Omni Core · Personalization · Module

The limits

Where the organisation chooses not to personalise, and why — the boundary that keeps relevance from becoming intrusion.

The idea

How it works

The line is crossed when the personalisation reveals knowledge the customer had not realised was held. The mechanism was acceptable; the demonstration of it was not.

Sensitive inferences — health, finances, personal circumstances — cross it immediately, and they are inferable from very ordinary behavioural data.

Working with it

In practice

  1. 01

    Rule out sensitive inference explicitly

    Health, financial distress and personal circumstances. Technically possible and not worth the consequence.

  2. 02

    Ask whether the customer knows you know

    Personalisation based on something they told you is fine. Based on something they did not realise you observed, it is not.

  3. 03

    Be visible about the basis

    “Because you looked at this” is reassuring. Unexplained relevance is unsettling.

  4. 04

    Write the limits down

    Otherwise each new capability is applied because it is available, one reasonable step at a time.

One level in

The components of the limits

A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.

  1. The exclusions

    What the organisation will not personalise on.

    Learn
  2. The visibility

    Whether the customer can see why they are seeing this.

    Learn
  3. The reasoning

    Why each limit exists, so it is not eroded by the next capability.

    Learn

Personalisation based on something they told you is fine. Based on something they did not realise you saw, it is not.