Best Practices and Recommendations For Maintaining Customer Loyalty

by Zsuzsa Kecsmar, Chief Strategy Officer at Antavo Enterprise Loyalty Cloud (www antavo com)

gram that can encourage greater engagement and motivation for customers to remember and return to your brand requires a few key elements beyond the traditional transactional experience

A NEXT-GEN DIGITAL EXPERIENCE

A holistic strateg y that encompasses online , offline and mobile is a powerful way to collect critical data to better understand your customers what’s impor tant to them and their habits and interaction style with your business The insights gained help towards building brand affinity and loyalty that fits in with their lifestyle

An omnichannel experience also helps to keep customers engaged and your business front of mind, even when they’re not with you In addition, embracing a mobile-first approach offers multiple oppor tunities including digital loyalty cards and app-only discounts ence types Antavo found that the average annual spend of members who redeem personalised offers is 4 5X higher than those who have never taken advantage of such offers

A diverse rewards offering also impor tantly rewards customers outside of the buying cycle This helps to encourage emotional loyalty as customers feel that they are cared for and listened to continuously, as opposed to only when they are actively purchasing

Tiering

A tiered system helps to motivate customers to stay with your brand as more rewards are unlocked for each tier reached As a star ting point, three tiers is good but loyalty programs with more tiers see greater results and long-term retention

The hospitality industr y is in the midst of a staffing crisis causing a significant impact on ser vice standards Coupled with a national cost of living crisis forcing customers to more carefully consider how and where they spend their money customer loyalty is getting harder to retain Acquiring new customers costs five times more than retaining existing ones and so during this par ticularly challenging time as business costs are on the rise too, the way forward is implementing a robust and considered loyalty program Antavo’s 2023 Global Customer Loyalty Repor t found that 89% trust loyalty programs to help them overcome the inflation crisis

In today s ultra-competitive setting however, a customer loyalty pro-

With tech increasingly becoming the customer’s path of choice , regardless of whether they are looking to visit in-person or order their dinner online for deliver y, creating a full digital experience from initial interaction is critical

Diverse Rewards

To counteract the effects of the hyper competitive market, a diverse reward offering helps to keep the attention of your customers giving them flexibility on how they want to interact with your business and how often

Implementing a por tfolio of rewards that includes earning points per spend new member freebies surpirse bir thday offers and gamification with challenge badges covers many bases catering to all different prefer-

The new rewards as customers work their way up the tiers can var y from getting more points per spend, money-can’t-buy experiences to tangible benefits such as free add-ons or money off their next in-person purchase and visit

Various businesses also implement a 12-month tiering system whereby customers’ tiers are refreshed to star t again at the end of one year helping to encourage more activity and engagement

As the hospitality industr y continues to be hit by all sides, customer loyalty has never been more impor tant for sur vival than today Keeping in mind the digital age and mobile-first world, the sector should embrace it to offer a creative and unique brand experience that goes beyond a visit while instilling robust loyalty so customers always feel happy spending with your business