Everyone seems to have a loyalty scheme these days, from local sandwich shops to global retailers. Just look in your wallet or your purse and count how many loyalty cards you have in there!
Research by Nielsen for their Global Retail Loyalty Sentiment report showed in the UK 89% of people say they have a loyalty card of some type, with an average of 3.6 cards per person.
This doesn’t even consider loyalty apps, which are on the rise as well.
As specialists in the field, this leads to us questioning what loyalty in this context really is and what it should be. If you look at the stats, you see more than half of those belonging to loyalty schemes state financial incentives, such as discounts, are most important to them. This makes you ask a difficult question, are they truly loyal or is their loyalty really being bought? If another store offered better discounts, would their allegiances change?
We are seeing more and more retailers using data to help drive more people-centric loyalty programs, creating more personalised discounts and offers. The days of being sent a generic discount coupon for nappies when your kids are in their teens are becoming a distant memory in many instances.
Where large amounts of data are not available, we see at least see more flexible approaches to loyalty schemes being implemented. Rather than having specific discounts target at a customer, they are given the choice of what they may like to spend their loyalty points on.
Other brands are taking this to new heights, offering apps that function more like games than a way to monitor your profile, inviting users to participate in competitions, quizzes and even treasure hunts to earn prizes.
At Motivait we view loyalty as a relationship between you and your potential customer. Like any relationship, it should not be taken for granted. It also needs to be worked at constantly, never accepting a one size fits all forever approach. Through the combination of traditional loyalty, good data and well thought out gamification, we aim to create deeper and more meaningful experiences for your customers.
Your loyalty scheme needs to stand out from an ever-increasing crowd. Can you, hand on heart, say yours does? Our platform has been built with this need in mind, including a range of potential features covering simple rewards through to complex gamification, all with the customer experience at the core. Not only that, it has been designed with full GDPR compliance in mind, something that every retailer needs to have by May 2018.
The next generation of loyalty is already upon us, don’t get left behind, start building those personal relationships with your customers now.
