After more than a year of subdued spending, retailers are beginning to spur consumer appetite with deep discounts and promotions to attract shoppers and channel spend. Hence, loyalty programs that provide personalized and targeted rewards will emerge as differentiators for the retailers.
Given that coming months are all about the smart and tactical shopper, below is a list of actionable best practices that can help retailers take their loyalty programs to the next level.
1. Segment-based personalization: The foundation to the success of loyalty programs is to rightly segment customers and design promotional marketing suite that delivers personalized offers. Customers could be segmented based on past visit patterns, consumption behavior and demographics.
2. “Value” Driven: Loyalty programs have to extend beyond rewards and discounts. Value based services allow customers to avail discounts for personalized services, rewards for “green” contribution, donating rewards, access to product manuals, recipes and “how to” guides.
3. Allow Customers to “Personalize’ Rewards: Programs that allow customers to accumulate, redeem reward points, to load discounts/offers of their choice at their own convenience are more successful. Specialty “Baby Clubs,” “Home Décor Clubs” etc. are kindling customers to share their interests
4. Reward “In-store”: Retailers need to upgrade their point of sale to offer instant gratification in-store including instant discounts on current purchase, coupons for next purchase, appreciation for high net-worth customers and event triggered dialogues (e.g. wishes for a customer’s upcoming birthday or reminding of an abandoned online shopping cart)
5. Cross-Channel “Common” Messaging: Retailers operating multiple channels need to ensure that customers receive the same offers/messages across channels and also use loyalty programs as a means to drive cross channel customer behavior. A leading retailer, selling both online and in-stores, implemented TCS’ integrated multi-channel loyalty solution leading to significant increase in its loyal customer base.
6. “Just in Time” Customer Communication: There is an increasing adoption of customers opting to sign up for real-time promotional alerts via mobile SMS or e-mail notification from retailers and CPG companies. These avenues are also used by customers to share/receive feedback/recommendations from friends on products in their current and future shopping lists.
7. Break Boundaries for acquiring Customers: Retailers are looking to rollout a single program across formats or partner with other companies that have similar interests, such as recreational equipment retailer and airlines, to extend their customer base. For instance, one of the main objectives of TCS’ partnership with a grocery retailer, in line with its loyalty program, was to extend the loyalty benefits to customers across its fuel stations as well.
With an increasing number of factors influencing a customer’s shopping decision, retailers are looking for every opportunity to creatively improve customer experience and boost customer loyalty. The agility in leveraging information to personalize customer experience and provide a consistent experience seamlessly across channels is the key to gaining a competitive edge.
Savitha Nallasamy can be reached at savitha.nallasamy@tcs.com.
SOURCE: Retail Info Systems News (RIS News)