Interesting study results, demonstrating that while many people embrace the practical side of personalisation, it can also be a turn off...
In particular, being welcomed by name on your mobile when walking into a store would cross the barrier from helpful to stalker.
Something to bear in mind when we're offered so many options to track customers' every moves online....
But whilst all the above were rated “cool”, it seems customers are turned off by some of the more intrusive capabilities of personalisation. Although the technology exists to allow customers to be instantly recognised when they walk in store – such as their mobile phone signalling their arrival – more than three quarters (76%) said that being greeted by their name when walking in the store after being recognised in such a way would definitely be defined as creepy by them.
Similarly, seven in 10 shoppers said that facial recognition technology that identified age and gender in order to display product recommendations would also freak them out.