Earning and sustaining customer loyalty are parts of every business’ strategy. These days you’ll find one or more forms of loyalty programs, from repeat purchase coupons, discount cards to your local department store’s loyalty card. I’m pretty sure you’ve been asked a handful of times at the checkout counter, “Do you have an advantage card?”
Then again, why is loyalty so important? First off, acquisition of new customers costs 6 to 7 times more than retaining existing ones. Further, you stand to boost profits by 25% to 95% by simply increasing customer retention to 5% according to study by Bain & Co.
Mobile technology has presented ample opportunities to further develop customer relationships. In the Philippines alone, 4 out of 10 own a smartphone and 79% check their phones 15 minutes upon waking up. It is high time to bring your loyalty programs on the mobile front. Here are 5 reasons why:
Stimulate Customer Engagement
Mobile is quite essential in the lives of today’s consumers. Turning to their phones to search for a business, look for the best product prices and even engage with a brand on social media. A studies show that 85% of loyalty program members prefer interacting with their favorite program online (Collison Latitude) and another 44% of members want to engage on a mobile device (Bond Brand Loyalty).
And if you are targeting the millennial market, mobile is the way to go as 33% of them dislike physical reward programs due to the too many cards they have to carry. (Vantiv) Capitalize on this by being present on the platform they frequent the most.
Learn More About Your Customers
The next best thing about tapping mobile technology is access to rich customer data. This allows you to learn your customer’s buying habits, tendencies and preferences. Allowing you to customize the experience and even the rewards. Knowing your customers can be quite beneficial for your business as an American Express study has indicated that 48% of Millennials expect brands to customize offers to suit their needs, and 39% will go out of their way to use a customized offer.
Build Your Brand
Being present on mobile is already a great platform to set up virtual word of mouth. Having an engaging, user friendly, and rewarding loyalty program can transform your loyal customers into brand evangelists. You can even integrate social sharing as part of the your program that will earn them additional points or rewards. Just like what ride-sharing apps do to entice new riders through recommendation of their current customers.
These are just three reasons why mobile is the next frontier for loyalty programs. And we believe that you should start looking into this. And you know what, there are actually hassle-free loyalty programs you can tap without all the costs and hassle of development from the ground up. Click here to read more about it.
Sources:
Customer Loyalty Statistics: 2016 Edition (Carter, B., Jan. 2017) lifted from: http://blog.accessdevelopment.com/customer-loyalty-statistics-2016-edition
How Brands are Ramping Up Customer Loyalty Program Spending in 2017 (Cameron, N., Feb 2017) http://www.cmo.com.au/article/613854/how-brands-ramping-up-customer-loyalty-program-spending-2017/?pp=2
New Report: Return On Loyalty Program Investments Higher Than Ever Before (Wojcik, S., June 2016): http://info.bondbrandloyalty.com/the-2016-bond-loyalty-report-press-release-cdn#sthash.qTOiVAie.dpuf
13 Stunning Customer Loyalty Stats, Including The Surprising Ineffectiveness of Loyalty Programs (Claveria, K., Nov. 2016) https://www.visioncritical.com/customer-loyalty-stats/
Members of Customer Loyalty Programs Generate Significantly More Revenue for Retailers Than Do Non-Members (Accenture Interactive Research) https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/members-of-customer-loyalty-programs-generate-significantly-more-revenue-for-retailers-than-do-non-members-accenture-research-finds.htm
8 Reasons Why Loyalty Programs Are Imperative For Marketers (Olenski, S., Dec. 2014) http://marketingland.com/8-reasons-loyalty-programs-imperative-marketers-109077
