The Case of Customer Loyalty

As more and more consumers make the shift to e-commerce, there has been an increase in customer loyalty programs.

According to Sophia Bernazzani in her article The Beginner’s Guide to Building a Customer Loyalty Program from Hubspot, “Research shows that 52% of loyal customers will join a loyalty program if one is offered to them.  Customers who join the program spend more at your business because they receive benefits in return for their business.” 

And this is backed up by Sallie Burnett from Forbes in her article Seven Tips For Successful Customer Loyalty Programs In 2019, but she goes further to add that your customer loyalty program has to offer more than just a program, you have to offer communication with your customers in meaningful ways.

“At the core of all of these strategies for customer loyalty and retention is communicating with and listening to the customer. From games to VIP perks and social media engagement to personalization, when companies know what customers want and provide that to them, those customers will be more likely to reward them with a long and loyal relationship,” Burnett writes.

So how can you communicate your customer’s value through your rewards program? Let’s examine this using Oh, Hello Co.’s Poppy Points customer loyalty program as an example.

Make it easy to sign up. Nothing is worse than a loyalty program that is difficult for your customers to sign up for. In the case of the Oh, Hello Co. Poppy Points program, any customer who makes an account is automatically enrolled in our program, and there are multiple locations on our website that they may do so. 

This makes it more likely that we will get a larger, more dedicated loyalty program because it was not challenging for consumers to access.

Reward for a variety of actions taken on your site. Without variety, customers are less likely to want to engage with your loyalty program, so offer rewards for different actions customers might take on your site. This could be points for each visit, points for making a purchase, or points for referring a friend.

When your customers see that they are rewarded for even low-level engagement activities on your site, they will be more likely to come back to continue gaining those rewards.

Create tiers to your program. A customer loyalty program has a higher chance of being successful if you are able to motivate your customers to try and earn more points than other customers. This can be done by giving a varying number of points depending on the action performed. For example, giving a certain amount of points per dollar spent might incentivize customers to make larger purchases in order to get more points.

Personalize your program. Customers don’t like feeling like just another number, they want to feel recognized as the individuals they are. You can bring this to your customer loyalty program by including rewards on customers’ birthdays or through targeted emails to specific customers.

Have some ideas you want to share or any questions? Let’s chat in the comments below!