g3

Personalized Recommendations at a glance

Site Genre: Pattern Group g

magnify imageFigureG3.1 TiVo lets you search or browse a database of television shows and offers an If you like this . . . tab that suggests other television shows you might like.

Background

The core of PERSONAL E-COMMERCE (A1) is to provide an experience that satisfies each customer’s unique needs. Making the shopping experience personal requires tailoring it to each customer. This pattern forms the core of personalized recommendations, a form of PERSONALIZED CONTENT (D4) that provides recommendations based on past purchases and on information that customers reveal about themselves. This pattern can be used in conjunction with FEATURED PRODUCTS (G1), CROSS-SELLING AND UP-SELLING (G2), and RECOMMENDATION COMMUNITY (G4) to provide useful recommendations and streamline purchases for customers.

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PROBLEM

Personalized recommendations can provide customers with a better sense of what‘s useful and what isn‘t. But if they require too much effort on the customer‘s part, or if they‘re based on what customers perceive as scant evidence, they will fail.

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SOLUTION

magnify image FigureG3.5 Page templates can be used in conjunction with individual preferences and the product database to present recommendations to new visitors (1). Visitors have their individual preferences stored whenever they explicitly personalize those preferences or purchase something (2). Individual preferences can be combined with the product database to provide personalized recommendations (3). Web site managers can manage the product database through an administrative page that makes it easy to add, remove, and edit content.

Avoid using purely inferred data to make product recommendations, because it will not necessarily reflect real customer choices. Start by offering product and category recommendations based on previous purchases by other customers. Then add recommendations based on past purchases, ratings, and interviews completed by the customer. Integrate this data into your site on product pages, category pages, and personalized recommendation pages. Provide feedback about why a recommendation was made. Provide multiple recommendations, including those that customers have seen before, to help people gauge the quality of the recommendations. Address privacy concerns and how the personalization data will be used.

Other Patterns to Consider

To give customers a way to explicitly state their needs, invite them to participate in a needs assessment interview that leads them through a PROCESS FUNNEL (H1). Provide PERSONALIZED CONTENT (D4) based on customer profiles to build product CATEGORY PAGES (B8) and CLEAN PRODUCT DETAIL (F2) pages.

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Pattern Resources

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