analytics partners.

What is a CXDP and how does it work?

A CXDP is a comprehensive platform that enables marketers to effectively manage their customer experience and data. Marketers can use a CXDP to easily track customer data and analyze it to gain valuable insights into customer behavior. 

This type of platform also provides powerful optimization tools that enable companies to personalize customer experiences and increase customer engagement. You can easily create a customer-centric strategy that boosts customer retention and loyalty.

By combining three major functionalities: data unification, actionable insights, and customer experience, a CXDP provides marketers with the complete toolkit they need to create incredible customer journeys.

Data unification

CXDPs centralize and fine-tune data management. They connect with major CDPs and CRMs, to give you a 360-degree view of your customers and a deeper understanding of their behaviors, purposes, and preferred channels.

Actionable insights

A CXDP simplifies your marketing strategy by doing the heavy lifting for you. It analyzes data from multiple sources to deliver actionable insights, including your customers’ preferred channels. Also, you can tap into which RFM persona each customer is a part of to help you convert every time.

Customer experience

Armed with actionable insights, you have everything you need to create unforgettable customer experiences. Powered by automation, cross-channel marketing, and personalization tools, you can efficiently optimize your customers’ journeys.

What are the benefits of a CXDP?

A CXDP is the perfect solution for marketing teams looking to get the most out of their customer data and improve customer satisfaction. It offers the ability to create personalized experiences for customers. By leveraging data from across the customer journey, from their first interaction to their first purchase, you can create experiences that are unique to the individual. This can help build loyalty and trust as customers feel understood and appreciated. 

Additionally, you can also improve your marketing efforts by tracking customer engagement and satisfaction levels over time to make more informed decisions. This will result in more effective campaigns and the implementation of best practices, plus the ability to benchmark your performance against competitors.

With a CXDP you can:

• Identify the key drivers of customer satisfaction
• Create unique and personalized experiences
• Target your audience with segmentation tools
• View real-time performance metrics
• Build customer loyalty and trust 
• Simplify your marketing platform

What can marketers do with a CXDP?

CXDPs empower you with the tools you need to create a seamless customer experience. Also, you can use a real-time API, to integrate your entire marketing stack in just a couple of clicks.

A CXDP provides you with an integrated view of your customer data enabling you to map out your customers’ journeys and track behaviors. This will give you a better understanding of how they interact with your brand across marketing channels.

With advanced automation, you can target customers on the right channel at the right time. As a result, you’ll see an increase in engagement, conversions, and overall customer retention.

CXDPs enable you to scale your customer experience and data management needs. This will help build experiences that inspire loyalty quickly and efficiently.

How can I get started with Dotdigital?

Dotdigital is a customer engagement platform that helps digital marketers and developers deliver communications across the customer journey. We harness the power of customer data, powering engagement, conversion, and loyalty for brands as they grow and scale. Getting started with Dotdigital is easy. Book a one-on-one demo to explore our advanced built-in analytics and streamlined optimization tools and gain insights into your customers’ preferences and behavior.