Individualisation in luxury clientelling… what is it?

There’s a lot of buzz right now about the shift from personalisation to individualisation in luxury clientelling. But what is it!?

We define it for our clients as the difference between customising an existing product or service (personalisation: for example adding their name to a welcome amenity) and creating a bespoke product or service to suit guests’ passions, interests or tastes (individualisation: creating a bespoke amenity specifically for them). 
 
Luxury brands have been leading the way with this, but we’ve found businesses in the wider retail and hospitality worlds struggle to bring the concept to life. Often with newly recruited teams, sub-optimal staffing levels and squeezed budgets, individualisation can feel unachievable and become simply too much effort. 
 
We’ve put together a few top tips on how to get it right, using our guest experience campaign methodology*: 
 
1. Establish which areas of your guest journey are an easy win for individualisation and will be most appreciated by your target audience. There’s no point putting a load of time and effort into something that won’t work or won’t add value.

2. Understand your guests – split them down into key archetypes and help your team to really understand who they are, what makes them tick, and what individualised elements they might like. Now – what do they have in common? Create groups of guests to individualise for to save valuable time and effort.

3. Create toolkits – rather than your team having to personalise from scratch, it’s much more efficient to create toolkits to enable them to pick a treatment that will be suitable for that guest. 
 
Ultimately, individualised products or service just need to FEEL bespoke for each guest. If you can make it easier for your team to deliver this kind of elevated service, then why not? A small investment in time and well-considered thought can make a huge difference to the guest experience.
 
*Training alone doesn’t get the job done, in our opinion. Parade Campaigns comprise brand immersion, engagement, training and quality assurance.