Don’t be a creep when it comes to using customer data
Collecting and using data is a sensitive subject.
⚡ Speed Run Notes
- The creep line is the distance between “they noticed me” and “they're watching me.” Remembering a birthday is warm. Remembering a cart abandonment from 30 days ago is unsettling. The difference is whether the data was volunteered or surveilled.
- Personalization that mentions a specific recent action feels invasive; personalization that mentions a pattern feels insightful. “You last ordered a latte” feels like tracking. “Your usual?” feels like being a regular. Same information, completely different emotional signature.
- CD8 (Loss Avoidance) gets triggered unintentionally when users feel watched. The fear of being surveilled is more costly to the brand than the lift from the personalization. Most brands under-measure the cost and over-measure the benefit.
- Creepy data use is almost always the result of an analytics team without a taste filter. Engineers ship what the data allows. Designers edit for what the customer can handle. A team without the designer in the room will cross the creep line as a default.
- The deepest principle: any personalization a user would be upset to see spelled out in a letter has already crossed the line. Imagine mailing the customer a letter listing everything you know about them. If the letter is horrifying, the personalization is horrifying — even if it's delivered invisibly.
On one hand, you want to collect as much data as possible so that you can fully understand your customers and personalize marketing messages – the end goal being customer influence.
On the other hand, using what you know about a customer can be pretty creepy. Remember the Target example – when Target knows a girl is pregnant before her father does. Well, that’s an example of how a company can get to the creepy side.
It’s about being transparent and respectful at all times, but don’t let it decrease your creativity. Below are 5 ways in which you can capture and use big data, while maintaining your level of creepiness low.
Author Credibility: Yu-kai Chou
Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.
Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.
His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Google Scholar — with 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.
1. Make it very clear how you plan to use the data
First, cover your bases completely in your Terms of Use page and your Privacy Policy page. It’s very important to make it clear (from the legal standpoint) about how you plan to use the data.
Second of all, write a layman’s version of how you plan to use your data on a separate page on your site. This can perhaps be in a blog post. Let your customers know that you collect certain data so that you can better service them.
By being transparent and clear about how you plan to use the data, customers will feel safer and more secure.
Also, make sure to let them know that you’re NOT reselling their data.
2. Make the personalization feel casual
When you make personalization too personal, customers start feeling a little weird and over exposed.
When Target initially sent out ads to women who were most likely pregnant, they specifically only sent out baby-related ads. If a woman sees only baby-related products, she may feel a little strange and think, “how does Target know that I’m pregnant?” She may feel like you’re trying to manipulate her.
Target quickly realized their mistake and changed their advertisements. They now send targeted ads alongside random ads. For example, if they’re targeting a woman who is likely pregnant, they’ll send a baby-product ad next to a kitchen-appliance ad.
In this case, the woman doesn’t feel overexposed, but she still sees the baby-product advertisement.
3. Text message at most twice a month
Texts are a great way to directly reach a customer and cause action immediately. A great example is to use text-message marketing to fill empty seats during a slow day at your restaurant.
However, if you overuse text messages, customers can quickly unsubscribe from your marketing messages and no longer trust your company.
For this reason, we recommend that you send at most 2 text messages per month to your customers. Customers don’t feel bombarded by messages from you, but you’re still able to impact them multiple times a month.
4. Allow easy opt-outs
As a follow up to point #3, make sure to make it easy for your customers to opt-out of your marketing, advertising, and loyalty programs. Customers should be able to opt-out with an easy click of the button.
If they have to jump through hoops, call customer service, and go through a long, drawn out process to opt-out, you may lose more than an email subscriber – you may lose a customer.
5. Give customers a reason to give you their data
The perfect example of this is to provide customers with a rewards program. A customer joins a rewards program for one simple reason – to get free stuff. In return, you get access to the customer’s valuable information – it’s a win-win scenario.
Focus on the above 5 points and you and your customers will build a long, healthy, and personal relationship.
Related Reading
- The Octalysis Framework for Gamification & Behavioral Design
- What is Gamification? Definition, Examples & Framework
- Top 10 Marketing Gamification Cases
- Top 10 eCommerce Gamification Examples
- 90+ Gamification Examples & Cases with ROI Stats
- Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges & Leaderboards
