Forrester’s senior analyst focused on customer loyalty, Emily Collins, released a September 2015 report entitled ‘The Loyalty Program Participant Profile‘ which provides an array of survey insights and sentiments from loyalty participants across the United States.
Brad Marg
COO, Clutch
We sat down with Clutch COO, Brad Marg, who advises an array of leading brands on intelligent customer strategy, to discuss his thoughts on some of the reports findings and how they align with what he sees on the frontline of these industries.
Q: Brad, this report finds that the vast majority of participants prefer different and unique rewards beyond discounts, what are your thoughts on this?
BM: There is still a strong propensity for brands to immediately gravitate towards discounts, despite most saying they want to avoid being seen as a discount brand. But there are a lot brands who get it and are implementing rewards for their Most Valuable Customers (MVCs) that are focused on benefits that enhance the experience, like complimentary personal shoppers or priority appointment scheduling or free gift wrapping or product line previews. So, yes, we certainly see that customers today want benefits that make them feel valued and that deliver exceptional brand experiences.
Q: Loyalty programs still seem to be focused on your traditional retail, grocery and pharmacy type brands. Do this expanding to other non-traditional industries?
BM: Absolutely. We’re already seeing a major shift in this. For example, Meineke is leading the charge within the automotive servicing industry to leverage multidimensional data to not just understand the car, but more importantly the driver to deliver value and experience and drive genuine loyalty. We just partnered with Wizard World, which produces the Comic Con events nationwide for science fiction, comic book, pop culture and entertainment fans. They want to deeply understand the affinities of the fans who attend their shows to deliver highly-personalized experiences. That is an industry we’d never have expected to make the jump into this realm two to three years ago. So, yes, brands across nearly every B2C industry are realizing the powerful opportunity they have to identify, understand and motivate their customers with exceptional personalized experiences.
Q: The findings show that many loyalty members are more likely to become evangelists for the brand, why do you think this is?
BM: If the program is data-driven and structured correctly, using benefits that drive experience, then often see this as a product of customers. We tell brands that designing a program will not only drive genuine loyalty, but also evangelism, because if your deliver quality, value and a enjoyable experience you customers typically want to tell others. The key to loyalty programs is that they serve as powerful data collection platforms that allow the brand to understand the customer in order to deliver them relevant, valuable benefits that are tailored to their preferences and tendencies. It’s not rocket science, it’s simply reading and reacting with relevancy.
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