Faced with increasingly volatile consumers, brands must offer more engaging experiences than ever. But building loyalty also involves displaying strong values or implementing committed offers. Here are some explanations.
Searching for the lowest price, the fastest delivery or the offer that seems the most innovative. While the Internet makes it easier to compare brands, 38% of French consumers say they have tested the products or services of a new player, attracted in particular by the search for better value for money, according to the PayPal white paper Think Forward Forever Customer 2022, which can be downloaded here. According to the same source, this volatility goes further: worldwide, 60% of consumers say they will give up on a brand after a bad experience, 22 points more than in 2021!
Faced with this situation, brands are competing with each other to get their customers to join their loyalty programme, and thus try to maximise customer retention and customer acquisition: in the US, 50% of consumers are more likely to recommend a brand if they have joined its loyalty programme. Furthermore, 83% of consumers surveyed said that being a member of a loyalty programme influences their decision to make a repeat purchase from the brand in question.
Entering into a service approach
So how do you propose the most appropriate loyalty programme? If the issue of purchasing power is at the heart of the matter, the simple lowest price no longer allows for conversion as easy as it used to. Consumers are now looking for the best value for money, and are increasingly extending this notion of quality to the values of the brand or the services it is able to offer. This is especially true in the aftermath of the pandemic, a time during which brands were forced to engage, 61% of consumers worldwide say they expect better customer services than before.
What services? They need to be tailored, relevant and personalised. In this sense, loyalty programmes have evolved in recent years into relationship programmes, which use data to provide omnichannel services and access communities of interest, knowledge and experience that make these services far more engaging than simply being able to book a product or access pre-sales. This is one of the keys to Tupperware's success: in addition to having a community of highly engaged ambassadors, the brand offers a lifetime warranty on its products. Customers are therefore likely to pay more for these products and to buy more often from the brand.
Subscriptions, the new basis for loyalty?
Personalisation and omnichannelity are also found in the delivery and return options offered to your loyal customers. They must be able to choose in real time the time and place to be delivered, but also to return a package! This takes us away from a purely transactional relationship between the customer and the brand: the brand really takes on its role as a facilitator of daily life. A good example is that of the Camaïeu brand, which offers its customers the possibility of exchanging their jeans for another size free of charge to cope with changes in their weight.
All these services have a cost for the brands, so some decide to go further than the simple loyalty programme to set up real subscription offers. This choice has been made by retailers such as Casino, Monoprix and Carrefour, but also by players as diverse as the Irish hotel chain CitizenM and the Swiss sportswear brand On. From an additional discount to the rental of products, these "win-win" agreements allow brands to generate new revenues and customers to enter into a classic, but sustainable, contractual relationship.
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