Customer loyalty is not easily earned. However, with the right customer loyalty programme, businesses can improve customer retention and boost sales. Launching a successful loyalty programme is no easy feat – it takes time, research, and maybe even a little bit of trial and error.
Think of your loyalty programme as an ever-evolving strategy that, if done properly, can become an indispensable tool for your business. In this blog, we share our top tips for getting the most out of your loyalty programme.
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The Benefits Of A Customer Loyalty Programme
According to data from Granby Marketing, 68% of people say that receiving a reward would increase their likelihood of sticking with a brand.
With the right customer loyalty programme, you can stand out from competitors and encourage customers to keep coming back. Here are the most popular benefits of a customer loyalty programme:
- Gather useful data about customers, including preferences, buying motivations, habits and more.
- Boost sales revenue through repeat custom and word-of-mouth referrals to new customers.
- Demonstrate appreciation for your customers and build stronger relationships.
- Influence consumer behaviour i.e. motivate customers to sign up for the newsletter.
- Stand out from the competitors.
- Save money as retaining existing customers costs less than trying to win new customers.
Top Tips For Getting The Most Out Of Your Loyalty Programme
With so many amazing benefits, it would be crazy not to launch a loyalty programme. However, to ensure your customer loyalty scheme is a success, you may want to take onboard the following tips…
Know Your Customers
Having an understanding of your customers will enable you to build a loyalty programme tailored to their preferences and shopping habits. This will increase the number of people who choose to engage with the programme.
Customer surveys and existing customer data can be used to determine information such as the type of product each customer buys, the products they show interest in, their shopping habits and how satisfied they are with the product/service.
Determine Your Goals
What do you want to achieve with your customer loyalty programme? Setting realistic goals (ideally within a specified time frame) will help you determine the effectiveness of your loyalty programme. This then allows you to make changes to improve the programme and get more from it. Before launching the programme, ensure you have outlined the goals you want to achieve. For example, you may want to improve customer loyalty or increase the sales of a specific product line.
Ensure Reward “Points” Are Actually Valuable
If joining your customer loyalty programme isn’t worth their while, your customers won’t bother. Having high-value incentives, such as discounts on full-price items, free priority shipping or exclusive access to new product lines, can increase the likelihood of your customers engaging with the loyalty programme.
Reward Various Customer Actions
A good customer loyalty programme can be tailored to benefit your business in many ways. Aside from encouraging more sales, you can also achieve other business milestones through the use of customer loyalty programmes. For example, you may want to consider rewarding various customer actions, such as:
- Signing up to the email newsletter
- Downloading your app
- Referring a friend
- Leaving feedback on an item/service.
Keep Things Simple
Before launching your customer loyalty programme, ask yourself if it is simple. A loyalty programme should be seamless and should provide a consistently easy experience across all channels, platforms and devices.
A customer’s account should be easy to access and should have a simple user interface that clearly highlights their current rewards (and potential future rewards). There should also be a seamless way for customers to access support should they need it, either via a customer service helpline or an online chat service.
Always Be Consistent
When you consider some of the most famous customer loyalty schemes, such as McDonald’s Monopoly, Nandos Rewards or Boots Advantage Card, you will notice they have one thing in common – consistency.
Although your customer loyalty programme may evolve and improve over time, the main process should remain relatively consistent in order to encourage customers to continue engaging.
