Get to Know Your Customer Day: Are You Listening to Yours?
In economic uncertainty, customer signals demand daily attention, not just a quarterly check-in. Noticing shifts is important, but how marketers respond is what defines the outcome
Get to Know Your Customers Day should be more than a quarterly reminder. It needs to be a call to pay closer attention to subtle shifts in customer behavior. In economic uncertainty, these signals are critical for brands to maintain meaningful connections, as they often appear before customers speak up or churn.
This blog helps marketers identify and act on those signs quickly. It also highlights how Positionless Marketing empowers teams to respond in real time, keeping engagement timely, relevant, and impactful.
Key takeaways:
Customer behavior shifts quietly: Early signs of churn often show up as reduced engagement or small changes in shopping habits. Spotting them early is key.
Economic pressure changes the game: Inflation and tariffs are reshaping buying behavior. These shifts may not show up in surveys but are clear in real-time data.
Speed matters: Outdated segments and delayed campaigns break relevance. Timely action is what keeps customers connected.
Positionless Marketing makes it possible: Giving marketers direct access to data and tools removes bottlenecks, enabling fast, personalized responses.
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Today’s Customer Reality
Every third Thursday of the quarter, Get to Know Your Customers Day reminds marketers of the importance of truly connecting with their customers. But in 2025, with consumers more cautious than ever, tariffs rising, budgets tightening, and brand loyalty on shaky ground, that understanding needs to go deeper. It also means spotting small shifts in behavior that can lead to bigger changes ahead.
Optimove’s 2025 Consumer Summer Shopping Survey shows that shoppers are hesitating more and expecting better. Nearly half (46%) only open emails when the content feels relevant, and 57% say personalization makes them feel understood. Consumers are cautious, and every interaction needs to feel timely and meaningful.
They leave items in their cart and never come back. They stop engaging without saying a word. These aren’t random patterns. They’re silent signals, and brands can’t afford to miss them.
Understanding Their Signals
The problem isn’t a lack of information. It’s spotting the right signals and responding on time. Even with more data than ever, many brands still miss the subtle shifts in actions that show when a customer is starting to pull away.
A drop in email open rates from a usually engaged segment. A loyal customer suddenly compares prices across channels. Fewer repeat visits from shoppers who used to come back weekly. Products added to cart but never purchased. Shorter session durations. More returns than usual.
These changes rarely happen all at once. They build slowly and often hide in plain sight, buried in day-to-day metrics that are easy to overlook.
These signs sit in dashboards, lost in static reports, or buried in weekly recaps. Campaigns are often planned too far in advance or delayed by slow approvals. By the time a response is ready, the moment has passed.
Meanwhile, personalization loses its sharpness. Instead of marketers adapting in real time to customers’ needs and actions, marketing messages are a day late and a dollar short.
Or a shopper browses kids’ shoes and gets a generic promo for backpacks. A frequent buyer stops engaging but still receives the same “Welcome Back” message every Monday. The consumer context has shifted, but the marketing message hasn’t changed. And when that happens, the brand is out of sync because it does not truly know its customers.
Current Economic Uncertainty Requires Marketers Who Have Empathy
Right now, customers are responding to real financial pressure and doing it quietly. According to Optimove’s recent consumer studies, 83% of shoppers report feeling the impact of inflation, and 55% say they are genuinely concerned about rising tariffs.
These concerns don’t show up in surveys. They surface in actions: a full-price buyer waiting for discounts, or a loyal customer pulling away from high-margin categories. These shifts signal deeper changes.
For marketers, that means truly understanding consumers’ concerns. They need to market with empathy and suggest ways for consumers to find the products and services they need within their means. Advise them of an upcoming sale, so they know to wait before they buy. Understanding their needs. And most importantly, not making every interaction a transaction. Make it a way to create deeper, more meaningful relationships.
How Positionless Marketing Helps Marketers React in Real Time
Marketers want to move quickly when customer behavior shifts, but internal dependencies often slow them down. They’re waiting on analysts to surface insights. They need developers to launch a new message. They rely on creative teams to adjust assets. By the time everything comes together, the opportunity is gone.
Positionless Marketing removes these barriers. It gives marketers direct access to the data, tools, and autonomy they need to act instantly.
With Positionless Marketing, they can spot a drop in engagement and trigger a timely message. Notice a change in shopping habits and update the next interaction on the fly. Test, learn, and optimize without delay. In uncertain times, this ability to act in real time is what keeps brands connected, relevant, and trusted.
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Get to Know Your Customers Day is a reminder to pause and pay attention. In today’s climate, listening means more than checking daily dashboards. It means noticing quiet shifts like hesitation, silence, subtle changes in behavior, and being ready to respond.
These signals don’t come with alerts. They appear in patterns, in timing, in what’s missing. Brands that build the ability to recognize and respond quickly will stay relevant, strengthen trust, loyalty, and long-term value. Because knowing your customer isn’t a campaign tactic. It’s a daily discipline.
Eddie Patzsch is an experienced SaaS operator with a proven track record of developing and executing successful go-to-market strategies. As a global revenue leader at Optimove, he manages cross-functional teams across the US, EMEA, and Israel. Throughout his career, he has consulted and onboarded digital solutions for leading brands, including Forbes, Samsung, Complex Media, Ziff Davis, Yahoo!, Big Commerce, Publicis Groupe, SolarWinds, Groupon, Coffee Bean, LexisNexis, McKinsey, Boscov's, Kroger, Lenovo, and MasterCard.
