Customer expectations for a seamless, holistic, personalized experience have nudged businesses to reconsider their traditional “spend and get” approach to loyalty programs. Instead, businesses want their loyalty programs to reward customers for their engagement across multiple touchpoints – they want omnichannel loyalty programs.
Omnichannel loyalty programs move beyond single touchpoints, uniting all interactions between customers and businesses regardless of their channel, platform, or device.
This blog post will show how businesses can upgrade their loyalty strategy or build a new omnichannel one. We will explore omnichannel loyalty programs‘ major benefits and real-life examples of successful omnichannel loyalty schemes.
Designing a successful omnichannel strategy
TheDevelopingur omnichannel strategy depends on your business model, overall brand strategy, and customer traits. This 4-step guide gives you a general framework, which can be tailored to meet your specific demands.
1. Conduct customer surveys regularly
First, you need to know everything about your loyal customers. On which channels do they spend most of their time? What are their expectations? How have their expectations evolved over the past years? What is the specific age group mainly interested in your brand?
If you already have a loyalty program, you need to upgrade it with surveys because your customers’ expectations have changed over the past few years; on top of that, millennials and Gen Z, major target groups of almost every business, have changed have different concerns and demands. YouSo, an omnichannel loyalty program will give you a competitive edge if you frequently update it with new customer data.
2. Sync online and offline touchpoints
You must ensure your loyalty program works seamlessly across all your sales channels to Youn level up your loyalty scheme wit to achieve this h tech innovation, such as smart mirrors, Bluetooth beacons, and in-store kiosks.
Omnichannel capabilities enable you to increase customer engagement because users of your loyalty program don’t need to switch channels in a contract with your brand.
3. Be consistent with incentives and rewards
Different channels have their specific features. However, you must ensure that your core values remain intact across all channels. Therefore, consistency is key to your omnichannel loyalty program.
For example, if you offer your loyal customers exclusive bundles, they should be able to buy them both online and in your stores. Or, if your customers receive points for each purchase, they should be able to redeem their points at every touchpoint.
4. Let data flow across channels
Your tech ability to share customer data across physical and digital channels is a prerequisite for the success of your omnichannel loyalty scheme. In addition, transferring customer data across channels increases your usability, automates processes, and personalizes your messages.
You can turn your customer data into valuable hyper-personalized promotions, incentivizing customer actions with relevant and impactful offers.
Benefits of omnichannel loyalty programs
Omnichannel loyalty programs remove the divide between physical and digital environments, creating a frictionless customer experience. The following benefits of omnichannel loyalty schemes can help businesses stay ahead of the competition.
- Hyper-personalization with zero-party data: Omnichannel loyalty programs help brands capture valuable zero-party data, the information that a customer intentionally and proactively shares with a business. Your loyal customers are willing to share their data with you, which you can use to reward them with highly personalized offers.
- Inventory management: An omnichannel approach to loyalty programs opens up innovative ways to shift inventory. You can offer free home delivery for loyal customers who purchase them in-store or allow them to buy online and then pick-up in store for a fret.
- Higher customer lifetime value: Omnichannel loyalty programs increase customer satisfaction by creating a unified experience across all endpoints. Higher satisfaction results in more interactions with the brand regarding the number of repeat purchases and the size of the orders.
- Capacity to scale up: Your omnichannel loyalty scheme is part of a broader digital development called composable commerce, referring to a tech stack composed of microservices, all interacting with one another through APIs (application programming interface). Composable commerce allows for unlimited scalability, meaning your loyalty program can run at scale as your customer base grows.
Best practices
Businesses worldwide increasingly rely on omnichannel loyalty programs to level up customer interactions.
Sephora’s Beauty Insider
Sephora’s loyalty program, Beauty Insider, is one of the most successful examples of omnichannel loyalty schemes. Members of the tier-based program can earn points online and redeem them in stores or vice versa. Sephora example, hora allows loyal customers to redeem 500 points for % off, which can be used at every endpoint.
The Body Shop’s Love Your Body Club
Love Your Body Club is another example of an effective loyalty scheme. Launched by The Body Shop in 2015, the loyalty program shows the brand’s omnichannel strategy to create customer value. There are various omnichannel incentives, including a $10 birthday voucher that can be redeemed online or inside the stores.
Rewe and National Geographic Collaboration
The German supermarket chain, Rewe, collaborated with National Geographic, allowing members of its loyalty program to use their points and buy their products (backpacks, tents, etc.) with significant discounts. Customers can visit Rewe stores or place their orders online.
Conclusion
An omnichannel strategy allows businesses to blend in-store and online channels to create integrated and memorable customer experiences. An omnichannel loyalty program can lead to increased customer satisfaction and increased customer lifetime value.
The development of omnichannel loyalty schemes requires the evolution of legacy loyalty programs. Composable commerce and microservices have taken loyalty schemes to the next level, allowing brands to integrate their desired loyalty features into their headless tech stack.
