How personalisation can boost member satisfaction

Think of your local pub.

When you walk in, they greet you by name. They ask if you’d like a pint of your usual tipple. You’re well taken care of here, and you don’t receive the same service in any other pub.

It’s this personalised level of service that makes you think of them as your local – and it’s what keeps your custom, making you inclined to spend more money, whether that’s staying for one more drink, ordering food or tipping the bar staff.

The world of membership is not that dissimilar from your local.

Members want to be recognised as an individual with their unique tastes automatically catered for. They want to be spoken to directly with tailored messaging and experiences driven by their preferences, not force-fed generic mass communication.

Personalisation demonstrates to a member that their business is valued beyond the money they spend; it helps drive improvements in overall satisfaction, as well as engaging members on a deeper level which leads to increased revenue and retention.

The challenges of personalisation

Before we dive into the many benefits of personalisation and how this can boost member satisfaction, let’s acknowledge the challenges of its implementation.

Although personalisation is undoubtedly what consumers want to see, it does present technical and legal hurdles that must be navigated with care.

As businesses look to augment experiences for loyal members, privacy and security concerns should be at the forefront of their thinking. The process of personalisation involves the collection and use of vast amounts of personal data, so how this data is accessed and shared will determine if members are interested at all.

Due to a string of high profile data breaches like the Cambridge Analytica scandal, today’s consumers are clued up on how their personal data is being used. In fact, the 2021 Global Customer Experience Benchmarking Report cites privacy and security of personal data as one of the top three factors influencing brand loyalty.

So – not only are consumers reluctant to provide the data that personalisation requires, but if done incorrectly, it can actively discourage them from interacting with brands altogether.

Another hurdle involves the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which seeks to empower consumers by giving them control over their data and its use. This means there are legal ramifications for businesses that don’t play by the rules.

But any considerations your business makes will be far outweighed by the benefits of recognising your members on an individual level. By incorporating personalisation into your brand’s strategy going forward, you’ll profit from happier members that are more engaged and more likely to advocate your brand to friends and family.

Give members what they expect

We live in an age of instant gratification. Consumers can order a takeaway through Deliveroo and sit down to eat within half an hour; they can order an item from Amazon and next day delivery is the standard delivery option.

Patience is no longer a virtue in the mind of the consumer. They expect things now, and won’t wait around for your business to get them right.

Choice isn’t an issue for them either; they have a plethora of options when deciding where their hard earned money is spent. In an increasingly competitive business landscape, delivering a tailored member experience is no longer a differentiating factor – it’s an expectation; a ‘must have’ when considering user-experience design.

So, what does personalisation mean for membership businesses today? A lot more than a personalised subject line in an email, that’s for sure.

Personalisation is about listening to what your members want, proving that you understand their needs and delivering an experience that’s unique to them and will keep them engaged.

By collecting and analysing data about your member demographics, you can identify interests and behaviours that will help you create campaigns, content and experiences that are relevant and resonate with them on a personal level.

Provide a seamless member journey

Any positive journey with your brand begins with exceptional customer service. If you fall at this hurdle, members will more than likely move on to another brand.

But delivering exceptional customer service in today’s crowded membership market means delivering on more than just speed alone; a personalised customer service approach means your business is capable of tailoring the experience your brand provides to the individual needs of each member.

In short, you can’t hope to placate members with generic experiences and responses.

If you break down a member’s journey into different touch points, you can begin to build a detailed history of each member and personalise the different interactions they have with your brand. That could mean leveraging AI to make it easier for them to connect with your brand through the use of chatbots, analysing their community activity with other members and the types of interactions they have, or using their purchase history to determine future buying trends.

By investing in technology and solutions that help you gain a deeper insight into what motivates your members, and how they perceive your brand, you can begin to map their journey with you more effectively.

This will inform the type of content you use to engage them, the channels you use to communicate, and at which touchpoints to engage with them. All of this caters to their individual preferences, resulting in higher satisfaction rates.

Essentially, members want to do as little work as possible, yet receive the greatest experience possible. They want to interact with brands that get them, and they want their needs and desires to be thought of and acted upon without hesitation.

By leveraging vast quantities of personal data that personalisation hinges on, your business can anticipate and deliver what consumers want before they themselves know.

Familiarity breeds loyalty

If you want to foster loyalty with your brand, then you have to view your members as more than mere conversion rates.

You need to nurture a genuine relationship with them; you need to understand their pain points, their concerns and their ambitions, in order to deliver a service that adds value to their lives.

Personalisation is a simple but effective way of doing this.

The most successful and digitally-savvy businesses deploy questionnaires and surveys to profile their consumer base and then use those insights to inform their sales funnel and develop a more personalised member experience.

Offering a curated selection of products members might like to buy creates a positive and memorable experience in their minds, almost as if they have a personal shopper at their side.

It’s something that Amazon has pioneered and perfected for many years now. Nearly 35% of the ecommerce giant’s sales are generated through personalised recommendations, which began with their ‘customers who bought’ widget.

Fast forward to today and Amazon has taken huge leaps in the world of personalisation. Using deep learning and AI, Amazon leverages the on-site behavioural data of consumers to suggest products that are aligned with their purchasing profile and that they are more likely to buy.

Let’s take this concept and apply it to membership – ultimately, loyal members are the ones that return to interact with your brand, but who are also likely to speak to those unknown potential clients who share the same passion or sector as your membership body.

The personalised service you provide helps breed a sense of familiarity and trust, which engages them more and translates to a boost in sales conversion rates when they advocate you over others.

Could personalisation help boost satisfaction among your members?

6B realise that members today expect personalisation and how vital it is to driving improvements in satisfaction and engaging on a deeper level, helping your business generate more profits and strengthening brand loyalty.

If you’d like to know more about the technologies and techniques we use to deliver a truly unique experience to every customer, get in touch with us today.

Speak to our experts