Personalisation is something we will hear a fair bit about this year as organisations break out of the departmental approach that has hampered their efforts.
The idea of markets of one has already been widely discussed and companies no doubt will begin to hone their personalisation strategies.
But progress is slow with only 29% of companies across a number of verticals saying they are investing in personalisation technology. This compares to payment options where 39% say they are investing.
This comes from a 'Winning in the Age of Personalization' report with research on consumers and companies carried out by Vanson Bourne for IT services company Mindtree.
It reveals that personalisation would drive consumers to buy more online but companies have other technology investment further up the list of priorities.
Here are some of the findings:
- 59% of companies say targeted promotions have improved online sales in the past 12 months
- 92% are using personalised promotions to encourage online purchases of relevant products not purchased
- 92% use personalised promotions for products consumers have previously purchased to encourage them to buy
- 87% use recommendations from peers to push online sales
- Companies are also capturing data in a number of ways to improve targeting and personalisation - customer profile data 91%, loyalty 88% and social media usage 83%.
And findings from the travellers perspective show:
- 78% have bought based online based on personalised promotions they have not bought before, 80% on products they have bought before and 69% based on recommendations from peers
- 22% expect a more personalised experience online than from an in-store transaction
- 44% of consumers also say they have abandoned an online transaction because of a price change
So it seems companies are making tentative first steps - the low-hanging personalisation fruit - but consumers are expecting a lot more.
Travellers would also like to see improvements in search and compare functionality and about half see the ease of comparing and pricing products as one of the benefits of online shopping.
However, companies say they are investing in other functionality such as social integration and wish lists.
Mindtree travel industry specialist Adnan Saulat says:
"What comes out is the need for a lot more personalisation in terms of services. There is a focus but that's not coming out.
"A dedicated focus on personalisation is needed and it goes across a lot of area. It's key source of higher revenue in terms of retaining customers or getting new customers.
"Today a lot of personalisation is being done but it's more content personalisation but more people are now context sensitive and that will be a big source of revenue going forward."
These findings mirror another recent study from reservations system supplier Atcore showing the gap between what consumers want and get from travel sites.
The full research on 6,000 consumers and 900 buyers across the US, Europe and Asia Pacific can be downloaded here.