As the digital revolution expands the number of marketing channels, brands are seeing a tremendous blurring of the lines between traditional loyalty programs, digital transformations, and customer experience initiatives. In this new competitive landscape, all brands must adopt loyalty initiatives without traditional boundaries, shares, Guy CierzanManaging Partner, ICF Next.
No brand is perfect when it comes to loyalty these days, but Starbucks is doing a lot right.
For starters, their entire rewards program is housed on a mobile app that customers can also use to store payment info, purchase drinks, and order remotely. In this way, tangible customer interactions are seamlessly integrated in a digital ecosystem with the rewards they may reap from those interactions.
Contrary to several airlines — whose shift from distance to revenue-based loyalty programs have only made it harder, more expensive, and more complicated to achieve certain tier statuses than in the past — Starbucks rewards enrollment is friction-less, engrained in signing into the app itself. There’s a reason the app accounted for 30% of all transactions last year, and holds more consumer cash than many banks.
https://www.martechadvisor.com/articles/customer-experience-2/what-brands-can-learn-from-starbucks-expansive-view-of-customer-loyalty/
The difference between a friend and an acquaintance is the regularity and depth of your communication. A friend is part of your day-to-day life. You speak often, and you’re familiar with each other’s lives. An acquaintance, on the other hand, is someone you might only encounter occasionally when your paths cross.
In business, customers should be more like friends than acquaintances. You want to stay in close contact to remain relevant to their day-to-day success. This deeper relationship is created using customer engagement. In a nutshell, customer engagement is the connection between an enterprise and the customer forged through communications.
So, why is customer engagement important? Because it forms a bond between you and your customers that encourages long-term loyalty based on mutual growth.
https://www.business2community.com/customer-experience/why-is-customer-engagement-important-and-valuable-02238103/
We now exist in a world where technological innovation is empowering customers to expect more from the brands they deal with, to switch when they're not happy or satisfied, and share their negative experiences online.
Recently, Brightpearl conducted a survey of millennial shoppers that revealed millennials can be particularly hard to please. Over two-fifths (45%) admit to being less loyal to brands when compared to a year ago, and are quicker to abandon companies that don't meet expectations.
Buyers today have a lot of choice and an array of products to choose from, so it's understandable many brands are struggling to get customers to stick around for the long haul. An enormous 76% of shoppers report it's now easier than ever to take their business elsewhere, while a quarter of millennials would change where they buy goods, based on the shopping experience. Millennials are also the group most unlikely to return to a brand if they have a bad shopping experience.
https://www.retailcustomerexperience.com/blogs/why-its-time-for-brands-to-prioritize-the-happiness-of-millennial-shoppers/
