Creating Superfans Podcast Episode 316: Brittany Hodak

Brittany Hodak [00:00:04]:
Hello, and welcome to the Creating Superfans podcast. I’m Brittany Hodak, a speaker, author, and entrepreneur obsessed with all things customer experience, and here’s what I know. If your customers aren’t telling their friends about you, you’re in trouble. But don’t worry. By the end of this episode, you’ll have some new ideas for getting them to sing your praises. Today, I’m gonna be talking all about the power of personalization. If you’ve read my book, creating superfans, you’re familiar with my supermodel. Super is an acronym, s u p e r.

Brittany Hodak [00:00:36]:
Start with your story, understand your customer’s story, personalize, exceed expectations, and repeat. Today’s episode is all about that middle pillar, personalization. Now generally speaking, I like to divide personalization into 2 buckets, high-tech and high touch. High-tech personalization are the things that are powered by automation, AI, machine learning, and high touch are the ones that are powered by people. Because you noticed something, you did something. Which one is better? Well, I always say you need the right mix of both because when you can combine high-tech with high touch, that is when you truly create high impact. So in today’s episode, I’m gonna be sharing some ideas that fall into both of those camps, high-tech and high touch, so that you can look for ways to inject more personalization along your customers’ journeys. Now there’s tons of psychology backing why personalization matters, why it’s important, why we crave tailored experiences.

Brittany Hodak [00:01:45]:
Tons of studies showing that, you know, depending on who’s doing the study, anywhere between about 85 to 95% of people say that they prefer personalization. And what it really comes down to is feeling seen. Nobody wants to feel like just another customer, just another number. In fact, I was looking at a study, a couple of weeks ago that Salesforce did recently where they said 61% of people say that most companies treat them like a number, and nobody wants to feel like that. Right? So finding ways to treat every customer like you’re most important by delivering the right content in the right way at the right time is incredibly important. Now some high-tech personalization that you probably experience in your everyday life comes from recommendation engines. So when you, you know, go into your Netflix account, you’re gonna be served personalized suggestions based on your viewing history. Things that you’ve done before influence the suggestions that are being served up to you for the future.

Brittany Hodak [00:02:53]:
Same thing with the Spotify playlist. Same thing with shopping online, whether, you know, Amazon is is recommending a new product or or your favorite retailer that you’ve done stuff with in the past has said because you like this, you might like this. Are you using the information that you have about your customers to make best suggestions for next steps? Again, if you’re not using high-tech personalization, can you use high touch personalization? If you have a business where you’re serving, you know, smaller amounts of customers at higher ticket or higher dollar price points, What are the high touch personalization, recommendations and suggestions that you can make? Now I was just recently actually, just yesterday at an event for a company called Fathom Realty, and I had the pleasure of not just delivering a keynote, but also doing a couple of workshop sessions with them. And several of their agents were sharing some really great ideas about what they do in their business, and I wanna share 3 of them. And these are from the real estate space, but I think they’re applicable to a very broad, category of of business owners and leaders. The first comes from a gentleman named Gary. Gary spent years working in retail before he got into real estate, and he had a massive heart attack several years ago and has had a couple of smaller heart attacks after. And he said that when he was in the hospital, recovering from one of the heart attacks, he suddenly thought, who are the people that I maybe need to apologize to, that I was a little short with or a little frustrated with, or maybe I haven’t talked to in a long time? And his mind just started thinking, what if the last thing they think of when they think of me is that conversation that I regret or that thing that I wish I had, you know, taken back that I hadn’t.

Brittany Hodak [00:04:53]:
So he was scrolling through his phone in the hospital and sending texts to people. And not saying, hey. I’m in the hospital and just had another heart attack, but just, hey. I was thinking about you, and I wanted you to know x y z. And he made a commitment that if he got out of the hospital, he was gonna continue to do that every day. So it’s been several years now, and Gary’s routine every morning is that when he wakes up, the first thing he does when he gets his phone is scroll through his contacts, find somebody that he hasn’t spoken to in a while, and send them a note to say that he’s thinking about them. Now he’s past the point of, you know, apologizing for things. It’s just reaching out saying, you were on my mind, or I was thinking about you, or I wanted you to know x y z.

Brittany Hodak [00:05:36]:
He said he has about 1400 contacts in his phone, and it’s a mix of personal and professional contacts, and he’s not reaching out because he’s trying to sell anything or do anything. He’s just genuinely trying to connect one to one with another person so that they start their day with a message from somebody saying, you know, you mean a lot to me, or I was thinking about you, or, you know, I’m really proud of this thing that’s going on for you. And I thought that was a really beautiful practice. So if you were looking for something else to add to your morning routine, that might be something that feels like it resonates with you. I know it does with me. I said to Gary, wow. I really wanna commit to trying to do this because I think that’s a very, very cool thing. Another great piece of advice that somebody shared yesterday was how to make it feel not so overwhelming to send holiday cards.

Brittany Hodak [00:06:27]:
Agents were talking about some of the different tools that they employ. And I shared that one of my favorite tools is a company called Handwritten. I’ve had their CEO David on this podcast before, but they have handwriting robots. So you can type in your notes, and they actually have robots that write them with ballpoint pens. By the way, it’s not like a robot like you think of. I I was so excited the first time he said robots, and it’s it it doesn’t, you know, have, like, a head or a face or anything. It’s kind of if you’ve ever seen what the president uses to for his signature to be on documents, that little auto pen thing, it’s it’s more like that style robot, but it’s still very, very cool. And if you’re interested, I’ll I’ll link in the show notes to that episode.

Brittany Hodak [00:07:06]:
David talks all about the power of personalization and and how they’re doing handwriting at scale. So, anyway, I was talking about this company, Handwritten, and an agent shared a tool that she uses, which I thought was also a really cool idea. She said that throughout the year, every time she closes on a home, she prewrites out a birthday card and a holiday card and, if applicable, an anniversary card to that person or that family that she has just served. And she said that way, you know, she’s always got so much gratitude in her heart because the deal is just closed, and she’s so excited, and she can write something out for this family. And then she does it throughout the year. So when she gets to the end of the year, she doesn’t have 300 cards to send out for Thanksgiving or New Year’s or Christmas or whatever holiday she’s choosing. She’s done them in advance. And she said over the years, she’s developed a system for this so that she doesn’t accidentally, like, send the same birthday card 2 years in a row or the same anniversary card 2 years in a row.

Brittany Hodak [00:08:06]:
So she knows everybody that is, you know, getting a card for me in 2024 is getting one of these cards, and then in 2025, she’ll have different cards and so on and so forth. She said that for her, the slowest weeks of her year are the ones between, Christmas and, like, a week past New Year’s because everybody’s busy. Nobody’s trying to buy or sell their home. And so what she does during that 10 day or so period is look at all the people from past years that she needs to write cards for, and she starts prewriting those for the year ahead. So, again, she’ll look at it and say, you know, here are all the customers over the past 4 or 5 years that I wanna make sure get birthday cards, anniversary cards, etcetera. A third trick that somebody shared that I thought was really fantastic, and, again, this this comes from a real estate example, but I think it it’s broadly applicable, a woman named Emily who is doing real estate but is a former kindergarten teacher. And as a former kindergarten teacher, she is very much attuned to the needs of kids. And she said something special that she does every time she sells a home is when she goes on the listing appointment, which is, like, the first meeting between the realtor and the the seller, she She goes on that listing appointment with her parent the parents, and then she says, okay.

Brittany Hodak [00:09:26]:
I have a very important meeting that I have to have with the kids now. And she says, you know, to the kids, we’re gonna have this serious meeting, and your mom and dad are not allowed. So the kids are, you know, immediately curious about what’s it about, and she talks to the kids about all of the feelings that they may be feeling and all of the emotions that come with moving. And she has the kids sign a listing agreement that mirrors the ones mom and dad signed. Obviously, you know, a little bit different and age appropriate. She’s got a few different ones, but she talks to the kids about how important it is to pick up their toys and have their rooms cleaned and all of the things that they need to do for the photography that has to happen for the listing photos and people coming for open houses and things like that. And she says to the kids, if you can honor this agreement, if you can do everything mom and dad ask, if you can keep your toys away, if you can keep your room cleaned, when the house sale sells, here’s what you get because you’re selling this house too. It’s your house too.

Brittany Hodak [00:10:28]:
And then they have a whole menu of things that they get to choose from. So they could get a gift card to their favorite store. They could get a new bedroom starter kit to be able to, you know, pick out what they’re gonna do in the new house when they move, all of these fun things. And she said that she gets the most referrals and the best feedback from those meetings because now the kids feel empowered. They feel like they’re part of the process, and, you know, it’s she’s got all the cute collateral that she’s created as she’s done this over the years. So people are sharing it on social media. They’re talking about it, and it sounds really, really cool. I realize that you may be listening to this thinking, well, I’m not in real estate.

Brittany Hodak [00:11:08]:
But if you’re in a position where you serve families or customers with children, I challenge you to think about the sales process. Is there some point where you can do something that gets the kids involved? And if not, is there something fun that you can do that makes mom or dad look like a hero at home? For instance, as I’m recording this, the movie Moana 2 is coming out soon and I have some professional partners who I know have kids that are very excited about Moana 2 coming out just like my kiddos are. And something that I wish I’d thought of a little bit sooner is renting out a theater to have a private showing. You can you can rent out a theater at AMC’s, probably all the other chains too, for, like, a few $100 and do a private showing. Well, a lot of people thought of this before I did. All of the private showing rooms are bugged, so I’m not able to have the screening for Moana. But I realized that what I can do is send gift cards to the parents who I know have the kids that are looking forward to Moana and some cool Moana merch, like age appropriate things. So maybe like a Barbie, or Lego sets or whatever makes the most sense, and then they can still go have that fun personalized experience where they can take their kids to see the movie, get popcorn, do all other things, and have their their toys.

Brittany Hodak [00:12:36]:
So as you think about personalization, especially as you think about that balance that I mentioned between high-tech and high touch, one thing that you wanna make sure that you don’t do is overdo it in a way that feels creepy or invasive. Now I use the word creepy because this is something that I hear sometimes, especially when we talk about the high-tech personalization. So you have to always walk that fine line of what’s helpful versus what’s invasive. I travel all the time for my job. Actually, this particular week, I’m flying all 5 days, which I was a little bit, overwhelmed when I realized that over the weekend. But every single day this week, I will be in at least one air well, I guess you’re always in at least 2 airports because you take off in Newland. So, yeah, every day I’ll be in at least 2 airports this week, a bunch of different states, a bunch of different cities, and a bunch of different airlines. One of the things that I love now about flying is the personalization that you get with push notifications and text messages and updates in the app telling you, you know, if the gate changes or if your flight’s running early and you’re about to board and all of those things.

Brittany Hodak [00:13:44]:
So to me, that’s not creepy at all. Right? It’s incredibly helpful because it’s just coming to my device. But you can overdo it with personalization, especially if you’re taking things to other devices. McDonald’s made a big splash in a negative way about a year ago, maybe a little over a year ago, when they introduced personalization on their menu screens when people were ordering in the app. I I think it was Australia where they initially were like, we can’t do this anymore because if you order it in the app, then when you drive up with your code, it was saying on the menu, like, great to see you again, Jen. Welcome back, Bobby. And people were saying, that feels creepy. Not because they see it, but because the people in the car ahead of them or behind them can potentially see it as well.

Brittany Hodak [00:14:33]:
Now another example of overpersonalization is that people don’t understand how the technology works. So if you’ve given permission, for tracking pixel or token on somebody’s phone or computer to give access to, let’s say, the photos, and then people see that and don’t realize it’s a one to one communication. This is something that, my mom, who’s probably listening, so hi, mom, said to me, one time, she got super creeped out with one of the the photo sharing companies. I don’t remember if it was Shutterfly or Snapfish, but one of those companies that sent an email to her and said, you know, look at all these cool photo gifts that you can make. And they had the, you know, ornaments or tote bags or t shirts or whatever, but it was actually using photos from her photo roll. Because at some point, when she had made something in the app, she had said, you have permission to view the photos. And so when she saw that email, her first thought was, how did they get these pictures, and who else did this email go to? Like, are they using my pictures without permission of people? So I assured her, no. That’s not the case.

Brittany Hodak [00:15:39]:
Everybody’s, you know, seeing dynamic information, and the personalization is different for everybody. I promise you nobody else is seeing your pictures. But for somebody who doesn’t stay on top of how personalization is is being deployed by companies, that can feel really like an invasion of privacy. So you always wanna balance what is helpful with what feels like an overreach. If you haven’t already been very intentional about the questions that you’re asking your customers and your prospects at every step of their journey to collect and then use information for personalization, that’s a really great next step after you finish listening to this episode. There is a quote that I use on stage sometimes that I love. It comes from a guy named Doctor. Tony Alessandra.

Brittany Hodak [00:16:29]:
It’s the platinum rule. We all grew up with the golden rule, treat others the way we wanna be treated, which is wonderful advice straight from the New Testament. But doctor Alessandra says, that’s not enough. Don’t treat people the way you wanna be treated. Treat them the way they wanna be treated because nobody wants to be treated exactly the same way as you. Everybody has different preferences, needs. You know, they may wanna talk to you via a different channel. They may have different times of day.

Brittany Hodak [00:16:59]:
They may want different information in different times. So how are you using personalization to give everybody exactly what they need at the right time? Now here’s the point where I ask you for your personalized feedback. I am about to embark on the first ever national research study that I’ve done. I’m partnering with an incredible company to do a very large data backed study all about super fandom. It’s gonna be called something like the state of super fandom report. I don’t know. We’re still kinda, like, workshopping the names. But I would love to know from you, what are some of the questions that you would be fascinated to see responses to from thousands of people representing general pop general population in the United States.

Brittany Hodak [00:17:50]:
So if you have any questions around, you know, what makes a customer wanna spend more money somewhere or choose one location over another, or what are the things that drive more referrals and how much of that ties back to personalization. Please send me any questions that you have because I’ll be putting this research study together over the next several weeks, and we’ll be asking the questions I think it’s, like, the 1st or second week of January. So we’ve still got a little bit of time if you’re listening to this soon after the episode comes out. So, reach out to me. You can find me on every social media platform. I’m at brittneyhodack, or you can even send me an email to britney@britneyhodak.com. I would love any suggestions that you have for that study. I would also love to hear what are some of the things that you’re doing to put personalization in action? What are some of the easy or impactful things that you’ve implemented either into your loyalty programs or, your conversations with customers to really have them feel like they are the most important person that you are serving.

Brittany Hodak [00:18:57]:
Now I would be remiss if I ended this episode without reminding you that collecting the voice of customer data in your business is so very important if you’re not regularly asking your customers and your prospects what they need from you and what they think of you, find ways to do that, whether that’s through qualitative surveys, quantitative surveys, 1 on 1 calls, meetings. I promise if you ask your customers what you can do to serve them better, they will tell you people love sharing their feedback, especially if they know it’s gonna be acted on. That’s it for today’s episode.

Brittany Hodak [00:20:11]:
Please help me out by leaving a review for the show or sharing it with a friend. Until next time, remember, don’t settle for standard. Be super.