Many industries have been in a state of transition as they dealt with the effects of the pandemic. Both consumer and market demands have brought about the rapid adoption of technologies to create alternative channels for revenue. Restaurants, convenience chains, grocery stores and various food outlets now face a wide-range of options for meeting customers’ changing preferences. Creating a compelling and safe customer experience has certainly ignited several market trends, such as placing an emphasis on providing value, delivering personalized incentives, and rewarding guests beyond points with experiential offerings.
It has also required marketing, operations and IT to begin to work together to take a strategic approach to integrate technologies that can ultimately build AND reward customer loyalty well into the next decade.
Recently, Forrester’s VP, Principal Analyst, Mary Pilecki, shared loyalty insights from new research completed this year. Forrester’s findings recognize that the trends above have impacted the way marketers are addressing loyalty. They have moved from taking a narrow focus on attaining customer loyalty simply after the purchase to trying to gain and foster loyalty throughout the entire customer lifecycle.
Get a sneak peek at NEW 2022 B2C research from Forrester on how to build loyalty across the entire customer lifecycle to be more successful. Examples from every industry are highlighted throughout the discussion. Watch the on-demand webinar now! It’s only available for a limited-time.
Pilecki highlights the seven stages of the Forrester lifecycle framework, which are discover, evaluate, commit, initiate, participate, actualize, and advocate and what marketers can do to impact customer loyalty in each one of the stages. While Pilecki acknowledges that no one single stage of the customer lifecycle is more profitable than another, using loyalty techniques across the lifecycle can enhance a brand’s overall customer satisfaction and loyalty in three ways. First, it can improve customer engagement by deepening the customer relationship. Second, some loyalty techniques will deepen the emotional connection with customers, which will drive better behaviors. Lastly, brands are ensuring that the customer sees how valuable their loyalty is to their business.
One important aspect of loyalty programs that brands need to remember is they give them the ability to collect zero-party data. Zero party data is data that a consumer will proactively and willingly give to a brand. Often it’s an exchange for some sort of value, and it doesn’t have to be financial value. It could be just be for something like personalized recommendations or a sneak preview to a new product or service.
Learn more about Forrester’s new research and how loyalty now extends across the entire customer lifecycle. You’ll hear new tips and tactics as to what brands must do to focus on their customers’ wants and needs at every stage. Watch the on-demand webinar now!
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