Most people are aware that we are constantly being persuaded and nudged to engage in certain behaviours all the time. The average American sees 4,000 to 10,000 adverts every single day. In fact, we see so many adverts, brands, and logos that we tune out from most and only pay attention to the most creative, interesting, and relevant ones.

It may sound like a problem for the Mad Men. Call the advertising creatives and get them to design some more engaging ads. We can all remember some classic adverts from over the years, but how many can you remember from recently?

It’s probably not very many. That’s because this is no longer just an issue for your ad agency. The way that a brand promotes relevance today is much more closely linked to the customer experience (CX) created by that brand, rather than the celebrities featured in the ads. In the present consumer environment customers will quickly switch brand if they receive a poor experience and will happily pay more for a guarantee of better CX. All these customer actions have nothing to do with the ads.

The Internet has created more transparency around modern brands. Customers are less interested in what you – or a celebrity – say about yourself and are much more interested in what your customers say about you. Digital comparisons and switching to alternative brands are far easier today leading to many customer decisions being primarily focused on the quality of the customer experience.

But it should be possible for more brands to use some form of persuasion to not only guide customers toward a purchase, but also improve their perception of the experience by personalising the customer journey and filtering out irrelevant information. 69% of customers want brands to offer a more personalised service and yet only 40% are even attempting to offer this. A good example of how this fails can be seen with customer mailing lists. 81% of customers admit to blocking or deleting mailing list information because it just isn’t relevant to them, even when they originally subscribed to that information.

Customers know that brands have their data. They appreciate it when Netflix makes great suggestions for a new TV series or movie. They can see Amazon actively seeking out great ideas for a new book based on previous purchases. They have an understanding that some brands can use their data to personalise the service they receive and they are increasingly dissatisfied with the large number of brands that make no effort to personalise their interactions. The marketing agency Rapp found in their own research that over 70% of consumers are unhappy about the lack of personalisation in their contact with brands.

So is adaptive persuasion the future? I absolutely believe so. All the research is pointing to this expectation from customers – they want more personalisation. Customers see a better experience as both useful and desirable and they are willing to give brands their data if it results in a more personal service. The advantage for the brand is that by adapting your interactions you are far more likely to persuade the customer to make a purchase or remain loyal to your brand. Capturing the right data and being able to contextualise it quickly enough to adapt the customer experience truly is a win-win for both brand and customer.

Praxidia talks to hundreds of thousands of consumers every year about subjects such as personalisation of CX. Get in touch with me via my profile if you want to talk about ways in which we can help you to deliver the personal service your customers expect.