Michael Bellina — May 10, 2017 
When you walk into a business that you frequent and the person behind the counter greets you by name with a smile, don’t you feel special? Additionally, they know your regular order, start it without you even asking and know enough about you to ask about your spouse or child. These are the reasons you frequent this business.
It is hard to do in real life and really hard to do online. However, companies like Amazon and Google have figured it out. Why? Because they know that this personal service is what turns visitors into customers. They spend a boatload of money each year perfecting it. I believe that one of the ways to be successful online is to add a bit of personalization to your website.
“I am not a number”
I understand that knowing every visitor to your site and everything they are interested in is nearly impossible. You don’t have to know everyone and everything about them, but focusing on those who frequent your site can be a game changer. It is called personalization.
Personalization is a technique that many businesses have overlooked because they don’t understand how to do it but it is something to consider if you see that you have a good amount of traffic returning to your site. This is not just for eCommerce sites. If you have a service that people will use regularly, personalization can make a big difference in your bottom line.
“I see you were looking at these services. Do you know we also offer this?”
Your homepage, in many cases, is the most viewed page on your site. I am willing to bet that it is also the most static. Again, think about going to Amazon’s homepage. It is continually changing based on what you search for or purchase. What if your homepage changed based on each visitor?
You may not know the name of your visitor but you can certainly track what they looked at on your website. If you are a lawyer and they looked at your will writing services, the next time they visit your site, you can have your blog posts on the homepage that you wrote about wills and trusts or perhaps your estate planning services can be front and center on the homepage.
Each individual visitor leaves a footprint online whether they like it or not. You can take that one step further and tag them with a tracking cookie. If you are not sure what I tracking cookie does then think about the last time you were at Amazon looking at something and suddenly all the ads online you see are for those products you looked at. That is basically a tracking cookie. You may need the help of a developer to implement it but the return on investment could be substantial.
“Thank you for making me feel special”
We choose to do business with companies for various reasons, but typically, we choose not to do business because of something that went wrong. I am willing to guess that at the top of that list is customer service. Creating a personalized experience and making your repeat visitor or repeat customer feel special will go a long way in customer retention. Even in situations where you screw up somehow, the fact that you have created this rapport will keep them from thinking they can go anywhere and it’s the fact that you make them feel special that will keep them coming back.
This article was originally published at www.migmanmedia.com.
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