Customer Experience
Loyalty programmes are about much more than a simple bonus card for retailers. It is about building a consistently positive emotional connection between customer and brand.
There are service offerings that customers already take for granted today, such as friendly customer service, secured and punctual delivery or a favourable offer. How can customers really be tied to a brand?
However, customers who have once been tied to a brand remain and are therefore particularly valuable for a company. This is because loyal customers always return to a company with which they associate positive experiences and, or even become brand ambassadors and recommend products and brands to acquaintances and friends. In this way, not only new customers can be generated, but also costs for new customer acquisition can be reduced.
However, most loyalty programmes are very generic and passionless: customers can collect and redeem points, or occasionally benefit from special promotions. This one-dimensional approach is insufficient in today's world. If you really want to inspire your customers, you have to become more creative: By addressing them individually and through personalised loyalty programmes, real incentives can be set and customers can be controlled in a targeted manner. Did your customer buy a product particularly frequently last year? Provide offers and bonus points individually tailored to purchase behaviour and show that you really know and value your customer.
By identifying interests and preferences, selected products can be recommended, content can be adapted and customers can be addressed individually. With suitable measures, customers can also be lured specifically to own brands or alternative brands, for example.
Customer loyalty pays off!
It has long been known that loyalty pays off: According to studies, the costs of acquiring new customers are around five times higher than those of retaining existing customers.
New customers have to be attracted at the beginning with great effort. Brand awareness and a comprehensive marketing strategy are essential to persuade customers to buy along the customer journey. These are often associated with high costs. In return, returning customers generate real revenue:
Retailers, for example, generate around 80% of their turnover with an average of 20% of their customers. As a rule, loyal customers buy more often and usually have higher-value shopping baskets. At the same time, they are more willing to pay higher prices and are less sensitive to price increases.
Furthermore, loyalty and marketing are directly interrelated. For example, loyalty programmes provide additional data to marketing, enabling them to create personalised experiences and target customers.
With the right incentives, you can get customers to refer more customers, write product reviews or rate your company.
And: it is important to inspire customers and continuously create incentives in order to create a sustainable loyalty programme. For this reason, loyalty programmes and marketing activities should go hand in hand and be coordinated.
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CX Management
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