CHANNELING CUSTOMER LOYALTY

Sean Claessen, executive VP strategy and executive creative director, Bond Brand Loyalty, spoke with Chain Store Age about how retailers can build customer relationships and loyalty in the era of omnichannel engagement.

Today’s consumer is more empowered than ever before. How does this affect a retailer’s customer relationship strategy?

Retailers need to recognize that the customer relationship is less linear than before. We use the term ‘omnichannel,’ which means ‘any channel.’ However, we fail to recognize that the channels don’t come in a particular order and can switch back to other parts of the customer journey at any time.

For example, a retailer may see a customer downloading its coupon as a signal of intent to purchase. But customers now have many ways they can access coupons and promotions. They may be comparing promotions and actually putting you back in their consideration stage as opposed to the purchase stage.

How can retailers better target and build promotions that seamlessly respond to customer needs across all channels?

One of the main byproducts of adopting a loyalty strategy is that you gain a customer profile that makes managing offers between channels a little easier. But retailers often have a (semi-) anonymous ‘guest-browse’ experience on their e-commerce site, where the customer remains anonymous until, at some point, they want to save an item to the shopping cart or make a list, and they have to somehow sign in or register.

With a consolidated view of the customer that they get from adopting loyalty mechanisms, retailers could allow customers to sign in using any single piece of identifiable information, such as an email address or phone number, instead of a full user name and password. Assuming there is no payment credential on file, cookie pools and other mechanisms can identify customers less cumbersomely.

How should retailers structure omnichannel promotions to fully capture customer behavior?

It depends on how many channels are in play and which ones customers use the most. But in general, mobile-oriented promotions probably work best.

A lot of retailers send customers promotions by email and demand they print them out to redeem them at the store. This is because the mechanisms a lot of retailers use for tracking and fulfilling promotions are manual. Also, the retailers are hoping for breakage out of the promotion.

However, to say you see the email on the customer’s mobile device but won’t honor the discount because they didn’t print it out is ludicrous. Customers should be able to redeem promotions any way that suits them; it builds satisfaction that leads to loyalty.

What solutions and services does Bond Brand Loyalty offer retailers to effectively manage omnichannel loyalty and promotions?

We broadly design, manage and operate loyalty programs, and also offer a variety of other loyalty and customer relationship services. We can design an informal loyalty program that uses a lot of the same mechanisms as a formal loyalty program, but in a way that is less pronounced and packaged to the customer. The retailer obtains the benefits, while the customer gets a different feeling. It’s good for premium brands that don’t want the baggage that can come with the words ‘loyalty program,’ but still want to be able to leverage the benefits.

In addition, we architect and maintain a progressive loyalty platform, called Synapze, that provides flexibility to marketers in a multitude of loyalty ways. It includes scoring and provides robust analytics and reporting behind the scenes for actioning the insights. Our SynapzeShop mobile app allows customers to participate in loyalty programs, even across competitive retailers, and receive personalized offers in a number of ways.

Also, we perform customer experience consulting. This can include tools, aids and mechanisms for frontline staff to deliver an experience that engenders loyalty among customers. We also offer clienteling solutions.