Aug 21, 2024
To meet increasing consumer expectations within loyalty programs and beyond, brands must develop a deep understanding of customer needs and desires to provide the most value possible. For travel and hospitality brands, that means leaning into seamless booking and stay experiences and infusing increased flexibility into earning and redemption options. For retail, it means continuing to reduce friction in the shopper experience across channels, having a renewed focus on sustainable options, and providing expanded delivery convenience. QSR magazine notes that many restaurants are, “…doubling down on loyalty programs, improving app functionality, and focusing on team engagement to make your establishment the place to be…”
Regardless of the industry, brands should leverage their loyalty programs to impact the entire customer experience and strengthen the relationship with the brand. This means not only the day-to-day fundamentals mentioned above but providing value in new ways and connecting on a deeper level with customers.
Emotional loyalty is a powerful force that transforms casual buyers into passionate brand advocates. But to achieve this level of loyalty your brand must garner key insights from data on customers and use that knowledge to transcend mere transactions. This humanizes the relationship and cultivates a strong bond—one that makes it difficult for customers to envision their lives without your brand.
To truly harness the power of emotional loyalty, brands must strategically leverage their loyalty data. Take what you know about a customer within the context of a loyalty program and use those insights to transform their entire experience with your brand—go beyond rewarding points, to authentically incorporate individual preferences, needs, and aspirations. Demonstrate empathy by analyzing customer behavior patterns to anticipate needs and deliver personalized offers. Build trust through transparency about data usage and consistently deliver on promises.
Brands must invest in customer relationships by identifying opportunities for meaningful interactions beyond the transactional and offering the flexibility in earning and redemption options that customers now expect and demand. Show appreciation to customers through perks and bonuses like expanded delivery options, moments of surprise and delight, and other member-exclusive benefits.
The payoff of successfully cultivating emotional loyalty is evident. Customers who feel emotionally connected become more than repeat buyers; they transform into brand advocates, driving word-of-mouth marketing and staunchly defending your brand even in the toughest of times.
Delivering value at every step of the customer journey is essential for longevity. Enhancing value for consumers and making them feel heard is crucial. Brands must proactively address the issues their customers are encountering and take steps to mitigate challenges caused by evolving customer expectations, economic pressures, and geopolitical factors.
Frontier, Spirit, and JetBlue airlines are addressing consumer concerns by slashing fees and adding back perks consumers haven’t seen in a while, like free carry-on bags for all ticket types. Brands like Target and Walmart are being mindful of consumers’ time with new and expanded same-day delivery options, meeting their consumers where they are and reducing friction in their daily lives.
When brands leverage their loyalty data within a program to also affect experiences beyond the program, customers feel seen, heard, and known by the brands. Practicing this customer-centric approach helps brands differentiate themselves in big ways with consumers by establishing or deepening emotional connectedness, dramatically improving brand perception, and engendering long-term loyalty.
Investing in AI and machine learning-based segmentation can improve the speed and relevancy of personalization, elevating the customer experience. Prioritizing clean, accurate data and marketing automation can also enable timely, targeted communications, a key component of any brand’s personalization strategy.
But the importance of investing in securing customer data can’t be undersold. As data breaches and ransom attacks continue to be a challenge, brands must continuously ensure data is secure and compliant across every touchpoint. Consumers trust a brand with secure data and feel comfortable sharing their information. A reciprocal relationship develops when brands leverage that data to deliver personalized, relevant experiences.
Regardless of where and when brands collect data—purchases, visits (online and on-premises), behavioral data from digital encounters, or even responses to quizzes or other gamified interactions—customers are looking for the right value exchange.
The more value you provide to the end customer, the more you can increase their participation with your brand and become a part of their overall consumer identity. Start with listening to your customers and responding with products and services they are seeking. But don’t stop there.
To deliver on elevated expectations, look for how your loyalty program can improve customers’ lives in other ways—offering simplicity, making them feel important, and providing personalized suggestions that enhance their program experience. The more you show customers there’s a purpose for, and a value derived from, sharing their data and that you’re using it in the right way, the more they’re going to identify with and advocate for your brand.
In today’s data-driven landscape, many brands have taken significant steps to consolidate customer information from various sources into a unified view. This integration allows brands to analyze customer interactions and behaviors holistically across multiple touchpoints. By leveraging real-time data processing technologies, brands can swiftly react to customer preferences and behaviors and deliver personalized offers and recommendations.
To maximize the impact of loyalty data, brands must ensure the data is actionable across all channels, creating a seamless customer experience regardless of where the interaction occurs. Visualization tools and dashboards, powered by advanced analytics and AI, play a key role in interpreting loyalty data effectively, allowing brands to identify trends and performance metrics quickly. Furthermore, by facilitating collaboration between different departments through shared access to loyalty data, brands can align their organizations to act on these insights cohesively. This integrated approach transforms loyalty data into a powerful tool that drives meaningful engagement, enhances customer experiences, and fosters stronger brand loyalty.
