Personalized Commerce - Customer Segments

See the example of using customer segments to offer personalized experience.

Offering personalized experiences to your customers can be a game changer for your business. Tailored content and responding to what your customers need is the key to gaining loyalty and trust. Customer Segments is a convenient tool for targeting the right group of people with the relevant products or promotions. Let's see in action how you can use the functionality in your online store.

Let's assume that for certain customers, for example, of a specific industry, you want to display some dedicated categories and products only. You'd also like to promote some specific products and make a special price offer for these customers. When the customers of that segment log in to your store, they see only the offer that is best suited to their industry needs and fulfill their shopping lists. The customers receive a special discount coupon that they can redeem at checkout. With customer segments you can easily achieve that and respond to any similar scenario.

Segment creation

1. First, create a segment. To demonstrate the case, create a segment for the DE site with one dedicated category assigned, for example BOSCH, and a few additional products that you want to sell to the segment customers.

1. Assign the BOSCH category to the segment:

And assign a few additional products:

1. Add a coupon that is valid only for the segment assignments:

1. Add customers as the segment members:

Personalized shopping

Now, the customers who are members of the BOSCH segment get a personalized shopping experience on the DE site.

To demonstrate the difference, first log in as a customer that is not assigned to any segments. Judy Wilson, from Company XYZ, is not assigned to any segment and she can browse all the products and categories on the storefront:

Now, check what's available for a customer that belongs to the segment with a dedicated category and products. Collin Finch, representing Company ABC, is one of the customers assigned to the BOSCH segment. When Mr Finch logs in to the online store, he can browse only the BOSCH assortment plus the additional products assigned to the segment.

The dedicated segment products are available under the Assigned Products tab.

Mr Finch has received an email notification with the special coupons details. He decides to make some purchases and adds chosen items to the cart. He continues to the checkout where he's able to apply the coupon codes that are valid for the segment assignments only. The coupons in this case use the subtotal amounts as tax calculation base.

As this example demonstrates, the customer gets a personalized shopping experience, which leads to greater customer satisfaction. Customer segments feature facilitates the way how you can increase customer loyalty by tailoring the storefront content to the dedicated customers and responding quickly to the ever-changing market requirements.

Segmented search offer in the showcase

To further personalize the shopping experience and ensure that customers can only search relevant products, we have added segments to Algolia for our showcase. For example, only search results that match the segment are displayed. This additional enhancement ensures a customized and efficient shopping experience for all customers.

To learn more about how to configure segments on the storefront, refer to the API guide: Customer Segment Service Tutorials. To learn more how to manage segments in the Management Dashboard, refer to the Segments documentation.