Chapter 3: Bring new retail loyalty experiences to market quickly
In the past, customised loyalty programs required heavy investment and took years to deploy, often resulting in outdated functionality by the time they hit the market. This is neither sustainable nor realistic. Changing market dynamics, evolving customer preferences, and competitive pressures necessitate that brands have the ability to easily and constantly evolve their loyalty programs without having to undertake a large-scale IT project.
Loyalty teams need a configuration that allows a faster time to market, greater flexibility, and reduced total cost of ownership. They need the ability to continuously refine programs and measure things like ROI, member engagement, profitability/liability, partnership impact and promotion ROI to ensure that the program is delivering on its goals. This requires:
- Flexibility when setting up the overall loyalty program, including individual components like tiers, currencies, benefits and experiences in a no-code environment.
- The ability to leverage CDP when building rich member profiles to deepen relationships through progressive profiling, surveys, and reviews.
- Real-time personalisation of offers and rewards that leverage and activate developed customer insights in online and offline channels through seamless integration with marketing automation tools, commerce storefronts, and assisted channels.
- A flexible rules engine that enables teams to track and reward member behavior and engagement by automating the process of accruals and redemptions in a no-code business-user-friendly environment.
- Intelligently deployed surveys that measure emotional loyalty and point-in-time customer satisfaction throughout the loyalty member journey (with the additional capability of rolling up to measure customer sentiment).
- AI/ML-based predictive tools with the ability to forecast program liability, and promotional ROI with what-if analysis ensuring program goals are constantly met.
- A flexible partnership management system to onboard partners into the loyalty program and expand program offerings beyond the brand.
Reimagine the future of customer loyalty
The most successful loyalty programs deliver dynamic and personal loyalty experiences across the shopper journey. But the program itself is only one piece of an overarching loyalty strategy. When implemented well, this overarching strategy aligns everyone in the organisation and enables the kind of engagement that makes customers feel like they are a part of something exclusive.
With customer data as the bedrock, retailers make smarter decisions on customer segmentation, create experiential loyalty programs that are economically viable and highly relevant, and improve loyalty — the ultimate outcome of great customer engagement.
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