Why Customer Experience Is Everything

By: Melissa Canellis

Strategy

How to reward loyalty customers in 2022

Delivering a seamless, personalized customer experience is #1 on every brand’s list of priorities. That’s because it’s paramount to creating successful and profitable relationships that foster and reward loyalty customers (even during pandemics). 

Customer experience starts with the very first interaction someone has with your brand. Whether it’s online, in-store, at a fuel pump, or in your app– that initial point of contact is your best opportunity to make a great first impression. Old-school loyalty programs that rely on physical cards and static apps or web pages, do very little to draw buyers into the customer journey. They treat loyalty as nothing more than a transaction instead of the rich experience that consumers want and expect. 

Infographic: Top 5 Customer Experience Predictions for 2022

Form a Complete Picture of Customer Preferences

And today, the consumer experience encompasses so much more than just providing quality in-store products and services. It’s also about every digital engagement touchpoint, from reading online customer reviews, placing mobile orders and using contactless payments to interacting with your brand for curbside pickup and over social media channels.

For many brands, the pandemic shed light on their ability or inability to easily pivot and implement adjacent technologies that fostered safe, convenient ways for customer interactions. Although temporary and third-party solutions offered an initial win, if they remain as siloed, unbranded experiences, they will lead to an unprofitable and unproductive situation in 2022. 

Shape Customer Experiences with the Help of Technology

A loyalty platform that has the power to address and deliver integrations, CRM, analytics, marketing automation and security is what a brand needs to continue to grow and scale. With these foundational components working together brands can acquire, engage and retain customers while also increasing loyalty program participation, visit frequency, and spend.

Operators and marketers need a platform to do all the heavy lifting. With leaner teams and competing priorities, the right tools and services become paramount for delivering personalized and seamless experiences that truly connect customers to their favorite brands.

Brand loyalty, long known for having positive outcomes for businesses, continues to raise its role in impacting advocacy, retention, and spend, according to the 2021 Loyalty Bond Report. The recent report finds:

  • 73% of consumers are more likely to recommend brands with good Loyalty Programs
  • 80% say Loyalty Programs make them more likely to continue doing business with brands
  • 68% modify their amount spent to maximize the benefits they receive

Yet customer sentiment studies indicate guests still want more from their favorite brands. According to KPMG, 96 percent of consumers feel that loyalty programs can be improved. Furthermore, 75 percent of consumers would switch to another brand (enter your competition) that has a better loyalty program. Lastly, only 37 percent of participants identified points to be an effective mechanism for retaining their loyalty. 

Boost Data and Analytic Capabilities to Harness Predictive Insights

Brands need to understand that no matter where their guests engage with them, every interaction becomes an opportunity to drive brand loyalty. It has raised the level of sophistication for B2C digital loyalty programs, marketing and communication. It’s not enough to send a mass email or text message any more — brands must demonstrate knowledge of their customers to provide data-driven offers and real-time information that adds value to their lives.

To be fully positioned for omnichannel success and beyond, brands need to deliver customer-centric experiences that deepen loyal customer relationships and make them invincible to churn. Today, that means moving beyond the challenges presented by the pandemic and learning how to reward loyalty customers with the kind of experiences that keep them coming back. 

Check out our infographic – Top 5 Customer Experience Predictions for 2022 – to understand how to be recognized by customers as a true loyalty brand.


Stay in the know. Subscribe to our bi-monthly newsletter to receive proven loyalty strategies, offer management techniques, and new trends in your industry. Sign up today!