Loyalty in the Enterprise: This is Part One of a series on loyalty best practices in the Enterprise. Tune in tomorrow for the next part in the series.
The remarkable amount of change in the consumer world is ushering in a new definition of loyalty. What have long been static programs of points and plastic cards are becoming dynamic, individualized and much, much more engaging.
The old way of simple ledgers and confusing redemption schemes was a fundamentally flawed proposition. Customers were able to accumulate points but struggled to keep track of and gain real value in return. Something had to change.
Enter Customer Loyalty Management
Customer Loyalty Management is the new, holistic approach to driving higher levels of loyalty to brands. It puts a focus on what have emerged as the four “pillars” of loyalty:
- Loyalty programs
- Wider event streams
- Marketer-driven relationship marketing
- Test & learn
Each of these four is key to finding the “Holy Grail” of marketing: creating “fans”—people who think of a brand first and represent a much higher lifetime value. But today’s technology combines social, mobile and analytics to create new ways to drive another layer atop the four pillars, including higher trust, greater insight and relevance, and recognition leading to virtuous cycles of increasing value.
These are lofty goals that would be impossible without the new approach in technology and strategy offered by Customer Loyalty Management.
Aligning the Tools and Techniques
As consumers’ buying patterns change, the tools and techniques of loyalty need to change alongside them. There are four specific areas where the tools and techniques align with the four pillars and matter the most for the new Customer Loyalty Management:
- Social
- Mobile
- In-store
- On-line
Each of these areas is impacted by those changing buying patterns, and there’s an opportunity for brands to avoid disruption and benefit from the shift. These points of personal and digital engagement are the new realities of letting consumers engage in ways that increase their experience and create true fans.
Cloud computing, especially Private PaaS is still maturing and going through its formative years, but it’s not so embryonic that you can’t have a good business conversation about it. You know any business proposition is maturing when you can have a conversation about return on investment, and customers can openly talk about their experience and benefits in the public domain.
hosted a thought-provoking discussion about continuous delivery for DevOps with author Gene Kim; Senior Director of Engineering, John Skovron; and Tooling Chief Architect with HP, Steven Witkop.
For years I have collected miles with a few different airlines, but have managed to fly only twice using my miles. Here, in one sentence, you have the problem with airline loyalty programs, but also my loyalty strategy.
Everything is changing in how companies must manage business operations in the context of the rise of mobile. The growth of mobility through demand from consumers themselves was one of those revolutions that never could have been predicted. It took 100 years to have a billion landlines, yet it only took 10 years to have a billion mobile phones, and it was only one year before we had one billion smart phones and smart devices used around the world.
There are some things a business can get away without doing and still be successful. And then there are some that used to be acceptable to overlook and will never be again, like mobility. Mobile phones and tablets are starting to take the place of everything we used to use both as consumer and employees. Smartphone cameras are replacing actual cameras and video cameras; tablets are replacing paper books, newspapers, and magazines. Mobility has even begun transforming experiences like shopping and watching a movie.
