Attracting digital natives in a mobile-first, instant gratification economy

Grace Alexander

MarTech Blogger | June 6, 2022

Connections between companies and their customers are going digital. This isn’t the kind of shift that business can or should try to counteract — rather, they should start searching for the best ways to make these mobile-driven online connections flourish.

Both sides of the customer-business divide are digital natives. Today’s young consumers have grown up in a connected world, able to search out any information they need from their smart devices. Start-ups, too, have come of age in a digital world, rising rapidly using cloud technology and often preferring to market their products and services via mobile means.

The fast-moving world of always-on connectivity and instant gratification is the new battlefield where companies have to compete for consumers’ loyalty. Organizations that are able to adopt this mindset and give customers the compelling digital experiences they’re looking for are well equipped to become leaders in their fields.

Attracting young customers’ attention

Using a smartphone to interact with a brand isn’t like sitting at a computer. While today’s phones are capable of delivering powerful web browsing experiences, the sheer fact that they’re portable means people will often interact with them for short moments in time.

Picking up a smartphone while riding public transit, walking or getting lunch may lead to a very short interaction — if an activity takes a long time to accomplish, a phone user may skip it. This means that bands hoping to reach young consumers primarily through mobile devices must focus on memorable experiences that can be completed in seconds.

Getting a brand’s audience to commit to an ongoing loyalty and rewards program when interactions are so short and attention spans are so fractured is a unique kind of challenge. Making a positive first impression on customers is a key best practice in this regard.

What should that first interaction entail? The consumer should receive a reward or incentive they actually care about, something that has value. Even though it may seem tempting to give out very small amounts of points at first, to ensure consumers have to come back and earn more, such a withholding approach may simply cause customers to become bored and disengage.

In addition to having value, the engagement should also be gamified. This means it will have some fun, game-like characteristics, such as making progress toward an objective or earning a spot on a public leaderboard.

Finally, every quick interaction should be part of a unified customer experience. CMSWire noted that when brands take their CX seriously, they build long-term connections with their audiences. People who receive consistent messaging from a brand through every channel — in-person, online and mobile — will feel more comfortable continuing to engage with that business.

Keeping digital natives loyal

Once smart device users have had one good interaction with a company, it’s up to the brand to keep bringing those consumers back for more. They can make this easier by not creating barriers between audiences and the business

If people have ways to keep interacting with companies in ways that don’t involve spending any money, that helps the connection between the two parties flourish. This may mean granting badges, and allowing consumers to rise in rankings and creating gamified point systems that reward touches and engagements rather than purchases.

In addition to creating more possible engagements, customization may be a key part of the ongoing interaction between consumers and brands. MasterCard noted that in the digital age, people are not as willing to select rewards from a long list — this is a time-consuming interaction, and it may drive customers away. Rather, brands should be using the data generated by interactions to personalize rewards individuals will like and offer those.

Distinctive, customized interactions leading to personalized, data-driven digital rewards are the backbone of a loyalty program that can win over young, digital-native consumers.

Turning loyalty into ROI

Ongoing, non-monetary contact with customers doesn’t automatically turn into value, but businesses that commit to such a strategy can use it to nudge their audiences in the direction of a purchase. One of the valuable traits of a data-driven and automation-heavy digital rewards program is that it evolves over time. This can culminate in suggesting more direct commercial engagement.

A gamified customer journey that starts with simple mobile interactions can lead to a more all-encompassing connection between shopper and company. As Mondia Digital CEO Paolo Rizzardini suggested on his LinkedIn blog, gamification can set the stage for a long-term bond between these parties, with the highly engaged consumers speaking positively about the brand and reengaging often.

A loop of positive engagements, powered by evolving rewards, can build up loyalty and keep customer relationships strong over time. Rizzardini pointed to the Nike Run Club app and the Starbucks loyalty points system. Both programs use gamified interactions to keep users’ attention for the long term.

The common thread between compelling customer loyalty programs in the digital age is that they don’t demand much of consumers. Interactions with companies’ mobile-first digital tools are fun and enjoyable, and often don’t require a purchase. Audiences can stay in touch with the businesses, earning customized rewards and building positive associations — then, when it’s time to buy, they know where to turn.

Perx is the right rewards platform for digital natives

The right rewards platform is an essential piece of technology to connect digital-native companies with digital-native consumers. The Perx Loyalty Engagement Platform is the right solution for the modern, fast-moving customer relationships because of its comprehensive, future-minded feature set.

From gamified experiences and non-monetary rewards to powerful automation tools and a high degree of customization, the system is a compelling choice for businesses hoping to become more tech-forward and mobile-centric. Campaigns can naturally evolve over time, keeping users interested with fun interactions, then guiding them to commercial sites when the time is right.

In a world of short attention spans, it is possible to hold customer attention for a long time. Businesses simply have to know how to string countless small moments together into ongoing relationships. Request a demo to learn more.

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Is your rewards program drowning you in loyalty debt?

Grace Alexander

MarTech Blogger | May 19, 2022

Has your customer loyalty program been giving out points to customers who don’t redeem their rewards. This all-too-common scenario represents a breakdown of the way rewards and engagement strategies should work.

Traditional loyalty programs built on earn-and-burn models of point accumulation are particularly susceptible to loyalty debt. Due to a weakness in the system — a weak rewards slate, or an unoptimized redemption process — people are earning points and never burning them.

Something has to give. The real appeal of a rewards program comes when customers get to actually earn their rewards. If your audience isn’t reaching that step, your loyalty strategy isn’t living up to its potential, and this could be a sign to upgrade, providing hyper-personalized and relevant rewards, alongside nudges to action that will remind users to spend what they’ve earned.

Loyalty debt: Among the biggest issues with rewards programs

Where does loyalty debt come from? Typically, it begins when a company starts issuing reward points without performing in-depth research into what customers want. This leads to a disconnected experience where people are piling up points and building loyalty currency but not finding any way to convert them into rewards.

Simply giving points an expiration date might seem like the simplest way to get out of this situation. This will wipe out the debt, but it’s not a satisfying resolution. After all, the value of a rewards program really comes from people using it. The simple promise that customers can earn points will lose its appeal over time if they always hold onto the points until they expire.

A customer rewards and loyalty program that people actively use and enjoy is an ongoing benefit for your company. An earn-and-burn system where nobody ever burns can’t deliver that level of advantage. After all, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ audience preference research revealed that 65% of U.S. consumers find positive experiences more influential than advertising, and 54% think most company experiences could be improved.

By using a management platform that delivers improved analytics on what customers want from your brand, you can craft a loyalty and engagement program that people are excited to use. Better aligning reward options with customers’ wishes through hyper-personalized offerings is a far better way of reducing loyalty debt than simply causing points to expire. This way, your audience gets what it really wants: a great experience.

Turn liabilities into strengths

Keeping a close eye on the way customers interact with your brand is at the crux of designing an improved loyalty program. While still using the basic model of earning and redeeming points, you can transform the way people interact with your brand — making sure that every part of the program is optimized.

Creating more opportunities to redeem points is a great starting point for increasing a program’s appeal. If your audience is focused on dealing with your brand in physical stores, integrating redemption into point-of-sale terminals should be a priority. In cases where a mobile app is a major touchpoint, that app should interact with the loyalty point system.

In addition to introducing new redemption options, your brand can create other triggers associated with loyalty debt. For instance, you can mitigate point expiration, using this as a reward in itself. Customers may be happy to have retained their points and more likely to use them to engage with the brand. If the points had been left to expire, those positive experiences and interactions wouldn’t have happened. Gamification features make this process fun for customers to engage with, encouraging them to keep participating in earn-and-burn loops and opening opportunities for easy upsell and cross-sell transactions.

A sufficiently evolved rewards program can work hand-in-hand with overall business objectives. PYMNTS recently reported on post-2020 success stories from the quick-service industry where loyalty programs at restaurants such as McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Chipotle and Starbucks have made their rewards programs into key digital sales drivers. This kind of tangible progress can only come from customers actively using rewards and cashing in loyalty currency, not simply building a brand’s loyalty debt.

Open programs to partners

When you look beyond the walls of your own business, you gain more ways to expand the usefulness of your loyalty program. Point earning and redemption can extend to partner businesses, creating a more valuable custom rewards system for your customers, while potentially promoting all the companies involved.

There’s more chance that customers will redeem their points and less risk of them building up or expiring when they’re usable across a spectrum of partnered companies. The integration between your business and partners should extend behind the scenes, with the businesses connecting their tech platforms and sharing data.

A joint loyalty rewards program delivers not just a bigger experience but also a smarter, better tuned one — the extra data can help you perform advanced analytics and offer more relevant rewards. Customers who may not be interested in a limited loyalty offering may engage more deeply in a partnership program.

As customer loyalty specialist Adam Psner explained in a LinkedIn blog post, building partnerships has become a common approach for businesses hoping to build optimized loyalty strategies. There are a few ways to make the partnerships happen — either a full integration between the companies or hiring a partner to provide rewards as a value-add. No matter which you opt for, the expanded scope could trigger a major reduction in loyalty debt.

Perx can power ideal, optimized point systems

If you’re eager to build an optimized custom rewards system that will cut down on loyalty debt while increasing positive customer experiences, you need the right technology at the heart of the program: Perx Lifestyle Marketing Pla tform.

The platform’s Impact Dashboard gives you real data-driven insights into what your customers care about. That in turn allows you to create point-earning triggers, redemption opportunities and corporate partnerships that match what your customers really want.

A more accurately targeted loyalty program is the perfect tool for creating value, by delighting customers instead of simply giving them points. The basic framework of a point-earning system remains the same, it’s simply been revamped to match your customers’ interests and lifestyles.

The platform’s ability to enable smooth integration with any and all rewards merchants is another feature that will help you build a truly appealing custom rewards program. When a solution is easier for both you and your customers to use, there’s nothing standing in the way of a great loyalty experience.

Request a demo to see the platform for yourself.

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The little rules engine that could: Creating the ultimate customer journey

Amrith Ganesh

SVP, Marketing & Customer Analytics | May 17, 2022

When dealing with customers digitally, it’s important to create a well-planned-out journey. This ideal set of interactions will keep people on the right track as they engage with the brand and deepen their loyalty over time. Creating this journey, however, can be a challenge.

Too many companies are spending excessive amounts of money to keep their customers on a preferred path. Rather than using an automated rules engine that will set rewards and triggers for loyalty and rewards programs, they’re working with expensive and restrictive manual efforts. These major expenses cut into the return on investment, offsetting the value and usefulness of loyalty programs and other engagement features.

What your organization needs to get out of this pattern is an effective, affordable rules engine. With the right rules in place, you can lay out a suitable path for your customers while keeping up a strong ROI.

More time conceptualizing, less time executing

Getting customers to engage with a brand in a specific way can be difficult and time-consuming if there are too many manual processes involved. When a business doesn’t have much automation in place and customer outreach is handled on a case-by-case basis, employees are investing time that could be better spent elsewhere.

A business that is manually guiding customers from one engagement to the next may be losing its ability to pull back, look at the big picture and form a strategy. Ironically, these companies spending more time controlling the customer journey end up with less control, because they can’t create an overarching plan.

Creating a smooth customer experience, where users are guided naturally from one interaction to the next, should be a major priority for businesses today. This is especially important because Gartner research has found that customer expectations are rising and 81% of marketers envision CX as the competitive battlefield of the future.

How can your business create a positive CX while performing less manual outreach? It all comes down to automation, powered by a strong rules engine. The custom triggers and outcomes programmed into the engine determine the path of a customer’s journey, with less intervention from your team. No matter how sophisticated your customer engagement strategy is, there’s an automation solution for you.

An continuous customer journey

When designing an automated, rules-based customer journey, you should make sure there are no obvious off-ramps for your customers. This means eliminating the inconveniences that may make a person stop engaging with the brand.

An off-ramp can be anything that hurts a customers’ enjoyment, such as an irrelevant reward, a long wait before re-engagement or a bad mobile experience. Ideally, each contact will lead to further engagements, with the customer setting their chosen pace. Each micro-experience is strung together into the next, creating a continuous and seamless journey.

Each time a customer engages with a brand, the interaction should be positive and resonant. CMSWire quoted Harvard Business School’s Gerald Zaltman, who states that 95% of customers’ buying decisions are emotional, rather than coldly logical. If your brand is making people feel good, they’re more likely to stay loyal.

CMSWire added that personal touches are a valuable element of the customer journey, as long as they are added seamlessly into the journey, and in ways that improve interactions. This is another area where automation is better than heavy manual intervention. Customers should be getting tailored experiences by default.

A rules engine is the behind-the-scenes technology that makes a never-ending, personalized customer journey possible. A good engine will allow your team to create an intricate system of triggers and outcomes to keep customers engaged indefinitely through earn and burn or loyalty points, rewards and hyper-personalized experiences that are immediately relevant to them.

With varied game mechanics for earning and using points on customized rewards, you can win the CX war and keep your audience interested.

Actions equal triggers, milestones equal rewards

Building out a loyalty strategy on a rule engine means creating customized loyalty actions. Common interactions serve as triggers, and when customers reach milestones in their engagement with the brand, they receive rewards.

These reward allotments and the triggers that activate them will differ for each brand, and they give you the chance to lead customers down ideal paths for long-term loyalty. Salesforce noted that rewards can be more interesting than just discounts on future purchases. Your brand can offer free subscription services to customers who reach a loyalty threshold, or even invite them to exclusive events.

When you’re using a rules engine to plan out a strategic loyalty and rewards program, you’re free to go more in-depth about what you offer to your most engaged customers. Your choice should reflect customer data and intensive research, so you can be sure you’re giving them rewards and experiences that fit their goals and lifestyles.

Loyalty programs may even include offers that don’t go directly into your customers’ pockets: Salesforce added that some compelling engagement programs involve charitable components. By engaging with your brand, people are contributing to worthy causes they care about.

Perx has the rules engine you need

To get started building the automation-driven customer rewards journey of your dreams, you can invest in the Perx Loyalty and Engagement Platform.

The rules engine enables deep customization without time-consuming and difficult manual adjustments. You can design compelling reward earning and redemption scenarios that encourage customers to interact with your business in specific ways, leading them on a journey that suits both their preferences and your objectives.

Customized rules can be based on the real-time information coming in from real customer interactions. This means you can tweak and optimize the program based on actual information rather than assumptions. Such a level of precision allows you to shape the customer journey and experience in ways that will deliver results.

Rather than having to build a rules engine from scratch, the Perx Lifestyle Marketing platform gives you this capability right out of the box. Request a demo to learn exactly how it works.

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Customer Acquisition Starts With Data Acquisition

Customer acquisition starts with data acquisition

Using gamification and data analytics to hit acquisition targets

Grace Alexander

MarTech Blogger | April 26, 2022

Brands need to be data-driven to compete in today’s digital-first world. Are you leveraging your first-party data to acquire new customers, retain existing ones and increase customer lifetime value (CLTV)?

Customer loyalty and rewards programs can be powerful drivers of success, to the tune of a 2.5 time increase in revenue growth, per Harvard Business Review. But there’s a catch — loyalty programs can’t simply be the same cut-and-paste point systems used by so many companies. Instead, really sticky, effective retention and reward strategies should be backed by accurate, abundant, and accessible data about your consumer base.

First-party data is the master key

First-party data is your most valuable asset; it unlocks everything, from new customer acquisition to retention and beyond, decreasing costs, increasing ROI, and driving operational efficiency.

But where do you collect data in the amount and granularity necessary to have a real impact? The Harris Poll asked companies about their issues maximizing the customer experience. The top answer, shared by 25% of companies, was that their data pool was too shallow to boost processes. To avoid falling into this disappointed group, you can collect data from multiple touchpoints, including:

Existing customers providing data during the purchasing process

Every time a customer makes a purchase, they provide data. This data can include their name, address, mobile phone number, email, purchase history, and more. Data analytics can help you group similar customers based on their location, customer behavior such as purchasing preferences, and so on. Analyzing these groups can help you plan new offers and interactions.

Example: Create personalized approaches based on loyal customer attributes, and identify and qualify new leads using lookalike audiences as a starting point. Show products to customers as part of an “Other people who purchased this product also liked” listing as a way to drive more purchases and enhance their rewards.

Current or potential customers who sign up for programs

These customers may not have made a purchase yet, but may have signed up for a mailing list, a newsletter, or — yes — a customer rewards program. Rewards touchpoints don’t just use consumer data — they can also generate it. For example, according to MarketWatch, Starbucks noted that 40% of its transactions involved loyalty program customers. Of course, those customers share data with the coffee chain through their continued interactions, but the process is mutually beneficial, as they are also unlocking bonuses.

Example: Increase customer loyalty before they even make their first purchase! For instance, you can present a chance to play a free game and win a reward through a message texted to a mobile phone number or sent to an email address. Introducing customers to gamification and rewards from first contact is a great way to build relationships. Indeed, Starbucks cited immediate gratification for new members as a key feature of its program.

Customers of partners who have shared their data with you

Data partners (organizations who share their own consumer data with you based on business relationships) can also be a valuable source of first-party data and a way to expand your own datasets. The more data you have, the more effective data analytics processes spot patterns and builds highly targeted customer groups.

Example: Reduce customer acquisition cost by leveraging data from trusted partners. A bank might receive data from an insurance provider and can use that information to build tailored offerings that encourage opening a new account and joining a loyalty program.

Analyzing customer behavior delivers actionable insights

Customers’ behaviors deliver even more powerful insights than their raw persona data. For example, you don’t need to know a customer’s name to understand that a person is a big repeat spender or tends to buy every new product or service you launch.

Behavioral patterns based on consumer data deliver actionable insights you can use to boost your customer acquisition rates and strengthen your existing base. It would help if you had a constant flow of new data to build out datasets and make it easier to spot these patterns.

To see a real-world example of how these more data-rich interactions can revolutionize loyalty and drive CLTV, there is the case of the digital solutions company StarHub, which built a new interactive rewards program on the Perx Platform.

Take away impediments to interaction

Legacy customer loyalty program strategies may actually be keeping customers at arm’s length. StarHub envisioned a type of continuous interaction with customers, creating many more touchpoints that would keep the brand top of mind and encourage new, more profitable behavior. The key was to develop a rewards strategy that did away with the earn-points, burn-points loop common to so many loyalty programs.

Track customer behavior on a deep and personal level

Every rewards-based customer interaction is a chance to learn more about that person, and customer loyalty strategies allowing continuous engagement enable more of these touchpoints. For example, after StarHub rolled out a weekly, gamified reward program, powered by a new and simple in-app experience, user requests per second increased by four times, a huge increase in interactions that brought a tidal wave of data.

Focus on value-based last-mile engagements

As consumer data increases in volume, it’s possible to both notice overall patterns and deliver highly specialized experiences to individuals. The StarHub platform delivers instant gratification for customers in the present while also measuring every response to strengthen engagement in the future. The very positive experiences served to these customers improve offline engagement with the brand and in-the-moment online engagement.

Balance retention and acquisition with data-driven loyalty

While a rewards and loyalty program starts with the retention of existing customers, it can serve as a way to attract new clients, please them and turn them into loyal customers. Instant-gratification customer interactions that provide a valuable feedback loop of data don’t take long to solidify loyalty. StarHub’s telco business boosted retention by 6%, then increased new customer acquisition by 11%. Its Net Promoter score also rose across mobile, TV and broadband.

How perx uses gamification to drive customer acquisition

Perx technology empowers brands to act on customer insights, boost interactivity, and build highly configurable and personalized engagements quickly, for reduced time-to-market and a more delightful customer experience — all without compromising customer privacy or data security.

Most legacy loyalty programs are generic and bland, failing to connect with customers on a deeper level and missing the chance to build brand stickiness and loyalty. Personalized engagements that leverage known customer behavior data can bring authenticity to the process and encourage ongoing revenue-driving actions.

The Perx Loyalty and Engagement Platform (LMP) helps brands hit their customer acquisition targets through gamified engagements that instantly deliver gratifying, relevant, and personalized customer actions.

Are you ready to harness data acquisition to drive customer acquisition and elevate your average customer’s LTV? Ask for a free Perx demo today.

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Financial Brand Loyalty Marketing: It’s All About Gratification

Financial brand loyalty marketing: It’s all about gratification

Instant. Constant. Consistent. Paving the way for true top-line growth

Grace Alexander

MarTech Blogger | May 4, 2022

Loyalty marketing for financial brands can be a tricky thing. Banks are inherently distrusted by one set of consumers, typically younger generations who view them as self-serving and unsupportive of their goals. In contrast, fintechs are given the side-eye by older generations who value longevity and a track record over digitized, mobile-first interactions.

Both sets of consumers want a financial brand experience driven by transparency and a clear motive to gratify their needs and wants. Whether they are traditional banking institutions or budding fintechs just getting a foothold, brands that achieve this will be able to drive top-line growth and lasting, active, and engaged brand loyalty.

Properly done, financial brand loyalty marketing boosts earnings, increases sales, and enables long-term expansion. A well-planned and implemented loyalty and rewards program can assist you in retaining existing customers, attracting new customers, and growing revenues. This happens through last-mile engagements, which can rise by 12 times with a modern and tech-driven program.

Brand Stickiness vs. Brand Loyalty

Any brand that caters effectively to the needs of its customers enjoys some level of free customer stickiness and retention because switching brands — especially financial brands — can be a hassle.

However, most brands take this free element and don’t build on it to lasting advantage. For example, banks have incredibly high customer stickiness, but very few implement effective customer engagement marketing to transform that stickiness into true brand loyalty.

On the other hand, fintechs may be knocking it out of the park when it comes to customer engagement, but haven’t sufficiently aligned their messaging and brand loyalty marketing to lock in their more fickle customers and make them truly stick in the face of an ever-expanding market of options.

Instant Gratification in Your Bank Loyalty Program

Today’s banking customer expects and demands instant gratification at each touchpoint. You can leverage these opportunities by providing instant gratification, so that interacting with your financial brand becomes a normalized part of your customer’s lifestyle.

The rewards offered at these interactions should be flexible to provide customer choice and match each consumer with a personalized bonus. In addition, these instant rewards should be visible to other members of the person’s social circle, keeping the brand top of mind and providing a positive incentive to come back and earn more.

Account opening

Customers want instant access to benefits, from a ready-to-use ATM, debit, or credit card to loan application and line of credit options.

Potential reward: An instant large reward (a one-time reward for each account opened, the scale of which may vary based on the opening deposit amount.)

Account balance checks

Customers expect instant information without jumping through hoops to access their accounts and repeatedly prove who they are.

Potential reward: A token or bonus reward if over a certain balance (a recurring reward, given every day checked, the amount may vary based on target balance tiers.)

Account transactions

Customers desire the ability to complete a deposit, transfer, or bill payment instantly and receive real-time confirmations and notifications.

Potential reward: An instant reward given when a predetermined milestone is hit (a recurring reward, given every time a new milestone is achieved, the amount may vary based on milestone type and size.)

Set up direct deposit

Customers want to take advantage of time-saving benefits and receive their reward (typically a discount on bank fees or a cash bonus) right away without waiting for 30, 90 or 120 days.

Potential reward: An instant reward is given when a new direct deposit is set up (a one-time reward for each direct deposit, the size of which may vary based on the average deposit amount.)

Check or cash deposits

Customers demand instant availability of funds without waiting for them to clear. This includes funds from regularly scheduled, automated deposits that fall on weekends or holidays.

Potential reward: A token or bonus reward every time a deposit over a certain amount is made (a recurring reward, the amount may vary based on the amount of the deposit)

Referrals

Customers want immediate rewards for “helping their brand out” by referring other people who become customers as part of a customer loyalty scheme.

Potential reward: A large instant reward (a one-time reward for each successful referral, the amount may vary based on the type of account opened or amount of initial deposit.)

These interactions provide the ability to add touchpoints to an ongoing customer journey and provide instant gratification as part of a customer rewards and brand loyalty program.

Constant Gratification in Brand Loyalty Marketing

Don’t drop the ball. You have your customers’ attention, and the way to keep it is through constant, consistent reiteration.

The customer journey is ongoing

You can’t depend on “set and forget” vanity programs that simply count shares and likes. Every time you have the chance to reach out to a customer, whether it’s to congratulate them on hitting a new milestone or encouraging them to complete a journey leg, you need to take it.

The customer journey is unique.

Personalized experiences require constant monitoring, tracking and check-ins to drive additional opportunities for engagement, and data analysis to ensure you are providing ultimate rewards customers actually want to collect.

The customer experience should be fun!

Add gamification for an even more engaged customer base. You don’t have to build everything in-house to develop customer experience ecosystems with which your customers will love to interact.

Consistent Gratification in Customer Engagement Marketing

Banking customers are discerning and aware. Customer loyalty systems and rewards programs that aren’t consistent will soon be dismissed. It’s a big mistake to offer a 100-point incentive for an action one time, then offer half the incentive a few months later. Be consistent, and constantly improve and expand.

How Perx Drives Bank and Fintech Brand Loyalty Marketing Via Experiences

The Perx Loyalty and Engagement Platform (LMP) transforms how banks and fintechs engage with their customers, and helps you instantly, constantly and consistently provide gratification through personalized experiences and rewards.

With this platform, you can maintain customer engagement marketing as you scale, bringing in new business and retaining high-value customers while driving revenue-generating actions. It allows you to:

Prevent waste associated with legacy brand-building and marketing.
Make the customer journey frictionless, instantly gratifying and socially viral.
Provide rewarding experiences that drive real revenue and keep brands top of mind.
Create a seamless and gratifying online to offline customer experience.
Automate processes so loyalty processes can evolve with minimum time and labor.
Design programs that allow legacy organizations to compete with mobile-first and digital-first financial brands.

Your financial customers are waiting to be wowed by your commitment. Are you ready to take your brand loyalty marketing to the next level? Ask for our free demo today.

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Future-Proofing Customer Experience Personalization

Future-proofing customer experience personalization:

6 essential strategies for your rewards program

Amrith Ganesh

MarTech Blogger | April 29, 2022

Your customer data management process is critical to the success of your business. Without a customer data platform designed to support your digital marketing strategy, your rewards program will be ineffective at best.

What makes personalized customer experiences and engagement critical to achieving your business goals? According to one study, customers who are 90% engaged buy 90% more often and spend 60% more per transaction. Therefore, your data management and analysis processes are vital to creating highly customized customer journeys that drive continual engagement and revenues for your brand.

6 data-driven steps to a highly effective rewards program

Customer experience personalization is key to an effective, long-term digital marketing strategy. These six strategies are essential to building future-proofed, hyper-personalized customer experiences.

1. Consolidate your data

Data is frequently stored in separate ERP, MRP, CRM, marketing automation, web analytics, call center platforms, and other systems. As a result, most customer feedback analytics programs are inefficient since many of them waste a significant amount of data.

Using a centralized customer data platform can help you make sense of the data you’ve collected. Once your data is consolidated, cleaned, sorted, and segmented, you can leverage it to build the highly personalized experience journeys your customers crave.

Example: Perx has partnered with ONESIAM to help create a SuperApp. By bringing together more than 1,000 companies across various industries, opportunities are created to collate data into a clear picture of customers and their lifestyles.

This data can then be used to develop an overarching customer journey that is highly personalized and enhanced with gamification. Customer loyalty to any individual partner results in universal rewards (VIZ COIN) that can be converted and redeemed across any of the companies involved in the platform.

2. Dynamically engage customers and their evolving lifestyles

As conceptualized by Gartner, dynamic customer engagement is an alternative to reactive service. Companies using this method analyze customer data to turn every interaction into an opportunity to delight their customers and make them targeted, personalized offers. Such opportunities are plentiful because, as Gartner adds, only 9% of customers’ issues are resolved through self-service.

Organizations can invest in designing an elevated and seamless integration of offline and online experiences to offer meaningful and rewarding customer journeys that can continually adapt to future customers’ needs.

Perx’s partnership with ONESIAM supports a Universe of Extraordinary Experiences, and maximizes what customers gain from each spending by transforming existing Loyalty Programs into a value creation system.

The ONESIAM SuperApp can recognize patterns in user behavior thanks to AI-based technology. For example, the AI analyzes purchasing behaviors, predicts each customer’s next purchase, and curates a selection of products and services based on each user’s interests as part of hyper-personalized marketing.

Using data to engage consumers in this way dynamically drives the creation of campaigns that meet customer needs and enhance the integrated experience for robust customer engagement and retention.

3. Leverage data through gamification and customer loyalty programs

Develop a loyalty rewards program that offers hyper-personalized rewards that excite and engage users and create a shopping experience where purchases are made to elevate the quality of life and enhance potential.

Just as VIZ COINS in the ONESIAM SuperApp can be earned and spent with greater ease and excitement thanks to the gamified experience, individual brands can leverage the power of gamification to expand and improve their rewards program.

By reimagining how to engage and reward your most loyal customer, you can create future-proof fans of your brand who can also become brand ambassadors.

4. Personalize all engagement, but focus on digital-first

Build a digital-first framework that is designed to support ongoing customer experience journeys, not just one-off interactions.

McKinsey notes that “Today’s personalization leaders have found proven ways to drive 5-15% increases in revenue and 10-30% increases in marketing-spend efficiency — predominantly by deploying product recommendations and triggered communications within singular channels.”

Using data to create deeply personal, dynamic experiences for your customers will increase their trust for your brand and lead them to choose you again and again over other options put before them by your competitors.

Concentrating on digital channels helps make your messaging part of their daily lifestyle, until checking their progress in a game or what rewards they have unlocked becomes as natural and routine as getting dressed in the morning.

5. Exhibit digital empathy to leverage your customer’s emotions

Leading with compassion is critical to succeeding on digital. Cold and sterile offers won’t work; you have to connect emotionally with your audience.

According to Deloitte, 90% of customers find personalization appealing, and 4 out of 5 customers are more likely to purchase from a company that offers personalized experiences.

“The combination of convenience, customer understanding, and emotional engagement drives loyalty in customers and increases returns for organizations. Emotionally engaged, loyal customers not only spend twice as much as those who are not engaged, but 80% of them will recommend the brand to friends and family.”

When you connect with your customers on a basic level, they feel that you truly have taken the time to get to know them, and you can build on this customer relationship to drive actions and revenues.

6. Reap the benefits of hyper-personalization via gamification

With a solid customer data management strategy, you can focus on establishing a digital lifestyle ecosystem that drives business toward sustainability through the co-creation of shared value.

Maximize revenues through detailed product targeting and deployment of a robust and informed recommendation engine that can deliver individualized pricing and offers based on customer purchasing behaviors.

Lower customer acquisition costs by improving retention rates through increased brand stickiness and turning loyal customers into brand advocates. Additionally, reduce operational costs by implementing workflow automation streamlining customer interactions.

Elevate and future-proof customer experience personalization with in-moment customer journeys, 24/7, tailored customer service, and real-time customer segmentation. By delivering continual, consistent, and exciting customer experiences and rewards, you can build brand stickiness that won’t be beat.

Perx can provide the lifestyle marketing and customer data platform you need and the tools to build customer experiences and rewards programs that will stand the test of time.

Download the ONESIAM / Perx partnership case study to learn more about how you can improve customer engagement and elevate your loyalty program through gamification.

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Does Your Customer Loyalty Program Need Resuscitation

Does your customer loyalty program need resuscitation?

How to keep your brand loyalty initiative from gasping its last breath

Grace Alexander

MarTech Blogger | April 26, 2022

Brand loyalty may not be dead, but it’s barely clinging to life. Maintaining customer retention and growth is ultimately down to how well your brand manages hygiene when it comes to customer engagement. Being able to engineer the customer journey with seamless transitions from touchpoint to touchpoint combined with meaningful rewards and continual opportunities for further engagement is key.

Traditional loyalty programs are where customer relationships go to die

Many traditional customer loyalty programs in use today are glorified ledgers. They:

Serve as not much more than a records keeper

Customers have advanced beyond being satisfied with mere point-tracking systems. Adding points as they are earned and deducting them as they are spent or redeemed is like logging blood pressure without doing anything about whether it’s low or high.

Aren’t clear about the worth of points to the customer

Lack of transparency about how much points are worth and what they can be spent on or redeemed for is comparable to giving a patient in crisis instructions for care in Latin — it’s unhelpful, to say the least.

Bury rewards and benefits so they aren’t easily accessible

Programs that keep information about rewards and benefits hidden away in an obscure page on their website can be almost pointless. That’s like prescribing medicine but hiding the bottle.

Don’t drive constant customer engagement

Not focusing on constant, continual customer engagement is as helpful as telling a patient to eat light during annual festivities but not bothering to remind them to take their daily medication.

Don’t nudge or track customer actions aside from when a point is earned or spent

Customer loyalty programs that only become active when the customer initiates contact and then goes dead again are similar to a pacemaker that doesn’t kick in until someone turns blue.

Don’t provide additional ways to incentivize the customer

Suppose your loyalty program isn’t coming up with new ways to get your customer motivated about interacting. In that case, you may as well call the time and sign the certificate because the slow death of your relationship has arrived.

Don’t build additional loyalty

Customer loyalty is like a barometer of health. If you aren’t doing regular checkups and making it easy for them to see you on-demand, you might find their loyalty DOA.

Deliver poor results and poor ROI

Not tracking metrics and analyzing the results of your customer loyalty program compares to sending off their samples to the lab and never bothering to follow up. Who wants to wait around forever? By the time you check back, your customers will be gone, gone, gone.

Modern loyalty programs breathe new life into customer interactions

When appropriately designed and implemented well, customer loyalty programs can become the primary driver of your customer engagement, growth, and retention initiatives. A great customer loyalty program will:

Build a tribe of loyal customers

The constant attention and care you show will create a strong relationship between you and your customers — and they’ll reciprocate with word-of-mouth accolades, resulting in holistic referral marketing.

Continually set customers up for yet another touchpoint

When you do repeated follow-ups that provide gratification and brand value realization, customers become more likely than ever to be receptive to your recommendations and advice. It’s almost like going to a doctor that treats you like a family member.

Build highly active customer journeys

Making your customer’s journey feel more like one long-lasting interaction instead of isolated events is how you become a necessary part of their everyday lives. So make sure you’re delivering an ongoing experience studded with actions and rewards to engage them further and keep the brand/customer relationship in good health.

Present personalized experiences

A patient who realizes that their doctor never learns their name quickly finds a new provider. Making sure your customer loyalty program makes every member feel special with tailored experiences and customized rewards will encourage them to make and keep regular appointments with your brand.

Clearly present the “why” of belonging to your program

The customer only turns to an “urgent care” version of a loyalty program when they hope to get some fast help. That initial reward for signing up can be a much-needed shot in the arm, but don’t forget to hand out the brochures that explain your point worth, benefits, and rewards to drive repeated customer actions.

Engage customers on a level that impacts their lifestyle

Patients who aren’t invested in their health tend to eat better and walk around the block for a few days after a doctor visit, then give up. You need a program that sets a reminder to keep walking daily, suggests healthy recipes, and offers a free meditation suggestion they can access at bedtime every night.

Perx transforms customer loyalty programs into lifestyle augmenting tools

Are your customer relationships clutching their chests and gasping for air? You need help, stat. Don’t sit by and monitor the situation while it bleeds out on the floor. Instead, take steps to proactively address the bond between brand and customer and extend its lifespan for years to come.

The Perx Loyalty and Engagement Platform (LMP) changes how your customer loyalty program impacts customers. With Perx Platform, You can:

Power customer interactions with constant opportunities.
Increase customer retention by providing an ongoing journey.
Enhance customer engagement by tracking customers and leveraging extra opportunities.
Improve customer loyalty with highly personalized experiences.
Maximize referral marketing opportunities by turning customers into brand ambassadors.
Reduce your customer acquisition cost and maximize lifetime value (LTV).

It’s time to invest in a customer loyalty program with endless potential for personalization and the capability to develop endless customer journeys packed with actions, rewards and enjoyment. Perx helps you turn your brand loyalty system into lifestyle augmentation tools that keep customers active, engaged, and constantly watching for the next opportunity to play, win, save or be surprised with your next communication or offering.

Are you ready to do more than put a bandaid on your customer relationships? Request a free demo today.

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How a Personalized Customer Experience Increases Revenue and Loyalty

How a Personalized Customer Experience Increases Revenue and Loyalty

Grace Alexander

MarTech Blogger | April 14, 2022

You know what your customers want, what they’re interested in, and how they like to communicate. That is, if you’re using data effectively. But how can you turn that information from points on a graph into real-time actionable fuel for top line growth in loyalty and revenue generation?

The key lies in the kinds of customer experiences you create. In an era of constant digital communication between people and companies, having hyper-personalized and meaningful interactions with consumers is what stands out.

Surprise and delight your customers by proactively acknowledging and fulfilling their asks.

Building revenue and brand loyalty with personalization

One of the first points to understand about personalized customer experiences is that shoppers have come to expect this level of custom treatment.

McKinsey reported that personalization has moved from nice-to-have to need-to-have. People expect customized content, and they may devalue companies that don’t offer it. In retail, personalization can lift brand loyalty while lowering marketing expenses by 10-20%. Even in the grocery space, where companies deal with large customer bases and must launch all their programs at scale, a customized experience can lift sales by 1-2%.

Personalization is tied to a few of the other concepts that have powered retail in recent years, namely the increasing use of data and the development of effective rewards schemes for a brand’s most loyal shoppers.

McKinsey’s report added that personalized interactions aiming at customers who are already repeat buyers can drive powerful return on investment, at three times the rate of efforts that target all customers. From there, these customers repeatedly provide data as they return and interact with the company multiple times, making purchases or redeeming rewards. That information further fuels personalization and deepens the bond of loyalty.

Creating truly unique experiences with hyper-personalization

While companies have been using limited forms of customized outreach for years — segmenting their audiences and tailoring experiences based on interests and demographics — modern personalization is different. The era of hyper-personalization is here, where each individual has unique brand interaction experiences.

What’s the fundamental difference between doubling-down on segmentation and adopting real hyper-personalization? According to Deloitte, a real commitment to modern customized customer experiences means changing the entire way a business thinks about the customer journey and its relationship with its audience.

A hyper-personalized experience could start with a recommendation engine powered by advanced analytics categories, such as artificial intelligence (AI). This allows companies to create truly unique suggestions from each individual. From there, the use cases become more advanced, from personal pricing to products designed for a single person.

Example: Cadbury’s social media success

As a real-world example of its customer experience research, Deloitte reported that the confectioner Cadbury created highly personalized display ads based on customer data, provided with consent through Facebook. These custom marketing messages earned click-through rates of 65% and conversion rates just over one-third.

Probing the psychological link between personalization and brand loyalty

Personalization has the power to deepen the loyalty of existing shoppers and even, as in the Cadbury example, to win over new prospective customers. The key to getting these reactions, rather than making customers uneasy with the level of data companies are using, is to focus on positive experiences.

When personalization goes right

When are people most likely to willingly share their data and get customized experiences in return? According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the key is to provide products or services that people truly value. In those cases, 63% of consumers are more willing to give companies personal information. This is significant, as 43% of people are generally opposed to data collection by businesses.

When a brand is closely aligned with a person’s lifestyle and interests, there is room to create a deep and lasting relationship. A customer who feels a brand appreciates them is willing to pay up to 16% more for that business’s services and goods, and will stay more loyal over time, according to the PwC data.

When personalization goes wrong

Just as there are companies that use customization effectively, there are those that make mistakes. Psychology Today noted some of the tactics consumers don’t like. Sometimes, a business can attempt to create a connection with audiences but fail, because they’ve gone too far. People who feel manipulated by a business, or who did not realize how much of their information a marketer has, may feel unhappy about losing control of their data.

While trying for a deep connection can backfire, so can shallow efforts at personalization. When a business makes a recommendation that is seen as stereotypical, that can drive customers away. The same goes for trying to give people information they already have. These surface-level efforts at customization don’t suit the preference for real understanding and mutual trust.

Taking customer engagement and personalization to the next level

How do companies get started personalizing their interactions with customers? A separate McKinsey report recommended that brands can begin their efforts sooner than they may assume. Rather than launching new efforts to organize or rethink data, businesses can use existing interaction data from their customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

Early efforts to personalize the customer experience should reach consumers through many different communication channels, rather than just one. There should be mechanisms in place for the business’s teams to collect real-time data on their new, personalized interactions and adjust on the fly based on their findings.

Personalizing customer experiences with Perx

If you’re hoping to join the many companies embracing personalization as a pillar of customer engagement marketing, Perx is the perfect customer engagement platform for you. Perx is a lifestyle marketing platform, meaning that customizing offers based on customer data is in the technology’s DNA.

The crux of the Perx customer loyalty management system lies in using data to generate rewards, experiences and interactions that will delight loyal customers. This, in turn, gives your organization further data to deepen your connection with your audience.

To see this cycle for yourself, request a demo.

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Leveraging the Critical Stages of Customer Loyalty Marketing

Leveraging the Critical Stages of Customer Loyalty Marketing

Grace Alexander

MarTech Blogger | April 14, 2022

When does the work of customer loyalty building take place? For companies that have achieved best-in-class retention and customer experience, the process starts before someone has made a purchase and continues for as long as that consumer is interacting with your brand.

Starting early means you can gather the maximum amount of data on your prospective customers and continue presenting them with experiences that will delight them. This creates a positive feedback loop, as each time you deal with that individual, the interaction can be better tailored, utilizing all the data you’re collecting.

Defining the stages of interaction

Though customer loyalty marketing is an ongoing process, it doesn’t always proceed at the same speed. Rather, there are important points on the timeline. First, there’s the preliminary work that goes on before a consumer buys from you. Then, there are the everyday activities as they become part of your customer ecosystem. Finally, there are the outreach opportunities to keep people from disengaging from your brand.

With the right strategy and technology, your brand can master all these stages and create a loyal, ever-growing customer base to support your bottom line. By breaking down each of the three key phases of customer contact, as well as demonstrating how a lifestyle marketing platform can assist you at these moments, it’s possible to envision a better approach to loyalty marketing.

1. Focusing on pre-acquisition steps for loyalty and retention

Is it possible to build loyalty before a prospect has even become a customer? If you take a modern approach based on positive customer experiences, you’re well on your way to winning people over before their first purchases.

Pre-acquisition prep work to stream prospects into loyalty programs starts with customer engagement. By running the data on your prospective customers’ wants and needs — the components of their lifestyle — you can create offers that will match their deeply held long-term goals.

Once you’ve segmented your prospective audience based on your current customers’ profiles, it’s time to generate incentives and offers that will bring in business. These should involve no-strings-attached benefits for first-time engagements. Follow these gifts up with gamification and positive, enjoyable interactions and you’ve captured new customers for your lifestyle marketing ecosystem.

Gamification is a critical element, as these enjoyable and digital experiences have been proven to keep users more engaged. Gartner stated that gamification can boost both customer retention and new business acquisition.

Why use Perx to create your loyalty ecosystem?

Perx’s recently launched lifestyle marketing platform is the perfect technology tool for brands hoping to capture business through the power of customer experience. How does it work?

The Perx Loyalty Engagement Platform enables brands to lead with engagement and not loyalty, innovate beyond their core business models and create monetizable lifestyle ecosystems around their closed-loop network of consumers, partners, and merchants. This approach not only allows brands globally to better address and solve customer lifestyle wants and needs but also builds a moat around those customers by drastically increasing brand touchpoints. With advanced gamification and campaign automation capabilities, hyper-personalized and instantly gratifying incentives, the platform has proven to be an effective enabler of the digital lifestyle ecosystems for enterprises and digital natives.

Anna Gong, Perx CEO and founder

2. Leveraging a customer loyalty program for first time and repeat buyers

Customer loyalty programs work best when they encourage consistent engagement between your audience and your brand. This means rewards and incentives should exceed the traditional “earn and burn” points model, which could leave consumers unable to accomplish anything worthwhile for long periods of time.

Personalization is key, as users are less likely to disengage from your ecosystem if you keep offering them meaningful incentives. Continuous engagement starts with the bonus you use to attract first-time buyers and proceeds from there, welcoming these consumers into your loyalty ecosystem.

Generation Z customers, growing up as digital natives, can be especially demanding when it comes to brand experiences. Give these young shoppers generic or non-engaging interaction and reward options and they may not pay attention.

How does the Perx platform bring customers from intake to loyalty?

The Perx lifestyle marketing platform supports consistent meaningful interactions designed to delight customers and keep them deeply engaged.

In our recent execution with Perx, we drove over a million customer actions, targeting a specific test segment, in just 100 days from the point of onboarding, and over 70% of them were actions that contributed to the top-line growth of the brands.

Stephanie Kubota, RUSH CEO

3. Rescuing customers from post-action disengagement with loyalty retention

After you’ve captured customers, you need to make sure they never have a reason to desert your ecosystem. What drives people away from companies? In short, the issue is negative experiences.

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers research, 59% of consumers in the U.S. will stop dealing with a brand they love if that company has given them several bad experiences. For 17% of customers, all it will take is one bad interaction to destroy the brand-client bond.

When your lifestyle marketing, customer experience and retention efforts are based around accurate, up-to-date data, you can adjust in real time to make sure you’re on the right track. If consumers are unhappy, you can detect the issue and respond right away. If they’re even becoming ambivalent, it may be time to offer up reminders of the rewards available.

How does the Perx platform help brands keep their customers loyal?

By using data to help companies build customer relationships around valuable, high-impact interactions, the Perx platform delivers consistent positive experiences.

Unlike other solutions, Perx’s Loyalty Engagement Platform actually drives meaningful customer engagements and is built to digitally engage better. An outcome of that is more customer stickiness and real customer actions that contribute to the top-line.

Maneesh Verma, Starhub VP of customer lifecycle management

Customer Loyalty Marketing Enabled by Perx

When your brand wants to commit to every step of the customer journey, from pre-purchase offers to everyday interactions and churn-stopping outreach, Perx is the ideal platform for you.

Learn how the increased number of touchpoints and focus on continuous engagement can help our brand: watch a video overview or request a demo.

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What Metrics Are Critical to Measuring Customer Loyalty?

What Metrics Are Critical to Measuring Customer Loyalty?

Grace Alexander

MarTech Blogger | April 13, 2022

The stakes are high when it comes to identifying the right customer loyalty metrics. These measures are essential for benchmarking your customer relationships and measuring the impact of your retention strategies. To get the most out of a customer loyalty program, you need a reliable way to measure the effort’s impact.

There are many ways to measure customer loyalty, but not all of them provide equal value. If you want to truly understand your brand’s relationship with customers, it’s important to progress beyond superficial “vanity metrics” and drill down on more relevant, revealing key performance indicators.

As a definitive Bain & Company survey on customer retention explained, companies almost never recoup their acquisition costs on a customer’s first purchase. That means you need to understand how retention works to achieve optimal value. Tracking the most important metrics is key to that understanding.

Measuring customer loyalty: The 6 metrics that count

When you’re setting up a dashboard to measure customer loyalty and retention, you don’t need to include dozens of metrics. As long as you focus on meaningful behavioral factors that truly reflect customers’ interests, intentions and engagement, you’re on the right path.

With the following six impactful metric types, you can get a clear view of your campaigns’ performance and the resulting return on investment (ROI):

1. Net Promoter Score

Net Promoter Score (NPS) uses the customer experience to predict your company’s potential for growth. It is based on rating your customers from 1-10 depending on how likely they are to recommend your company to friends. The scale provides clarity on your future prospects by dividing your current customer base into detractors (not likely to recommend), passives (not enthusiastic but satisfied) and promoters (brand advocates).

2. Upsell ratio

In the same vein as your company’s repurchase ratio, your upsell ratio is a valuable descriptor of your customers’ relationship with the brand. If people are willing to spend more money to engage with your products and services on a deeper level, this is good news for your customer experience. If you’re only selling base-level items, it’s time to consider new incentives.

3. Customer lifetime value

Getting maximum value out of each customer relationship is a core objective of retention and loyalty marketing strategies. Your dashboard should therefore include a clear measurement of how much return on investment each individual is providing. These calculations can provide useful intelligence on the relative success of outreach efforts.

4. Repurchase ratio

Getting someone to buy from you once is a triumph of marketing. Twice is the start of loyalty and real customer lifetime value. Considering the fact that a single purchase will likely not recoup acquisition costs, you need to pay close attention to what percentage of your clients buy again. A low repurchase ratio may be a clear sign of a weak customer experience.

5. Customer Loyalty Index

Customer loyalty index is a score used across the marketing space. It combines several of the other scores, such as NPS, repurchase intent and upsell intent to create a unified view of loyalty. A customer who is willing to spend more on your products, buy multiple times and refer others is a valuable asset, so it pays to directly measure how close consumers are to this ideal.

6. Customer Engagement Score

A customer engagement score (CES) is a measurement of the types of interactions your audience members have with your company. If people are actually using your products, communicating with your brand or engaging with your mobile app experience, that raises their CES. It can be valuable to understand which of your outreach efforts are convincing people to engage further and which have a more shallow impact.

With a reliable tracking method for these six metrics, you can stay aware of fluctuations in customer loyalty. That, in turn, will help you shape your outreach and retention tactics for years to come.

Mistakes brands make with customer loyalty and retention

Not every company maximizes ROI with an adaptive, data-driven customer loyalty and retention strategy. Some businesses end up going halfway in these attempts, launching programs that seem effective but are slightly misaligned. What are some of the defining features of these non-optimized attempts?

A lack of relevant rewards: When the MIT Sloan Management Review laid out important concepts of rewards programs decades ago, it established the variables customers use to judge the value of rewards: How valuable do the offerings seem? How many choices are on offer? How easy will it be to earn those benefits? Is the reward program user-friendly? Failing to consider these issues could lead to weak customer benefits.
Limited channel options: Companies that don’t make their customer retention and loyalty programs available on users’ platforms of choice may quickly lose audience attention. Lack of a mobile application interface may be especially devastating today. What’s worse, brands that fail to track effective metrics may never realize if they are missing customers’ preferred platforms.
Focus on the most loyal: Customer loyalty and retention programs shouldn’t be limited just to customers who are already committed to a brand. Businesses that neglect to open their rewards programs to new and recent customers may miss out on opportunities to collect and use data. Processing data on these shoppers can create fruitful new relationships.

Good dashboards help businesses avoid these pitfalls and more by sending clear signals about which efforts are having a positive effect on ROI — and which aren’t working.

Lifestyle marketing for an emotional connection with customers

While modern customer retention strategies are driven by data, they aren’t cold or robotic. In fact, the end result of these programs should be to create a kind of loyalty Harvard Business Review calls “emotional and irrational“.

People who have committed to such customer relationships don’t just keep redeeming rewards because it makes economic sense. Rather, they are happy to keep engaging with the brand because they feel like part of a club. The experience of interacting with the brand and their fellow customers feels good, and the incentive to stay reaches beyond their wallets.

Do you know if your brand is creating this bond? To understand where you are on the path to loyalty, you need a comprehensive dashboard that tracks the right metrics. This is what you get as part of the Perx Loyalty and Engagement Platform. Request a demo to see how this technology can help you.

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The Forgotten Customer: Still a Ticking Time Bomb?

Blogs

How Gamification Hacks Cognitive Biases to Drive Customer Stickiness

How Gamification Hacks Cognitive Biases to Drive Customer Stickiness

Blogs

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