Savvy store associates have long known to cultivate relationships with their most frequent or otherwise “best” customers by remembering information such as the customer’s name, his / her family members, birthdays and anniversaries, past purchases, and the like.  When it comes to remembering information about online customers, however, retailers know that they tread a fine line.  In trying to somewhat emulate the trusted store associate experience online, retailers have to determine what is helpful and acceptable to the customer, while avoiding the semblance of over-zealous record keeping.  So – what do consumers want online retailers to remember about them, if anything? 

In the July 2009 American Pulse survey, conducted by BIGresearch on behalf of Shop.org, we asked consumers, “When you click on a link in an email to which you have subscribed (e.g. from a retailer), how helpful is it for the resulting web page to…” followed by a number of options that consumers were asked to rank from 1 (very helpful) to 5 (not at all helpful).  Following is a snapshot of what we learned:  

1. Know my language preference. Almost two-thirds of consumers surveyed said remembering their language preference was helpful.  40% of respondents actually rated this as “very helpful”, with women finding it somewhat more helpful than men. 
2. Log me in automatically.  Not quite two-thirds of respondents rated automatic log in as helpful:  32% as “very helpful”, with women again finding this more helpful than men. 
3. Recognize which country I’m in.  Just over half of consumers find this helpful, and, once again, women noted more frequently than men that this is “very helpful”. 
4. Show me items that I left in my cart the last time that I was on the site. Just over half of consumers also noted this feature as helpful to them, women somewhat more so than men.  While differences of opinion on this varied negligibly depending on income, almost one quarter of younger consumers (ages 18 to 34 years) noted this feature as “very helpful” compared to just 15% of older consumers (ages 55 years and older). 
5. Alert me to new items or events based on preferences that I specified previously.  AND  Remind me of and provide suggestions for events that I registered (e.g. birthdays, anniversaries, etc.).  Almost half indicated that both of these would be helpful, though approximately two-thirds of that group noted each would be “somewhat helpful” (vs. “very helpful”). 
6. Show me / remind me of items that I looked at the last time I visited that site.  44% of consumers ranked this feature as helpful, though again more heavily weighted towards “somewhat helpful”. 

Only about a third of consumers said that they found it helpful for retailers to show them items that complement items that they’ve bought in the past (my guess is that the usefulness of this would also depend on the type of retailer and product category in question).  Ditto for retailers to remember them upon their return to a given site and greet them by name. 

What struck me in the list above is that the top three items are very much fundamental – log me in, remember my language preference, know where I’m based.  If they don’t already do this, retailers should work with their IT groups to determine how these fundamentals can be done without onerous development work.  The next layer – and more directly pertinent to retailing – could be more complex development endeavors, but could also prove a step in the direction of translating online the best features of the traditional star sales associate. 

Shop.org Members may download the full set of results from the Shop.org Web site.  As always, please let us know your comments and thoughts on this topic!