CREATING CUSTOMER LOYALTY IN TIMES OF TECHNOLOGY

In this digital era, there are many definitions for loyalty. However, all of them pivot on the customer experience. According to Neosperience; loyalty is not just about products or services; it comes from a consistently positive experience that involves emotions and satisfaction. Little wonder it 6 times more to attract a new customer than to retain an existing one. Retaining customers might be cheaper than acquisition, but don’t be deceived; it is certainly more difficult to gain and hold. In the words of Apple Pineda, Giving recognition and offering rewards to regular customers isn’t only a courteous thing to do for customers today— it’s necessary. Customers want rewards. But the benefits of such a program don’t stop at getting customers in the door. A reward program is a way of leveraging on technology to help your business provide customer data, hence helping you save on a research service.
You might not be able to match your competition on price, but wouldn't a CRM (customer relationship management) solution help you out-service them and expose their second-rate customer service associates?

Discounts Create Traffic, Retail Technology Creates Loyalty

The key to getting customers back in your stores repeatedly is meeting their expectations when they get there with a well-organized, well-stocked, and well-staffed store.
Hence, implementing an innovative loyalty program is the first step to create a long-lasting customer-centric brand, but it's important to note that in creating customer loyalty in times of technology, you must take the following 3 lessons with you to make sure you are always at the top of customers’ minds.

Loyalty is social driven

How do you create engagement in the digital era? A real innovation process can’t do without an inspiring experience that merges online and offline. Incorporating social media in your marketing mix is the most effective way to get attention. Top brands already know that nurturing social communities often leads to purchases. The key is to deliver compelling brand storytelling, game mechanics and unique content that give customers the feeling of exclusive.

Loyalty loves technology

Customer loyalty building is a process that evolves with the times. What worked yesterday won’t work tomorrow, because society and technology constantly change the rules of the game. If you want to build a long-lasting bridge between your company and clients, what you need to do is to focus on your customers’ needs, analyzing how priorities change through the years. In the mobile era, your strategy must always comprise new touch points and disruptive technologies - Smart watches, iBeacon, activity trackers and the Internet of Things.

Loyalty provides data

With a high customer retention ratio, your business is certain to generate more sales, while at the same time, gathering useful data regarding consumers’ preferences and priorities. As the flow of data increases, you will need a proper analytics dashboard to make sense of it. Big data can be overwhelming but they help you to take a more methodical approach to tailored promotions and context-aware content. We can imagine it as a full circle: loyalty provides data provide loyalty.
No matter what you do, know that loyalty is never cast in stone, loyalty keeps evolving. If you acknowledge this assumption and learn how to extract reliable strategies from numbers, you will finally connect your online and physical experiences, and bring loyalty to the next level.