Herve Pluche, Global Vice President, SAP Precision Marketing will be one of the featured speakers during a session at the 7th Annual Loyalty Expo, presented by Loyalty360 – The Loyalty Marketer’s Association. The event will be held March 17-19, 2014, at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress in Orlando, Florida.
Pluche, who is the initiative lead for SAP Precision Marketing, a new solution designed to inform and influence consumers at the point of decision through personalized offers and product recommendations, participated in a compelling Q&A with Loyalty360 to discuss personalization and customer loyalty programs.
Q: Can you talk a bit about the role of personalization as it related to customer loyalty?
We all know that personalization drives relevance, which in turns drives behavior. Personalization is, therefore, fundamental to every customer interaction, including those happening through loyalty programs. The benefits of advanced personalization for both customers and interested companies are just being uncovered. Advanced personalization is when multiple dimensions of the target audience are leveraged to determine the specific customer treatment−not only demographic information, but interest, products, channels, timing, and location. Advanced personalization shows amazing potential.
Q: What are brands doing well in this area?
Moving from segment-based marketing to the segment of one which is a central objective of personalization has substantial implications, both from technology and organizational stand-points. Brands are, therefore, appropriately cautious. We are in the early days of this digital transformation. Many brands experiment with new technologies and explore new customer experiences, or use cases, to validate customer interest and value proposition to all the stakeholders involved.
Q: Where are the missed opportunities?
Personalization comes in shades of gray. Advanced personalization, also called context aware interactions, has four dimensions (profile, location, interests, and time). When combining the four dimensions of context, the degree of influence on behavior grows exponentially. Today, very few use cases supported by loyalty programs combine all four.
Q: Are brands using technology enough, too much, or somewhere in the middle to support their loyalty programs and initiatives?
Technology is a key enabler for many of the customer engagement initiatives today. The starting point should be the end-user use case and how it delivers value while supporting corporate objectives. Once the use case is crisply defined, then one can translate it into an end-to-end architecture and set of specifications. Technology is first and foremost an enabler, a means to an end. The answers to the question depend on the corporate objectives and marketing strategy. This being said, new technologies and services open amazing new opportunities to redefine the scope of loyalty programs.
Q: How do you define customer loyalty and has that definition changed indecent years?
Today’s customers are empowered like never before. They are digitally connected, socially networked, and more knowledgeable. They have a voice and have choices, and this is changing the dynamics of customer loyalty. It’s more than simply about the share of wallet, but it’s about delivering engaging customer experiences that will influence the customer choices on a real-time basis.