With the world of retail ever-evolving, consumers and businesses alike are constantly looking for ways to improve our shopping experience.
Loyalty programmes are becoming more and more popular as a tool to harness and improve customer retention. But how do these programmes work and are they actually worth it?
In this article, we delve into the ways in which a loyalty programme could benefit your business going forwards.
What is a loyalty programme?
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Simply put a customer loyalty programme does exactly what it says on the tin, it rewards customers for their loyalty to your brand or business. This can be done in several ways. A discount code can be awarded after a customer makes a purchase, or a programme could adopt a scheme where customers collect points with each purchase, that then accumulates into various discount codes throughout your journey of shopping with a particular brand.
How important is customer loyalty?
Very! We advise any brand to put a customer loyalty plan into place to feed the success of their business. Here are some recent statistics to put this into perspective just how integral customer loyalty is to consumers:
- 77% of the population are members of a loyalty programme
- 3 out of 5 customers don’t think brands they’re most loyal to are doing enough to reward them
- Loyal customers spend 33% more than new customers
- 36% of British customers use rewards programmes several times a month
- Surprise offers or gifts are the best ways to engage 61% of customers
What are the benefits of a loyalty programme?
There are a whole host of benefits that can come from enforcing a customer loyalty programme across your brand. The main one is retaining and improving upon customer retention. As we’ve seen from the stats above, the customers we retain are much more likely to spend more than any new customers that we seek out. It creates a closer emotional connection between you and your customers, which increases overall customer lifetime value.
Is now a good time to implement a loyalty programme?
Absolutely! In fact, as everyone begins preparing for their Christmas shopping, wow is the perfect time to think about implementing a customer loyalty programme. In particular, Black Friday and the boxing day sales are a great excuse to show your customers a little reward for shopping with you, whilst at the same time encouraging them to continue doing so by utilising their discount codes to save them a little money along the way.
