When you reflect on your most meaningful relationships, the strongest ones are likely with loved ones who really understand you. And while some connections are instantaneous, others develop slowly, reaching a deeper level through shared experiences. Building intimacy in any personal relationship takes time and intention, and customer intimacy is no different.
What is customer intimacy?
Customer intimacy is a business strategy to align your brand with customer needs, so you can deliverpersonalized experiences. Using shopper data, companies can forge stronger personal relationships with their target audience, which increases customer satisfaction, loyalty, and sales.
The term “customer intimacy” has been around since 1993, when Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema coined it in the Harvard Business Review. “Companies that excel in customer intimacy combine detailed customer knowledge with operational flexibility so they can respond quickly to almost any need, from customizing a product to fulfilling special requests,” Wiersema and Treacy write. “As a consequence, these companies engender tremendous customer loyalty.”
Developing a solid customer intimacy strategy is vital for ecommerce companies vying for the attention of shoppers with endless options at their fingertips. Demonstrating deep knowledge of your customers and meeting their needs can set your business apart.
Effective customer intimacy strategies
- Host customer events
- Reward and incentivize customers
- Conduct surveys
- Establish customer-centric policies
- Embrace vulnerability in marketing
- Engage with consumers directly
There are many methods for building intimacy within your customer base, including:
Host customer events
Hosting virtual or in-personevents allows customers to meet and interact with each other, as well as companyteam members and brand ambassadors. These may be official company-sponsored events, like panel discussions and promotional experiences, or customer meetups and happy hours.
For Niall Horgan, CEO and cofounder of Gym+Coffee, personalized fitness events helped his companycreate a loyal customer base and flourish into an eight-figure lifestyle brand. Gym+Coffee now hosts more than 60 community events, which continue to grow in scale.
“We’ve all been to events where you might not know people, you might feel a little bit awkward—maybe it’s your first ever fitness class,” Niall says on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. “We want to break those barriers immediately. We [show] them around, tell them about us, and find out a little bit about them.”
Reward and incentivize customers
Rewarding shoppers is a tried-and-true way to foster customer intimacy. Encourage customers to stick around with incentives like free products, birthday gifts, discounts, early access to upgrades and new models, and referral bonuses.
Loyalty programs with a point or tier system can also help build a relationship over a customer lifetime. Seven out of 10 Americans consider loyalty programs a primary factor in determining brand allegiance.
Conduct surveys
Surveys are not just useful for collecting customer concerns or positive feedback. They can also get shoppers more involved in your brand.
At luxury fashion company Modern Citizen, cofounders Jessica Lee and Lizzie Agnew use questionnaires to facilitate a dialogue with customers. “We ask customers anywhere between 40 to 50 questions for [them] to give us feedback about their experience with us,” Jessica says on an episode of Shopify Masters. “That covers everything from how they’re feeling about the macroeconomic environment and shopping in general to what they want from us.” The strategy paid off: In 2022, 50% of the company’s revenue came from returning clients.
Take this one step further by forming customer advisory boards, hosting online forums, and inviting beta testers for new products.
Establish customer-centric policies
Companies dedicated to customer intimacy put consumers first and ensure their policies and offerings reflect this. This may mean shouldering costs in pursuit of long-term growth and loyalty, implementing programs like no return fees, 365-day returns, free shipping, guaranteed warranties, and excellent customer service—all of which help retain existing customers and attract new ones. Customer focus today yields future rewards.
Embrace vulnerability in marketing
For a marketing team, leveraging influencers and user-generated content (UGC) facilitates customer intimacy by leaning into authentic, vulnerable social media posts that resonate with different customer segments on a personal level.
According to Giovanna Alfieri, VP of Marketing for feminine care brand The Honey Pot, teaming up with creators who are candid and open about vaginal health has been instrumental to establishing the brand. “We have to create a safe space where the micro-experiences of humans are actually leveraged as points of conversation,” Giovanna says on Shopify Masters, adding that partnering with vulnerable creators helps “define these core concepts or elements of our brand and community.”
Engage with consumers directly
Facilitating conversations and direct engagement with consumers across platforms fosters intimacy, and the key lies in doing so mindfully and intentionally. For example, the founders of soda brand Olipop have found that texting customers provides a much more intimate experience than email—an intimacy they don’t treat lightly.
“The click-through rate on a text is exponentially greater than what you get on email,” Olipop co-founder Ben Goodwin tells the Shopify Masters podcast. “It’s an interesting medium because it is the most intimate form of connection. There’s so many people in your email inbox. I’ve got a whole email address that’s pretty much spam now. Not many people text you. We keep the communication light. We respect the channel and the intimacy of it.”
Rather than spamming customers, Olipop only sends updates its customers are likely to enjoy. “It’s about having the discipline not to abuse that channel and to respect the intimacy of the communication while offering real value to people,” Ben says. The company uses SMS for managing subscriptions, communicating new flavor updates, and sharing behind-the-scenes photos of the founders formulating new products.
How to measure customer intimacy
There are a few different ways to measure customer intimacy. Methods include:
Tracking Net Promoter Scores
A Net Promoter Score measures how likely individual customers are to suggest your products or services to a friend, loved one, or colleague. A simple survey asks consumers to rate their likelihood of sharing a product on a scale from zero to 10 and may include a field for notes or comments. This feedback can help you better understand your existing customers.
Keeping tabs on customer churn
Keeping tabs on customer churn rates provides direct insight into customer intimacy. The lower the customer churn rate, the higher your company’s customer loyalty and retention, pointing to successful customer intimacy efforts. On the flip side, high churn may indicate room for improvement in your customer intimacy tactics and can help identify areas that need work.
Noting customer satisfaction scores
Customer surveys can help you measure a customer intimacy program’s efficacy by gauging satisfaction. Using a combination of open and closed questions, you can identify strengths and weaknesses in your program and use these learnings to inform ways to better connect with customers.
Customer intimacy FAQ
What is the meaning of customer intimacy?
Customer intimacy is the process of understanding customer needs and aligning around them to deliver a personalized brand experience. It uses data and feedback to identify ways to consistently exceed customer expectations.
How do you build customer intimacy?
There are many methods for building customer intimacy, including hosting events (virtually or in person), establishing loyalty programs and incentives, regularly sending surveys and questionnaires, embracing vulnerability in marketing, and engaging with consumers directly across platforms.
What is an example of customer intimacy?
Let’s say your ecommerce fitness company specializes in running apparel, with brick-and-mortar outposts in three cities in the US. Twice a month, you host a running club meeting at your store before embarking on a group run. Attendees can get discounts and coupon codes, and a virtual program allows users to share their runs for access to promotions. This type of customer event is a form of customer intimacy.
