The Value of Personalization

Personalization is an important aspect of building effective and long-lasting relationships with loyal customers. Service-oriented retailers are using technology to collect data to better understand their customers and combining this knowledge with front-end personalized service.

Basics

• To personalize is to "make personal or individual," according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. In business, personalization is useful to companies that deal directly with customers and want to build more intimate relationships with key customers to foster brand loyalty, according to the Free Encyclopedia of Ecommerce.

Benefits

• Personalization is the opposite of standardization as a retail service approach. Standardization is a service setup that relies on simple, standard and consistent service to all patrons. As companies better understand the value of their best customers, they realize personal attention helps turn loyalty into profits and fosters better overall customer satisfaction.

Internet

• Ecommerce has given rise to an intriguing concept of online personalization, as discussed in a BusinessWeek Online article, "Web Retailing Gets Really Personal," by Amey Stone. Stone discusses how new front-end technology delivers more customized product options unique to each customer, and how back-end software is being used to collect data and sales transactions on each customer to make the relationship more personal.