Poor Targeting cuts across Industries.

Service providers in several vertical industries are not meeting their customers’ needs for personalized, relevant communications, research indicates. Customers are dissatisfied with a lack of personalization and targeting and believe businesses don’t care about their needs.

Despite ever greater demands for personalization and the wealth of options afforded by digital channels, most internet users are dissatisfied with how their service providers communicate with them. Research from customer engagement firm Thunderhead conducted by YouGov found that the banking industry was most likely to use customers’ preferred digital channels, with 54% of respondents reporting they were happy with these communications.

But just 27% of internet users said gas companies communicated with them through preferred channels, and other verticals fell in between. Overall, 42% of respondents said preferred digital channels were being used at least fairly well by their service providers.

The lack of effective personalization extended to the content of messages, not just their delivery channel. At least 45% of respondents for each vertical complained that marketing materials were poorly targeted, assuming the customer fell into a certain segment but failing to be personally relevant. And about half or more said they would be more satisfied if providers referenced their actual account in communication, showing messages make sense for them.

“Today’s consumers are much more technologically sophisticated than they were even five years ago, and they are demanding tailored and personal communications from those companies with which they do business,” said John McGee, president and COO of Thunderhead, in a statement.

Research has often shown that segmentation and targeting improves marketing results—and that impersonal messages could hurt brands because of poor targeting. Service providers have a wealth of data about current customers, including information about account activity, that could help meet the challenge of keeping communications relevant.

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