Keys to Mass Customization

The web has taken the guesswork out of serving your customers. No longer must you rely on surveys, opinion polls or your suggestion box. Now you can track who comes to you, what they're interested in and ultimately, what they buy. You can have a leg up on your competitors. Martha Rogers of Peppers and Rogers Group wrote the book - literally! - on one to one marketing. The One to One Fieldbook and The One to One Future are indispensable guidebooks for any company looking to connect with its customers. "We're now stepping through a completely different technology revolution that makes it possible for us to keep track of individuals one at a time," says Rogers. "We can keep track of what we learn back from them through true interactivity and dialog. Then, we can use mass customization technology to cater what we do toward each one of those customers." How's it done? She says mass customization has four steps. Read on for Rogers' tried and true principles.

Identify

You can't build a relationship with a customer until you know who he or she is. Rogers says to rely on technology to help you with this important step. "You need to be able to tag that customer so that you can see him or her at every interaction or transaction," Rogers says. "If you come to me today through the website, call me tomorrow, and next week you visit two different stores, I need to know it's you every one of those times." Don't be afraid to use incentives to get customer information, says Rogers. A frequent shopper program or some other type of incentive can convince customers to let you see them.

Differentiate

Rogers said it's more effective to differentiate between customers than try to convince them your company is different from competitors. That way you can see and respond to the individual needs of your customers. They can even be ranked in order of how valuable they are to your company. Then, you can pay special attention to the most valuable customers. "Nothing I'm saying suggests that we should treat anybody poorly," Rogers says. "But we have limited resources. If for some reason five people come to us in the same instant to order, it would be nice if we could take our most valuable customers first. We should spend money on customers relative to their value to us." Customers understand that a more valuable customer will be treated better, Rogers says. "On those airlines that I fly the most, I expect to be upgraded to first class. I expect to be treated better," she says. "On airlines I don't fly very frequently, I know that the people who do fly them frequently are going to be upgraded to first class in front of me. Your company should be able to spend the money where the profit is."

Interact

The web offers both perfect tracking and perfect memory, Rogers says. "It's a way for me to collect information about a particular customer and then give something back to that customer in a particular individualized way, very efficiently," she says. "We should not just think in terms of getting information about us out there to our customers. Our goal needs to be getting our customers to talk back to us." Incentives and rewards are a good idea here. "Gosh, we've been paying each other for years for information about customers," Rogers says. "Isn't it fair that if we want information about customers, we may have to expect to pay them? How much is it worth to us to get a little information about a customer in order to know something about him that our competitors don't?"

Customize

Put all these steps together with the proper technology and you can create a truly customized experience for your customer, Rogers says. You can give him or her an experience no other company can. "The real payoff of the new technology is for companies that take that extra hardest step," she says. "They start to take the information that we have about customers and build that strong learning relationship with customers who won't want to start over someplace else." Use what you've learned to give customers what they want. Bill them as they'd like. Offer the products and services they'd like. Give them something special and your company will succeed. "We know who you are," Rogers says. "When we combine that with our mass customization techniques, we can do things for you that our competitors can't do, not for any price." Giving customers what they want has always been the key to success. The only difference now is that finding out what they want is easier and smarter than ever.