When small businesses embrace loyalty programs, their main goal is to boost sales and profit margins. They are right, as such clubs encourage customers to purchase more, but there are additional benefits to consider. Learning about all the potential advantages loyalty clubs have to offer can help steer businesses in the right direction when building and maintaining their programs.
One of the additional benefits worth noting is the opportunity to create a better customer service experience for shoppers. The importance of customer service and success is not to be underestimated, given that 90% of Americans consider it a deciding factor when contemplating doing business with a company. Even if we stick to the profit-focused point of view, there’s a strong connection between the level of service a business provides and the bottom line.
Loyalty, Service, and Everything in Between
The same way we investigate the impact of customer service on brand loyalty rates, we should also take a closer look at the influence loyalty clubs have on how customers view the service they receive.
Why? Because every interaction with customers is a chance for businesses to demonstrate their attentive nature and high level of service. Loyalty apps communicate with customers, inform them of the latest updates, and offer benefits. These are all interactions that customers view as an integral part of how the business treats them. If customers don’t separate profit-generating channels from service-focused ones, neither should we.
When shoppers expect certain loyalty benefits that fail to appear for any reason at all, they consider it a poor service experience. As far as they’re concerned, the brand promised something and didn’t deliver, casting a shadow on the overall trust rate. Today, 54% of customers will tell you that they have higher service expectations, and 33% will move to another establishment following just one bad service experience. Forming a loyalty club strategy that delivers matters more than ever.
A flexible, observant loyalty program that works smoothly and offers real value can turn an otherwise negative encounter with a brand into a positive one, changing how customers perceive the business purely based on how the loyalty program made them feel. Your loyalty app is like a digital representative, especially in today’s chatbot and push notification era.
What it All Means for Businesses
Once we start thinking of loyalty clubs as a customer service and success channel, we also begin to rethink different elements included in the program.
- Content: Every notification and pop-up sent to customers should feel like a pleasant conversation with a brilliant human representative. In addition, the frequency in which businesses send emails and texts must remain respectful and prioritize customers’ privacy and boundaries over the desire to make another sale.
- UX: The loyalty app should be bug-free and easy to understand and use. Frustrating navigation flows will make users give up on their loyalty benefits and possibly the entire interaction with the business.
- Personalization: Tailoring the content and benefits the loyalty club offers makes customers feel listened to and cared for. This is precisely the type of service they want to receive from a brand, and creating a customized loyalty channel is an excellent way of sending the right message.
- Responsiveness: The loyalty app and other digital channels run by the business should offer accessible communication channels that allow customers to directly and immediately approach the brand with questions and issues. The response should be quick and efficient.
If you’re a business owner, consider your loyalty channels a chance to create better service experiences for customers, and they will do just that. Remember that much like customer service, loyalty isn’t a nice-to-have but a must-have.
Getting loyalty clubs wrong doesn’t just mean losing potential profit. It might harm the bread-and-butter customer base of your business. Luckily for you, Glue Loyalty is here to offer you the best service and help you do the same for your loyal crowd.
