Too Close for Comfort

Brands have long treated relevance as the highest form of customer experience. Show the right offer, to the right person, at the right time. The next test of customer experience may be different. The race to understand a customer’s intent should not be accompanied by a vocalisation to the customer that you have understood them. There is grace in subtlety, a fact that many brands seem to be ignoring. The next champions of customer experiences will be the teams who understand how best to gently persuade customers, rather than bleating out certain ‘facts’ or ‘traits’ that they have understood from them, or labelled them with. Targeting alone no longer seems the unilateral strategy, the space for brands to practise restraint is fast expanding, commercially. A customer scrolls her phone, vaguely researching a surprise anniversary trip. She compares a few hotels, checks flight prices and then exits the app. Over the next few days, the app starts sending nudges her way: hotel deals, discounts for incomplete bookings, and so on. In-app ads start peddling jewellery. Towards the end of the week, though, she receives a notification that takes her aback, ‘Still planning something special for your anniversary?’

Now, your columnist will attempt to explain why this much personalisation may prompt a backlash. The recommendations made by in-app AI systems are based on a good understanding of the customer’s intent . However, they do not understand the context that lies beneath. Perhaps she did not want anyone – not even her phone – to know what she was planning. Perhaps she simply can’t shake the feeling that the apps now knows ‘too much’. While she may feel a certain affinity for a hotel or airline brand, even her friends do not know this much about her. Moreover, with friends, there is usually a sense of mutual understanding, whereas here, she feels exposed by the sheer asymmetry of information. At some point, as the nudges become persistent, an earlier feeling of neutrality drifts into annoyance, even fear. She soon feels intruded upon. And this shows us perfectly the danger of over personalisation.

Brands have long treated relevance as the highest form of customer experience. Show the right offer, to the right person, at the right time. The next test of customer experience may be different. The race to understand a customer’s intent should not be accompanied by a vocalisation to the customer that you have understood them. There is grace in subtlety, a fact that many brands seem to be ignoring. The next champions of customer experiences will be the teams who understand how best to gently persuade customers, rather than bleating out certain ‘facts’ or ‘traits’ that they have understood from them, or labelled them with. Targeting alone no longer seems the unilateral strategy, the space for brands to practise restraint is fast expanding, commercially.

The coming backlash will not be against relevance itself. Customers still want ease, speed and useful suggestions. The backlash will be against brands that confuse intimacy with access. Just because a customer leaves a trail does not mean every part of that trail must be activated. Today’s customer is both aware and anxious of the fact that their digital lives are tracked and monitored to a far deeper degree than they are aware of.

The Indian consumer is not necessarily rejecting personalisation. A 2024 PwC Voice of the Consumer Survey found that over 66% of Indian consumers are willing to share data for more personalised experiences, while 74% approve of their data being used for beneficial services. But the same survey also found that 83% value knowing that their devices secure their information. Consumers may accept personalisation, but only when it feels useful, safe and proportionate.

True advantage in customer experience may belong to brands that can personalise with judgement. It is not necessarily the brand that is louder, or closer, that wins. Rather, it is the one with messaging that is better timed, better explained and, where necessary, withheld.