The modern online consumer world is one in which there is an explosion of data available about our tastes. Google’s search is highly personalized and part of the search engine leader’s corporate vision is making its search as uniquely fine-tuned to the user as possible. Also, anyone with a Netflix account knows how deeply personalized and exact the service’s recommendations can be. Not only are customer preferences an important part of business models, they have great amounts of value and are a factor in customer satisfaction and loyalty.

It only stands to reason that customer preferences are important in customer engagement as well, and this is becoming increasingly vital as the number of channels people commonly use increases.

For one, the channel preferences of customers are very meaningful, and people as a whole have become more sophisticated about technological options. This research brief makes several key points about the value of the customer experience when interacting with a company:

• 83% of customers are more likely to make purchases from businesses that are easy to interact with.
• 70% of customers increase their spending if they experience strong customer service.
• 15% of customers would be willing to spend 20% more with businesses that provided good service.

It also addresses another important factor: channel design that takes into account customer preferences. As an example it points to two factors: customer age and the type of inquiry.

Live agents are preferred when the customer wishes to make a purchase, lodge a complaint, or solve a problem. Self-service is used for quick and routine interactions, such as looking up information. Finally, the preference for a live agent over social media is typically a function of age, with older customers preferring the former.

This is just a simple example of the value of customer preference, but with the fine-grained customer data that is available in the modern business environment, such preferences can be tuned in a way that is very exact and is beneficial to both the business and the satisfaction of the customer.