The Forrester Wave: Loyalty Solutions, Q2 2021 is an evaluation of the “top vendors in the market” based on current offering, strategy, and market presence. We are pleased to announce that Punchh has been recognized as a Contender in the report, and one of only 14 loyalty vendors invited to participate, scoring high marks for company performance and overall strategy.
According to Forrester, “brands are evolving their loyalty efforts from offering purely programmatic rewards to delivering personalized and enhanced experiences to support customer retention and engagement goals.” We believe our performance in the report reflects that assertion. Over the past decade, we’ve built integrations and partnerships with nearly 200 third-party systems, applications, and agencies–all for the singular purpose of making it easy for our clients to get the data they need to create a truly personalized loyalty experience for their customers.
On top of using personalization to drive retention and engagement, Forrester recommends that loyalty solutions customers seek out vendors that can prove expertise in several key areas:
A clear understanding of the client & its end customers
It is more critical than ever for vendors to recognize that loyalty isn’t one-size-fits-all and that no two businesses or their customers are alike. As Forrester states in the report, “Marketers need a loyalty solution provider that intimately understands them and their customers in order to help them be more agile, pivot faster, and thrive in an environment where everyday loyalty programs are ubiquitous.”
At Punchh, we believe that the most important work takes place before the first loyalty signup. From program design to mobile app development, we weigh every step in the implementation process against the brand’s unique goals. In the report, client references validate our mission to deliver exceptional support and services, with one client saying, “Punchh made me feel like we were its only client at the time.” We couldn’t ask for higher praise than that as we seek to continuously earn the trust of our clients.
An investment in analytics & automation to support convenient, personalized experiences
Forrester states that “Loyalty solutions enable marketers to collect all kinds of data from their best customers, including coveted zero-party preference and interest data.” But as every marketer knows all too well, it isn’t easy to convince consumers to trust you with their information. The key is to use each data point they offer up as a bread crumb that leads the consumer to a better, faster, more personalized experience. We believe that customer lifecycle loyalty, or the process of turning an unknown buyer into a lifelong fan can only be accomplished when brands use zero and first-party data responsibly and always with a better customer experience as the goal.
End customers aren’t the only ones to benefit from investments in automation and analytics. Thanks to AI-driven recommendations and offers, marketers are no longer left to sift through mountains of disjointed data. With the elimination of manual processes and a new ability to automate truly targeted offers and campaigns, marketers can quickly make informed decisions that have a big impact on the customer experience.
The ability to measure & apply emotional loyalty to identify truly loyal customers
In the report, Forrester reiterates the importance of a deep understanding of customer emotion, saying, “Adding emotional context to behavioral loyalty helps brands identify their truly loyal customers” but also adds that “there is more work to do” by loyalty vendors. We couldn’t agree more. We continue to invest in AI and natural language-driven technologies that burrow past the surface of customer feedback to better understand and predict future customer behaviors and preferences. For example, Punchh Deep Sentiment requests customer feedback after each customer’s visit and then uses it to identify the customers’ emotional loyalty in relation to their spend. Clients can then use the data to segment customers and trigger campaigns based on sentiment and the next-best action that will lead customers further into the loyalty journey that they want to have with a brand.
If you’d like to find out more about the technology and innovation that helped us earn a spot as a Contender, check out some of the latest resources on our website or contact us to talk about your loyalty and engagement goals.
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