September can set your business up for a profitable fourth quarter. It is an excellent time to start or boost your customer loyalty program, with some creative ideas and trends to embrace. With Septembers’ hot topics, such as Back to School, a brand needs to stay relevant to the consumers’ needs and keep following the trends, hoping to stay market leader or dethrone the market leader.
Before we dive into the customer loyalty trends, it is important to highlight the moderators of customer loyalty. Customer loyalty is viewed as the strength of the relationship between an individual’s relative attitude and repeat patronage. To interpret this statement into the contemporary complex retail market is vital to realize that to drive customer loyalty, the brands need to cover all motivational, perceptual, and behavioral attributes.
Retail Experience with trained store cast members
90% of customers said that they were more likely to buy instore when helped by a knowledgeable member, according to TimeTrade study.
The businesses need to have trained store cast members that are ready to offer a retail experience that the consumer will love to experience. Imagine the employee to have a tablet with a unified customer profile of each shopper and detecting it only with the email address or the mobile number. All the necessary shopping information is on one page and can describe the preferences of the consumer. The employee has a competitive advantage to offer a personalized experience to the shopper, without bombing the customer with irrelevant questions. The “get to know your customer” is conquered and ready to be profitable for your business.
Personalized discounts- Direct campaigns
57% of customers are willing to share personal data for personalized discounts or offers, according to Salesforce.
To explain the rationale; the brands need to learn more about their customers and create a quantitative, but also qualitative, customer database. Even loyal customers, with a strong high perception of the brand, can be captured by another brand that offers a better deal. The new business model is a must to be customer-centric focused and centralize the marketing efforts, both online and offline, at each shopper, not as a unity, but as a homogeneous group, with the same shopping patterns.
Within minutes marketers can create powerful loyalty direct campaigns, for example via email or SMS and Viber, to inform loyalty members about special personalized discounts or promos and drive engagement and therefore more loyal conversions. It is important to emphasize speed and marketing automation, to reassure cost control and employees’ efficiency.
Keep in mind, that frequency is a very sensitive issue of sms marketing as well. Companies usually send loads of SMS to their customers in a small timeframe, leading to customer complaints and eventually ignoring this communication channel. On the other hand, messaging your client once every 2 or 3 weeks is also not recommended.
So, it is highly suggested to text your clients:
• No more than twice per week
• No less than once per two weeks
• More than twice a week only in case the SMS contains promotional information or discount
Pay with your NFC loyalty device
The proliferation of NFC payment devices is a competitive advantage for customer experience. The increase in sales from contactless payment devices shows an emerging market that needs to be exploited. New technologies are here to stay.
A contactless payment is a transaction that requires no physical contact between a device, for example a smartphone and a payments terminal. Shoppers can just wear their enabled payment devices, such as their bracelet and tap to pay. Organizations are forced to follow current payments trends to deepen customer engagement and loyalty and move at the speed of their customers. Payment wearables enable organizations to provide a seamless customer experience and build the perfect omnichannel journey. Imagine being able to reward customers for making purchases through their payment wearables, while being able to collect valuable customer data.
A shopper wears an enabled payment jewellery, taps at the point of purchase and pay. Easy, fast, and totally safe transaction, that facilitates the retail experience. Convenience is key for today’s shoppers. Being able to effortlessly pay with a simple tap transforms not only the entire retail experience but everyday life. Customers gain valuable time by completing transactions with ease, receiving a positive brand experience.
Developing a successful loyalty strategy takes time and effort. Think of your relationship with your customers as an ongoing conversation. To drive true loyalty, you need to evolve your approach and find creative ways to engage with them on the entire customer life cycle, not just the purchase activity.
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