Google is going to town on personalization. On 1 May it announced that its personalizable homepage, the company's fastest growing product in 2006, will henceforth be known as
iGoogle. Meanwhile, the world's largest search engine is adding new
gadgets (the things you personalize your page with, e.g. calendars, weather forecasts, space invader games, to-do lists, notebooks, news feeds, quotes of the day and mini wikipedias, etc) at a rate of knots.
At the last count, there were around 25,000 gadgets, eclipsing the likes of competitors
Netvibes and
Pageflakes. Google is doing this because it knows people no longer want standard, conventional, generic, regular (in short, what everyone else has got) — they want personal, individual, something that reflects them and which they can create and shape. Oh, and the more gadgets Google offers, however weird and off-the-wall (and there are plenty of those, believe you me), the more people it will satisfy and the further down the
tail it will go.
This isn't exactly news — personalization has been building up a head of steam for a while now. It started with mobile ring tones, different coloured iPods and iPod accessories, moved to MySpace and Bebo pages where people could express themselves and interact with other people with similar interests. And then onto personalizable search engine homepages.
But just because personalization isn't new doesn't mean it's something issuers don't need to address. Because they do — and urgently. People no longer want regular relationships with regular issuers and to carry regular plastic. They want personal plastic and a more personalized service. If Google is placing such an emphasis on personalization, giving people what matters to them, then issuers should, too. Google has got its fingers firmly on the collective pulse, so it makes sense to monitor its moves and, to some extent, mirror them.
Here are some ways issuers can satisfy the rampant consumer demand for personalization:
- Interact with individual subgroups through any number of templated (and therefore cost-effective) homepages that reflect their interests. For example, why can't rugby enthusiasts view video clips of great tries on the same page as their balance? Why can't they take part in competitions that will win them tickets to international rugby matches while they're checking their statements and transactions? Why can't they check the positions of all the teams in their favourite league before they log out? And why can't they be greeted with an action shot or clip from the team they support when they log in? The possibilites are endless, easy-to-implement and are a great way to engage with cardholders
- Tailor rewards and point schemes to specific subgroups, not to consumers as a whole. Rewards and points are less relevant if they don't motivate, really mean something to people. And better still, allow those groups to vote for the types of rewards and points schemes they benefit from. For example, why can't rugby enthusiasts see their annual cash back go into an injured players fund voted for by them, or be put towards the cost of their season ticket, which the issuer buys in bulk at a discounted rate?
- Allow your customers to design their own cards online — many issuers
globally are already doing this, and it's set to become the norm, the
very least cardholders expect. These days, most people have access to
high speed internet, and most people have a digital camera, so allowing
them to design their own cards with images of their own (or images
provided by you) is a no-brainer. The latest internet and 'on demand'
digital printing technologies mean this is possible, and allow issuers
to market to subgroups with the scale they require but minus the
prohibitive inventory issues. Let every community and affinity group
choose designs from a library relevant to it, not to everyone (or worse
still, to the issuer itself)
- More generally, simply let people decide the way their online banking page should look. A funkily designed list of recent transactions in that corner, the balance and available funds flashing in the other, a calculator towards the top and a 'We'll call you in 5' widget towards the bottom; at the same time, let people choose the background design or colour they want (just like Google) and maybe even allow them to select a favourite song from a mini-library of songs to playing while they transfer funds. It's simple, but it could be ever so effective.
There's a lot more to all this, but I'll sleep on it.