Top 6 Customer Loyalty Trends
In an overly competitive world, loyal customers are a business’ most valued asset. While acquiring new customers is essential, retaining them is equally critical for the growth of the brand. Apart from lowering marketing spends, building a loyal customer base adds to your credibility, accelerates profits and gives you an edge over your competitors.
In an overly competitive world, loyal customers are a business’ most valued asset. While acquiring new customers is essential, retaining them is equally critical for the growth of the brand.
Did you know that it costs 5 to 25 times as much to attract a new customer than to retain an existing one? This makes building a loyal customer base and developing relations with them even more important.
Apart from lowering marketing spends, building a loyal customer base adds to your credibility, accelerates profits and gives you an edge over your competitors.
Customer loyalty matters and should be part of every brand’s DNA. Here are 6 customer loyalty trends to help you enhance your loyalty programs -
Personalization is Key
It is the era of personalization, ‘one size fits all’ is no longer the norm. At a time when competition is just a click away and with customers’ dwindling attention spans, it is in your interest as a business to understand what they want and deliver exactly that to grasp their attention.
When a customer visits your e-commerce store, he/she is more likely to purchase if they are targeted with personalized offers. Moreover, today technology has enhanced data collection methods so why not make the best use of them to deliver personalized experiences to your customers and build loyalty.
The same tactic needs to be applied when it comes to sending SMS-es and e-mails to customers. Whether it’s addressing people by their name, sending them gender-specific products or basis their purchasing history – customers are more likely to react to messages that are tailor-made for them. Don’t have an in-house team of expert writers? Reach out to writing services or resume writing services to handle it for you.
Premium Offering
Customers might be enrolled in multiple ‘loyalty programs’ but is that really a measure of their loyalty towards brands?
Taking customer loyalty, a notch higher are premium loyalty programs that guarantee a truly loyal set of customers. So, what are premium loyalty programs? Contrary to the ‘free’ loyalty programs, a premium loyalty program requires customers to pay a fee for a host of benefits they can enjoy.
Customers are no longer interested in loyalty programs that don’t instantly gratify them and that is what lays the foundation for premium loyalty programs. Take Amazon Prime for instance – Amazon Prime members spend 4.6x more money on Amazon than non-Prime members do which goes to prove the ROI impact premium programs have.
Chatbots
Human interaction in the digital world is changing – businesses are deploying chatbots to transform customers’ shopping experiences and drive loyalty.
Being automated programs that are available 24/7, chatbots provide solutions instantly and cut down on the wait-time. They can also be used to remind customers to redeem their loyalty points.
An example of a brand that has wonderfully integrated their loyalty program to chatbots is Marriott. The members of their loyalty program, Marriott Rewards get to make travel enquiries and arrangements via their chatbot.
Brand Collaborations
Whether it’s airline brands partnering with banks or hospitality brands partnering with retailers – brands are increasingly collaborating with each other to offer more valuable benefits to customers.
Not only does this act as a strong customer acquisition tool but also helps leveraging each other’s customer loyalty databases. The idea is to play on each other’s strengths to delight and offer a rewarding experience to loyalists.
One of the recent successful brand partnerships is the global partnership of Uber and Manchester United. This partnership saw a dedicated ‘Uber zone’ at Old Trafford to help fans arrive with ease on match days.
Incorporate Social Media
There is no business goal that social media cannot help you meet. The same applies for building customer loyalty.
The easiest way to use social media to reward your customers is by encouraging them to perform social actions such as tag your brand, like your page or share your posts. This amplifies your social reach while rewarding customers.
You should also use social media to create awareness about your loyalty program and communicate with your loyalists. You can host flash sales exclusively for your loyal members or even carry out member acquisition campaigns.
Cyber Security
When customers sign up to your loyalty program, they trust you with their personal details and as a storehouse of such sensitive information, you need to be responsible enough to protect it. It goes without saying - failing to do so will most definitely cost you your loyal customers.
As per The Atlantic, consumers see value in companies that provide more transparency and communication to assure cybersecurity protections. Hence, it is important to invest in strong cybersecurity programs to protect information from data breach and maintain the trust customers have instilled in you.