Joanna Walker
CEO, Loyalty & Co.
Loyalty programs will continue to evolve as the market and the customer evolves. Brands have drastically invested in connecting online and in-store shopping over the past few years to deliver a superior customer experience.
Customers are looking for convenience, reliability, and product availability consistently from retailers while also wanting their experience and rewards to be tailored and personalized to their shopping behaviours, wants, and needs. No longer can customers be lumped together. Instead, they want you to see them, know them and, most importantly, value them. The path to being good at this is to have strong personalization capabilities within a brand’s loyalty program, continuing to tailor the experience to individual customer needs.
With the rise of inflation and market uncertainty, consumers, more than ever, will choose wisely where and when they will spend their money. Balancing the cost of a product, availability, rewards, and overall customer experience are all factors customers balance in their shopping decisions on a daily basis. Gone are the days of convincing customers to buy what you sell. Instead, it’s about meeting a customer where they are, being relevant, and creating value.
And the way to create value customers care about is to care about what they value. It’s more than transactions; it’s interactions. It’s honesty, transparency, and social responsibility. But to do this, it takes insight and investment in strategy, technology, people, and processes to pull the whole customer experience together.
Delivering the right product, service, and experience to the right customer at the right time is the key. When done right, loyalty programs are the pivotal intersection where brands can make magic happen.
As customers, when that magic happens, we feel good about where we spend our money and advocate for a brand. We tell our friends and family, and we go out of our way to go to a store or restaurant. We make powerful choices with our money and feel good about it. It can add a bit more joy to our lives. After the pandemic, aren’t we all looking for a bit more joy?
