Seventy-five percent of customers already prefer that retailers use personal data they gather to improve shopping experiences — so why not rise to the challenge?

With the right customer data, firms can build relevant, differentiated experiences and close the gap between a customer’s problem and solution, writes Forrester in new research. Some marketers are already harvesting this abundance of data and improving the overall customer service:

  • Virgin America’s recent site redesign displays only flights from the customer’s city, simplifying the booking process.
  • After using customer traffic data to learn that only 30% of its café customers shopped in the store, a retailer boosted visits by café customers by 20% simply by modifying café signage and displays.
  • Google Now leverages machine learning to understand behavioral patterns to send alerts with up-to-date traffic, weather, and flight information for a customer heading to an airport.
  • The Lego Stores partnered with Medallia to transform customer feedback into real-time customer service by notifying a customer that an out-of-stock item was arriving to the store in 30 minutes.

Learn more about the research here.