Re: Is personalization really personal?

From: Mark Montgomery <markm_at_gwin.net>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 11:06:16 -0500 (CDT)

TIM LEE WROTE:
>One to one marketing is hot. Personalization -- an
>application of one to one marketing -- is hotter. But nobody
>yet asks a simple question: IS PERSONALIZATION REALLY
>PERSONAL?... Personalization is really not personal. It is a
>typical segmentation solution....I hope next time before
>anybody writes or publishes an article about
>personalization, implements or helps other implement
>personalization, he/she needs to understand what
>personalization really means.

Yes Tim I know what personalization means. I can also share
your frustration a bit, but I also know why Amazon's service
isn't entirely "personal". The problem is that database
software is limited.

C/Net has a glowing article on Oracle's new upgrade for
example, but few are yet using the Internet functionality.

It's probably needless to say for many, but automation is
only part of the toolset for personalization. To be
personal, you literally must allow the customer to draw the
roadmap. That requires very close attention to detail
throughout a network, from personal communications to
surveys, database monitoring, communications monitoring....
listening.

The cost/service conflict for automation is a constant
effort, as is the lack of revenue to allow taking advantage
of all of the functions that are available, even if the best
is still constraining. We built our own personalized
knowledge management system, and it does offer our
subscribers to manage their information flow, but the
technology is only half of the equation and we are
constantly making up with human effort for the failure of
the technology to provide a truly personalized service.

The economic trends being what they are, that is favoring
every higher volume and competing with those who have
enormous scale, it's not going to get any easier to provide
personalized service unless one is in a "trade" charging for
time on big ticket projects.

It's simply the old competitive bar raising, and it's being
driven by an enormous amount of capital.

Don't be too hard on those making the attempt, most of us
are engaged in the largest price war in history.

Mark Montgomery Founder

http://gwin.net

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Received on Thu Jul 22 1999 - 11:36:59 CDT