Businesses today are significantly using personalised loyalty programmes that continuously keep up with changing customer expectations. However, not all retailers have the same story of their loyalty programmes.
According to a census report, even though the retail loyalty programmes grew drastically in recent years, only 46% members were found to be an active user of such programmes. This suggests that undifferentiated loyalty programmes, which follow the simple mechanism of purchase, reward, and redeem, are not able to cut it anymore.
It needs beyond mere monetary rewards and loyalty programme solutions to encourage and delight the customers into making a loyal fan of the brand. Customers today have become more empowered and sophisticated. They can now have every comprehensive information regarding the products of different retailers on the fingertips. They can easily compare products before making the final purchase.
Customers would rather go to the brick stores or online stores that offer personalised experience, than returning back to a shop just for a mere loyalty card. This is the reason why we need to shift our major attention towards not viewing loyalty programmes as mere transactional tools. Loyalty programmes need to be accepted and implemented to achieve the objectives they were actually created for; and, that is boosting customer loyalty.
But, how loyalty programmes can be done differently?
In the recent survey, rewards programmes that had personalisation found to be emerging as one of the greatest customer redemption preferences. And there, you can probably get the clue. Adding personalisation to loyalty programmes can work wonders for the retailers. They can easily incorporate personalisation into their existing loyalty programmes by leveraging the data they gathered from their customers’ registrations for loyalty programmes and transactions done by them.
Retailers can enjoy more perks by categorising customers, depending on their purchase preferences and other aspects, so that they can facilitate customised offers and communications. Marketers can also benefit from micro-segmentations to improve brand advocacy.
The different surveys helped to determine a few specific archetypes, depending on various parameters, including customers’ generational differences, channel preference, and behaviour. Each of these segments was used to identify the importance of different attributes of loyalty programmes. This suggested that each segment would need a different level of personalisation in order to gain more happy and loyal customers and advocates.
Keeping up with the competitive pace of the market is extremely crucial to win the loyalty game. There are now AI-powered customer retention solutions that are replacing those traditional programmes. Use effective strategies and win back your customers.
