New retail imperatives: Loyalty, customer experience, the single customer view

By Sean Keith, director of new business, Eagle Eye

Retailers obsess over creating the optimal customer experience both in-store and online, and throughout the customer's relationship with the brand. And for good reason: more than just about every other aspect of the retail operation, the quality of a customer's experience determines their relationship with the retailer.

Yet often, retailers neglect one aspect of the customer experience that is both directly within their control and has the ability to reach well beyond the moment of transaction: the loyalty program.

Now, some might argue that "neglect" is the wrong verb to use; after all, many retailers have a loyalty strategy of some kind in place, and they may devote significant time and resources to optimizing their loyalty efforts.

But if they're not considering the customer experience when developing and deploying their loyalty programs, they will fail to get the most out of their loyalty strategies. This can manifest in a few different ways:

•    An inability to gather or connect customer data associated with their loyalty programs
•    Lacking the single customer view (SCV) necessary to create truly personalized offers and rewards
•    Not having the capability to deploy offers in real time when they're most likely to be relevant to the customer

These are all aspects of the loyalty program that ultimately help a retailer create better customer experiences. It's important for retailers to adopt strategies that help their loyalty programs achieve these capabilities, as these are the qualities of successful loyalty programs that keep customers engaged, feeling appreciated, and having positive interactions with the brand.

Why loyalty works

Loyalty programs make customers feel connected to the retail brand and encourage repeat business. They also provide customers with added value through rewards and offer an additional touchpoint beyond the in-store or online channels.  

What is sometimes under-utilized is the loyalty program's ability to provide insight into customer behaviors through data. A loyalty program with the technological capability to collect and manage customer data is important not just for the sake of creating a single customer view — though this, of course, is crucial — but also because that single customer view drives positive customer experiences and helps retailers meet customers' expectations for those experiences. Customers are conditioned to expect a level of personalization from their interactions with a brand — particularly a retail brand. After all, this is the age of Amazon, bespoke recommendation lists and all-about-me marketing; a truly customer-centric environment.  

But meeting these expectations is impossible unless a brand can extract data from both loyalty programs and other customer touchpoints, organize that data in a centralized way, and then leverage it effectively. How can retailers get to that point?

Getting to the single customer view (and beyond)

Today's customers have so many potential points of contact with a retail brand, the opportunities to connect and engage are unprecedented: email, SMS messages, loyalty mobile apps, social media, customer service centers, and of course the ecommerce site and the brick-and-mortar storefront. What's important for retailers to realize is that each of these channels produces a significant amount of customer data, and to execute an effective loyalty strategy, brands need access to all that data in one centralized platform. Once collected, that data represents a single customer view – an accurate portrait of all interactions a customer has or has had with the brand.  

Having a single customer view is the first step retailers need to take in order to present rewards, offers and communications tailored to each shopper's purchasing habits and preferences in the right channel at the right time. Targeted, relevant and personalized offers lead to more engagement, enhanced customer experiences and ultimately, higher conversion rates.

In addition to these customer-centric benefits, having a single customer view enables retailers to better assess and evaluate their loyalty and marketing efforts, and optimize them going forward. More specifically, there are several advantages to seeing every customer's activity at each touchpoint:

•    Offers and promotions that resonate — with a single customer view, brands and retailers can present each individual customer with customized, relevant offers and promotions they are most likely to redeem

•    Customized messaging and segmenting — with greater insight into customer behavior and interactions, retailers can more precisely identify their intended audiences and tailor marketing communications for maximum impact.

•    Informed strategic decisions — with more accurate and complete customer data, brands and retailers can make better marketing, merchandizing and positioning decisions.

Unlock the benefits of loyalty

Loyalty programs, when done right, can well exceed their traditional function of retaining and rewarding high-value customers. When a retailer can connect their customer data from their loyalty program activities and other consumer touchpoints, then they can reap benefits that have real bottom-line impact and inform the strategic direction of future marketing and sales efforts. And with that connected data providing a single customer view, retailers can also optimize their offers, engage in true personalization, and create positive customer experiences that create increased loyalty, fueling the cycle all over again.