April 5th, 2022, Janice Fernandes
As brands try to capture more data about consumers, how they use that information to enhance the buying experience can be the difference between keeping and losing a customer.
In a recent YouGov survey, consumers from 18 markets across the globe were asked if they think companies have been successful in providing personalised experiences across various sectors.
In this piece, we look at the extent of perceived personalized experience across airline, media, telecom, food and retail brands. Six other sectors – tech, automotive, gaming, banking, restaurant, and gambling brands – are examined in a separate piece.
Overall global consumers say they are more likely to find a personalised experience from food brands and retail companies compared to airlines, media and telecom companies.
Globally, food brands have made the most impact when it comes to personalizing experiences for shoppers – but even this sector has a long way to go. Nearly two in ten global respondents think food brands (18%) have been successful in providing a personalized experience and the figure is similar for retail companies (17%). Businesses can enhance the customer journey by recommending products based on consumers’ behaviors, interests and perceptions; by providing tailored offers; or by timing their communications to be more impactful, for example.
Almost two in five urban Indian consumers (39%) are happy with the tailored experiences when buying food, while nearly a third say the same about retail companies (29%). Singaporeans rate both food and retail companies as being equally successful in providing customized experiences to shoppers (19%). Similarly, Americans register more than one in ten consumers who say the same about both sectors (14%).
Personalised emails are an effective way of delivering tailored information directly to customers. It’s likely to kick-start the purchase journey too. Around a third of consumers in the UAE (33%) say airline companies have been successful in providing a personalised experience, the highest among all 18 countries and all sectors. While airline consumers reporting personalised experiences drop to around two in ten among urban Mexicans (21%) the number drops further in the rest of the North American continent. The share falls by almost half among Canadians (11%) and decreases to 6% in the US.
Data shows that consumers in most Asian markets are more likely than the global audience (12%) to consider media companies as being successful in providing personalized experiences. The online community in Indonesia makes up the highest share with around a quarter of consumers (25%), but the percentage drops steadily in the rest of the Asian countries. Most European countries record slightly less than one in ten consumers (Italy 9%, Denmark 7%, Sweden 7%, France 4%, GB 6%) with only Germans (10%), Polish (11%) and Spaniards (10%) registering slightly higher. This suggests that OTT platforms and other media sites need to improve the personalized experience offered, like recommendation lists, as currently consumers are not impressed.
Telecom brands/operators are known for offering customized data plans to individual customers based on their past usage. However, among these five sectors, telecom still registers the lowest share of overall consumers (11%) who report successful personalized experiences. Individually, the markets are divided. Urban Indians and Indonesians take the top spots (22% each), while the US (4%), Denmark (4%) and Great Britain (3%) register less than one in 20 consumers.
Great Britain continues to be on the lower end of the ladder among all 18 markets. The share of Britons who think food and retail companies successfully provide personalized experiences is slightly higher (11% and 15% respectively). But around one in 20 Brits say the same about airline (7%), telecom (6%) and media (3%) companies.
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Methodology: The data is based on the interviews of adults aged 18 and over in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 528 and 2,002 for each market. All interviews were conducted online in January 2022. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples.