Today’s retail customer journey is anything but straightforward. It’s a complex roadmap of touchpoints, often with friction that can frustrate customers and deter potential purchases. Crafting seamless and convenient omnichannel paths from discovery to retention is no longer an option — it’s swiftly becoming the standard. That’s where a comprehensive loyalty strategy can be a marketing ace in your back pocket. A well-designed program can help build and maintain a unified retail experience, connecting touchpoints for a cohesive and satisfying customer journey while generating a positive ROI.
It’s Not About the Destination…
It’s about the journey — the customer journey, that is. The foundation of a unified retail experience begins with understanding the various paths your customer might take, whether online or in person. A comprehensive loyalty ecosystem can act as the glue that unifies this journey no matter the touchpoint. Consider this scenario: a customer encounters a retail apparel brand on social media, then explores their clothes online. They then visit the brick-and-mortar to try them on— but ultimately decide to make their purchase through the brand’s mobile app.
Rewarding engagement and delivering value at every touchpoint, including online, mobile, in-store, social, etc creates a consistently positive brand experience, from initial brand discovery to post-purchase interactions and beyond. It not only simplifies the journey but incentivizes customers to continue engaging — strengthening your brand-customer connection, fostering a sense of value and continuity and keeping them in your marketing funnel.
The Power of Data
Loyalty programs don’t just reward customers — they reward brands with valuable zero-party data, empowering them to unlock a world of personalization. With the ability to tailor rewards, offers, and user experience, as well as recommend products to individual tastes and anticipate needs or milestones, loyalty programs can smooth out bumps in the journey along the way. Done right, loyalty programs are strategic tools that can unify the customer experience, build deep understanding and drive-long term engagement, advocacy and value.
Actions Speak Louder
Reading about how a loyalty program unifies customer experience is one thing, putting it into action is another — and building one requires several key factors:
Omnichannel Integration
Picture that complex roadmap again. A retail loyalty program is like the system of ramps, bridges and connectors that brings the landmarks together. No matter where your customers are browsing, online or in person, your loyalty program should deliver value at each moment that matters. Think: unique customer identification and value recognition to drive benefits, personalized communications and rewards as well as clear and attainable reward-earning across all channels. Each piece links together a customer experience that fosters satisfaction, loyalty and long-term engagement.
Effortless Customer Experience
It’s one thing to be on all channels, it’s another to make engagement on those channels (and navigating between them) effortless. Successful loyalty programs allow your customers to move freely from in-person to online to mobile without any roadblocks. The less effort you require of your customer, the more likely they’ll continue to engage.
Real-time Engagement
Communication is key in any successful relationship, and loyalty programs are no exception. Take your customer connection to the next level by leveraging technology and data to up your communication skills. Send personalized offers and recommendations, give updates about their program status and tip them off to exciting new features or upcoming sales. By keeping them informed and engaged, you build stronger relationships that translate into long-term loyalty.
Bring on the Tiers
Multi-tier programs offer greater engagement and personalization as they cater to customers at various levels of engagement and spend, offering tailored incentives and experiences that resonate with individual preferences and behaviors. Whether they choose to join as a free member or opt to join the paid tier, this unifies the customer experience by ensuring everyone feels valued and rewarded for their engagement, regardless of their choice. It’s a flexible approach that empowers customers to navigate their loyalty journey at their own pace with a sense of ownership and control. In other words, tiers help brands deliver value where customers want or need it most.
The benefits of tiered loyalty don’t stop there. A holistic program builds relationships with all customers. It meets them where they are, engaging, supporting and growing a strategic member base that can grow exponentially. Tiers drive incrementality for all member segments as well. Free members can be nurtured along a path to a paid tier and, should paid members decide to opt out, they can be easily migrated back to the free tier. This keeps them within your brand’s comprehensive ecosystem and leaves the door open to enticing them back into paid down the road. Lastly, the added revenue of a paid tier can either be funneled right back into your program to pay for your member benefits or used as an added revenue stream to boost your bottom line.
Continuous Improvement
A unified customer experience is never truly finished. It’s an ongoing journey that requires continuous improvement. Actively gather customer feedback through surveys, reviews and social media interactions as well as factor in their purchases and behaviors to refine your loyalty program and ensure it stays relevant and aligned with their evolving needs.
A well-designed loyalty program takes points, rewards and incentives to the next level with an omnichannel, frictionless customer experience. No matter where your customers find you, having clear and attainable rewards, personalized experiences and seamless engagement fosters customer satisfaction, loyalty and long-term value. The better and more unified a customer experience is, the better the engagement and growth — and ultimately, the better the ROI.
Ready to build a better loyalty program? ebbo can help. We’ve been innovating loyalty since 2001. Our loyalty ecosystem combines proprietary technology and data-driven strategy with a full-service approach for a unique, cash positive program that connects and engages your customers at scale. Getting started is easy — reach out to us today.
ebbo
ebbo helps brands achieve their customer loyalty goals with full-service, end-to-end solutions and also creates original educational content straight from the experts to help loyalty marketers stay on the cutting edge of customer engagement.