Content Writer
Blog
Yes, brands are dazzling customers with virtual and augmented reality, interactive screens and AI-powered everything, yet this provides an opportunity for brands to differentiate through the emotional value customers gain from their entire purchase experience.
It means brands need to get better at being emotional. Customers want “emotional luxury” derived from feeling recognized, special, and known; yet, only 20% of consumers say they feel special and recognized by a brand representative. This is a massive, untapped opportunity for brands to better engage with consumers.
Almost all currency-based consumer loyalty Program designs inherently house a financial liability, which in many cases has a material impact on a brand’s balance sheet. Generally speaking, a brand incurs liability for a future loyalty Program reward as soon as it issues the Program’s currency (e.g., points, miles, credits, stars, etc.) to a Program Member. From an income statement perspective, there is a reduction in revenue as soon as the currency is issued to a Program Member. As such, the brand cannot account for the full sale, since a percentage will need to be remunerated in the form of a reward (or dividend) back to the Program Member upon redemption. The accounting principles which govern financial liability management are not for the faint of heart, and they more than often create an ongoing level of tension between a brand’s CFO and CMO. CFOs wish to minimize their currency liability and resulting financial exposure, while CMOs wish to issue currency to incent incremental transactional behaviors with the aspiration of maximizing Member redemptions.
In today’s mobile-driven marketplace, and with the rise of the Millennial “always on” consumer, having an app complement a retailer’s marketing strategy has become table stakes. Apps have evolved from simply being an extension of the digital ecosystem to leading the way for brand innovation, campaign awareness, and deeper loyalty engagement.
Never before has a brand had the opportunity to be part of such a personal customer connection—your customers’ mobile device is more than just a communication channel; it’s their hub to connect to all things, all people, and interact with your brand in more personal ways than ever before. The challenge this brings is for retailers to truly understand how users want to connect with their brand, and to develop features that enable those interactions in innovative, creative, relevant, and simple ways. The opportunity is to retain top-of-mind awareness for your brand, create habit-forming engagements, and obtain a higher reach of brand advocacy, especially when a formal loyalty program exists for your brand. Surprisingly, Bond Brand Loyalty’s 2016 Loyalty Report shows that almost 50% of consumers aren’t even aware if the loyalty program they engage with has an app, which is a lost opportunity for many retailers.
Over the past 15 years, loyalty programs have enjoyed a relatively low level of fraudulent activities. However, in recent months we have seen the level of loyalty program and loyalty card fraud increase. As “Chip & Pin” credit cards continue to become prevalent, specific industries whose business models include transactions where the physical card does not need to be present, have become the target of fraudsters. One of these in particular is the travel booking industry.
Lately, fraudulent activities have propagated to loyalty programs where the travel components of the program are the primary target. However, as there often is with fraud schemes, there’s a twist. The loyalty program is not the actual target of the fraud, but rather a means to facilitate the scheme.
When or Why Would You Need to Hire a Business Coach?
Customer-centricity seems to be the new buzzworthy topic in boardrooms. But a customer “obsessed” culture is not created overnight. One way to accelerate through the change curve is to bring in a coach to ensure that the organization has the right guidance, support and focus needed to create the new customer-centric way of being.
A change toward customer-centricity starts with your people committing to making changes on a personal level. Business coaches are trained to help organizations meet objectives through their people.
Business coaches are individuals who have worked in various aspects of the corporate world, who have extensive real world experience, and who have the business acumen to deal with anyone from a CEO to a frontline employee. Coaches also typically have high EQ’s and the strategic ability to ask the pertinent questions, digging deep to uncover the insights of what’s really going on.
Your dentist has a file on you. One that includes your name, birthdate, address and other personal details. You visit your dentist regularly, and tell your friends about your experiences with him. What if your dentist never used your first name? What if he never referred back to your visit history or dental records?
Apply this concept to a brand’s loyalty Program. When you enroll and participate in a loyalty Program, you’ve likely given up a good amount of personal information—and it’s not always put to good use, or at least not overtly. Consumers have noted this disconnect. The sixth annual survey by Bond Brand Loyalty has found that only 22 percent of loyalty program members are very satisfied with the level of personalization they’re receiving from brands. This highlights a tremendous opportunity for brands as satisfaction is 8X higher when programs are highly personalized. The thing is, personalization does not have to be complicated to yield this kind of payoff in satisfaction. Here are three steps to improve your personalization efforts today:
Make no mistake: Building authentic relationships with consumers is hard work—and getting harder by the day. Consumer expectations continue to rise. The pace of change continues to increase. The need to stay relevant is more important than ever.
Our latest research from the 2016 Bond Loyalty Report, shows that consumers continue to value Loyalty programs—programs that pay dividends back to brands in the form of loyalty, advocacy and increased spend. It’s time for marketers to start paying closer attention.
If you’ve taken a “set it and forget it” approach you’ve likely overlooked what matters most to your program Members. Taking a closer look now might land some relatively quick wins.
On the only Friday the 13th of the year, I stopped at a small-town Tim Horton's on my way home about an hour outside of Port Dover, waiting in line behind two gentlemen in riding gear. They saw my Harley-Davidson t-shirt, started up a conversation, and thirty seconds later refused to let me buy my own coffee—and not because I said I worked at/with/for H-D, but because I was in Port Dover and was wearing an H-D tee and was, therefore obviously in some way a part of the Harley-Davidson MC family. They asked me to sit and have a coffee with them. They showed me their photos with Karen & Bill Davidson from the morning. They asked if I knew Randy.
Activating at Canada’s largest one-day motorcycle rally comes with a few first-timer expectations (yes, the ‘thong guy’ was there and going strong), but the giant orange exclamation mark I am left with is that this community really is something special. They are fun, polite, welcoming and accepting—even in crowds of a hundred thousand—and they would live and die for their passion.
Harley-Davidson is one of the most inked brands on the planet (if not the most…that is a title I might bet my money on), and we had a feeling that, if we gave our guests the chance, they would prove it.
In many cases, the distance between the offices of marketing and the operations staff is too far. When it comes to loyalty programs, Marketers can fall into the trap of missing executional realities—including the ability to turn front-line staff into evangelical brand ambassadors.
Neglecting to include front-line representatives and other key stakeholders early in the loyalty program design process can lead to poor promotional execution of campaigns, unchecked accountability and other issues. There also can be a lack of clarity and continuity of expectations, especially with new hires. Then, as competing business priorities arise, the program becomes little more than a sideshow over time.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Our recent Loyalty360/Bond Brand Loyalty webinar, “Measure Twice, Cut Once—Get it Right From the Start!” provided a case study of a leading North American retailer whose loyalty program has set an industry gold standard. It’s not just that enrollment goals for the entire first year were met within the first month. It’s also that front-line staff were and continue to be enthusiastic participants themselves, continuing to create excitement, share tips and engender loyalty with customers.
A funny thing is happening in the loyalty industry. Consider the average North American consumer is enrolled in a record 13 formal programs that include typical features like monetary rebates, points and discounts to lock members in and keep them coming back. Now consider that actual participation in those programs (that is, customers engaging and making purchases) shrank 14% from the previous year, according to the 2015 Bond Loyalty Report.
The widespread availability of these programs is outpacing consumer demand. This oversupply is creating a growing sense of customer indifference toward the most potent mechanisms that differentiate a brand.
Funny, right? Not so much.
