As the holiday season looms ever closer, brands and customer engagement marketers alike are preparing for the shopping deluge that Black Friday will unleash. This time of year typically means more flexible consumer spending habits, more seasonal promotions, more holiday deals, and many more opportunities for brands to win or lose customer loyalty.
That is, apparently, unless you are a credit card company, in which case the holiday battle for customer loyalty is likely already won.
This was the result of a new holiday shopping survey from TransUnion, a credit information and technology management solutions provider that analyzes data to uncover unique correlations and insights for top brands.
TransUnion found that 78% all consumers remain loyal to only one major credit card during the holiday shopping season. And this held true even despite significant increases in overall spending and the fact that most people carry an average of five general purpose and private label credit cards.
“One might assume card loyalty would decline during the holidays, as retailers and lenders offer attractive perks to encourage use,” said Nidhi Verma, Director of Research and Consulting for TransUnion. “Our study found that, once consumers identify their preferred credit card, they remain quite devoted throughout the year. Even subprime consumers, who are usually more strapped for cash and rely on credit more heavily, demonstrate this loyalty. While they deviate from their top of wallet card the most during the holiday season, that change is still relatively small.”
This pattern also remained relatively unchanged throughout the entire year. Overall, it seems that 79% of all consumers continue to use only one credit card regardless of the season or how much they spend.
“This finding may be advantageous for both lenders and consumers,” Verma continued. “For example, credit card issuers can use new marketing segmentation tools that utilize spend and balance data to seek out certain consumers, knowing that they will remain loyal even as their card spend increases. Further, consumers could benefit by receiving more attractive credit card offers tailored to their usage preferences.”
These new findings might also help brands adjust their customer loyalty strategies as well. If credit card companies cannot rely on increased spend or various seasonal factors to win customer loyalty, they will have to rely on other tactics such as value-added offers, increased relevancy and a better overall customer experience.