Customers love being heard. The two main ways to ensure that they are heard are: to produce functional products and to personalize your offerings. The latter does not only refer to producing products that cater to a certain person. Businesses can also personalize their offerings by including the names of the customers in emails and text messages, by giving options to add their names on products, or by giving options to choose from various colors, offering personalized post-sales support, and much more!

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Doing so makes the customer feel heard- like the business’ offering has been designed for them. It adds a personal touch which helps build brand loyalty, which is extremely important for any business. Especially the ones that are based in a competitive market. Many companies personalize offerings to build brand loyalty by providing loyalty cards. The purchases that you make are recorded, and you are awarded with each purchase. These ‘awards’ can then be redeemed to utilize discounts, which are not available to all customers. This is an extremely effective way of personalizing offerings because discounts are often adjusted based on previous consumer patterns. Customers observe that the brand knows what they like or dislike, moreover, when they are given discounts to continue purchasing from the specific brand, they are unlikely to switch to competitors. Famous brands that incorporate this technique include Sephora and Emirates.

There are a few niche markets and businesses that personalize their entire products. However, this is rarely the case for mass-market products. These niche offerings are usually very expensive and only appeal to connoisseurs. Personalizing products in such a case is quite easy, however, it results in high levels of brand loyalty since the entire process of production is personalized- tailored to the consumer’s liking.