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Customer retention, engagement remain top challenges for 2012

Guest post by: Mark Johnson

Article Overview: Marketers are at a very critical juncture. Customer loyalty, versus acquisition, is critical for driving sustainable growth. Yet, businesses report that retaining and engaging customers remains one of their greatest challenges.

Customer retention, engagement remain top challenges for 2012



Marketers are at a very critical juncture. Customer loyalty, versus acquisition, is critical for driving sustainable growth. Yet, businesses report that retaining and engaging customers remains one of their greatest challenges.

Here is a look at the key trends we believe are going to impact loyalty marketing in 2012:

Customer engagement is the journey, loyalty is the destination. Loyalty is a much bigger, broader, richer and growing ever more complex idea than it has been in the past. Loyalty is no longer about points, discounts, miles, rewards; it is about the way the processes, technologies, ideas, interactions engage an individual with the brand. The only way to achieve loyalty is through deeper engagement.

There will be a renewed (and well-needed) focus on customer retention and loyalty vs. customer acquisition. Customer loyalty has been identified as the top non-financial business challenge facing companies in 2012 (Protiviti). While daily deals like Groupon, LivingSocial are generating lots of buzz, marketers are realizing that these price-based technologies have taken their focus away from the real prize: customer loyalty.

Brands need to recognize customers at all touchpoints, especially the call center, to deliver a quality customer experience. A recent poll by Loyalty 360 found that 78% of respondents believe that having a great customer experience makes them loyal. Creating this type of customer experience involves delivering quality customer service across all touchpoints, and marketers are realizing that this means integrating the call center into the overall customer experience.

Marketers will work to glean intelligence from social media feedback. The vast majority of real-time data created today is unstructured data. Study after study is showing that marketers are struggling with mining this data and analyzing it in order to derive valuable insights and actionable intelligence from it. In fact, a just-released report by EMC found that only 38% of business intelligence analysts and data scientists strongly agree that their company uses data to learn more about customers.

Loyalty program is seen as critical element of “life cycle management.” Engagement with customers over a lifecycle is the new model for success. The only way to earn loyalty is through deeper customer engagement and data gathered from loyalty programs can be used effectively to drive a quality experience across all touch points and at all stages of the customer lifecycle.

Marketers will look at a mix of location-based behavioral data and attitudinal and preference data. This trend will have an especially important impact on the daily deal space. Brands will want to have this data and control the message rather than offering such huge discounts to anonymous individuals.

Mobile coupons will go mainstream. Juniper Research forecasts that the total redemption value of mobile coupons worldwide will be more than $43 billion by 2016, representing an eightfold increase from $5.4 billion this year. Cost effective mobile coupon campaigns provide merchants with an easy way to build customer loyalty.

We will see a focus on social media ROI. While marketers believe that social media is worthwhile, most don’t know how worthwhile it is. As marketers become more sophisticated and skilled at navigating the social media channel, they will be more demanding of tools that track and improve ROI. In fact, the 2011 IBM Global CMO Study found that 63% of CMOs believe ROI on marketing spend will be the most important measure of their success by 2015. However, only 44% feel fully prepared to be held accountable for marketing ROI.

Brands will increasingly use the rich information about customer buying patterns generated via loyalty programs to create more targeted marketing/messaging. Gathering and tracking data amassed in the loyalty program will be used to help marketers with segmentation, messaging, for acquisition and retention. The information on customer transactions, likes, dislikes and preferences gives brands the deep level of customer intelligence needed to deliver the most relevant, highest quality customer experience and drive long-term loyalty.

Social personalization will increase. Marketers will harness the power of recommendations and referrals to persuade customers and prospects to follow their friends' leads. They will become more proactive in encouraging reviews, implementing refer-a-friend programs, etc.

Mobile digital wallets will mark a big shift in retail payments. With the value of transactions made over mobile devices estimated to be $240 billion this year (Juniper Research) and predicted to triple that size over the next five years, it’s not surprising that the battle over mobile wallets will continue to intensify. And with analysts at Forrester predicting that by 2016 consumers may be able to leave their traditional leather wallet at home and pay for most of their shopping over their handset, retailers need to think about the impact of mobile wallets as they build out their loyalty programs.

Worthy causes will continue to influence consumer brand loyalty. A study from Cone Communications found that consumers are more likely to pick a brand based on charities or causes it supports. A full 94% of responding consumers said they would abandon their typical brand for one of approximately equal quality and price if it backed a social issue.

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Article Tags: customer loyalty, Loyalty 360, loyalty marketing, rewards program, trends



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