Nearly 70% of consumers say their loyalty is more difficult for a retailer to maintain than ever before.
So, the pressure is on for retailers to earn it. But it’s not done with points, individual transactions, and coupons.
Customer loyalty is built through a series of moments.
Every interaction a brand has with a consumer is an opportunity to create a loyalty moment.
These moments, strung together, build emotional connections with consumers.
And these emotional connections lead to customer loyalty.
Loyalty Isn’t Just Based on Transactions
Transactional loyalty program benefits are usually the first kind consumers experience. They’re simple, straightforward, and enticing.
But experiential loyalty elevates the customer experience and helps build lasting bonds with consumers.
Consumers want a balance of transactional and experiential benefits.
When transactional and experiential benefits work in tandem, it creates emotional connections that lead to stronger customer loyalty and brand advocacy.
Transactional benefits get consumers in the door. Experiential benefits keep them there.
Loyalty Takes Time
Exactly how do brands develop loyalty moments in every customer interaction?
Making the in-store customer experience a priority creates a point of differentiation and, along with it, loyalty moments.
Take Nike, for example.
This incredibly popular brand doesn’t stop trying to innovate to make its customer experience indelible.
Nike has connected its online experience with its in-store experience. In some of its stores, the sportswear retailer has large touch screens so customers can browse Nike.com and order products on the spot.
Emotional connections created through special brand events, premium loyalty programs, and personalized messaging go a long way toward attaining true customer loyalty.
True customer loyalty is an ongoing journey developed over time through special moments.
Delivering memorable customer experiences will create loyalty moments that impact lifetime value.
A Premium Loyalty Program Impacts Member Engagement
A premium loyalty program is an excellent way for consumers to experience an ongoing series of loyalty moments.
Every time a member engages with a premium loyalty program, he or she experiences a loyalty moment because of the enticing 24/7 benefits available to them.
See how a premium loyalty program can become part of a member’s daily life.
Premium loyalty program members engage more often than members of traditional loyalty programs and spend more when they do.
Besides increased customer engagement from members, a premium loyalty program offers that feeling of exclusivity.
Members of a premium loyalty program enjoy instant benefits every time they interact with the brand. They shop more and spend more because each interaction is special and builds stronger emotional connections.
A premium loyalty program tailors a personalized experience.
Being a member of a premium loyalty programs affords that person unique and memorable customer experiences that create emotional bonds, long-term loyalty, and brand advocacy.
In many ways, the experience is the brand.
Gaining True Customer Loyalty Is an Ongoing Journey
In life a truly committed relationship cannot be created overnight. The same holds true for retailers forming lasting customer relationships.
Long-term loyalty isn’t just based on transactions. There needs to be more.
Loyalty serves as both a motivator and a reward for moving customers along the continuum from unidentified consumers to engaged customers to advocates.
To create true loyalty today, brands need to take a more personalized approach that helps build emotional connections.
It is that crucial point around unlimited choices for consumers that should embolden brands to sit up, take notice, and build a sophisticated loyalty offering that goes beyond accruing points and yearning for discounts.
If you can achieve these things and implement a premium loyalty program, you will engage your customers on new levels and create lasting two-way relationships.
Don’t you want to be a brand that enters the minds of your customers every day?
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.