Customer loyalty programs have come a long way from punching wrinkled and worn loyalty cards pulled from the back of wallets. Modern rewards programs engage and reward customers across multiple channels and encourage more than coming in for another meal or a cup of coffee. They create a relationship with loyal customers that builds their brand and reinforces marketing messages while increasing sales frequency and size. Even if you are running a brick-and-mortar business, you should use a well-designed loyalty app to automate your customer engagement and improve customer retention.
A recent poll of consumers showed that they care about loyalty programs, with 80% saying they impact their decision to do business with a brand. Once you have a strong strategy for interacting with your customers, you need a loyalty app that implements your plan, automates interactions, and delivers actionable data about your customers’ behavior. Your loyalty program app should also integrate well with your existing enterprise tools.
There are many ready-made loyalty platforms, plugins for existing e-commerce sites, or add-ons for point-of-sale (POS) systems. Companies wanting to improve their customers' loyalty experience can use a ready-made online service, integrate a pre-packaged solution into their infrastructure, or build a custom rewards system.
This article will discuss the characteristics of successful loyalty apps, cover the challenges you may encounter and how to overcome them, and then give pointers on effectively developing and deploying a brand loyalty software solution that best serves your target goals.
10 Characteristics of a Successful Loyalty App
When done right, the quality of the user experience and the customer’s perceived value of your loyalty application will encourage them to interact more with your brand. It can also increase spending frequency, grow the amount spent per transaction, keep your brand front of mind, and lead to referrals. The incentives offered through the application are important, but how you deliver those benefits is just as critical.
Whether you develop your own, integrate a loyalty platform into your digital landscape, or go with an off-the-shelf standalone application, the following is a list of 10 characteristics found in successful loyalty apps.
1. Supports a Well-Designed and Thoughtful Loyalty Program
An application can only make a good plan better. Before you start planning your functionality, design a robust and flexible loyalty program that attracts new customers and provides your customer base with the value they seek.
2. Enables Customer Interaction Across Multiple Channels
Customers take it for granted that they can interact with a brand across multiple channels. Your loyalty app needs to support outreach through SMS, a mobile app, websites, and social media while also providing an engaging in-store experience if you have physical locations. Develop and deploy an app that interacts with customers where they want to interact.
3. Captures Data
Capturing data about your customers is the best way to determine which of your marketing strategies are working. And when implemented properly, you can use the metrics you capture to implement an automated, customizable user experience that improves engagement and spending for each customer.
4. Allows Multiple Types of Rewards
The days of only needing a stamp card are long gone. A successful loyalty app supports tracking reward points, offers coupons, delivers discount codes, stores gift cards, promotes special offers, displays free products, and provides modern digital loyalty cards. A recent study showed that 61% of consumers want discounts, 58% want loyalty points rewards, and 30% want early access to products. Start with programs based on this general behavior, then use the data you gather from your own program to experiment with and focus on the types of rewards that drive the customer behavior you are seeking.
5. Delivers a Great Customer Experience
Every customer wants companies to treat them like a VIP, something a well-designed loyalty rewards program app can provide. Successful applications are not just user-friendly, they provide a loyalty solution that conveys the branding of your company and gives consumers a chance to feel like they belong to something.
6. Reflects Your Company’s Brand Message and Values
Aligning company values with consumer values is a growing trend in customer reward programs. Customers who feel their values align with a brand are 3.4 times more likely to recommend the brand, 9.8 times more likely to go out of their way to do business with the brand, and 10 times more likely to spend more money. Since a key way repeat customers interact with a brand is through the loyalty app, reflecting the brand messaging and values in the application is critical.
7. Integrates With Your Existing Digital Assets
As with any modern application, your loyalty apps must integrate with all of your digital tools to deliver the full value of your investment. Automation should be deployed to move data between tools so that everyone in your organization, in the corporate office or a retail store, has access to the data they need when they need it so they can make informed decisions.
8. Boosts the Relationship Part of Your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
Your knowledge about your existing customers is based on how they interact with your marketing and sales activities, including your loyalty program. Since your CRM is where you track that type of customer data, it is key that you create a robust and seamless connection between your loyalty app and your CRM.
9. Enables Easy Addition of New Features and Capabilities
A successful loyalty app is a tool that can easily adapt to changes in technology, your company’s offerings, and consumer trends without a major software rewrite. A great example is the need to support AI integration as that technology evolves.
10. Creates Value for the Customer
It’s simple — if your customers feel your loyalty program doesn’t deliver value to them, they will stop using the program. Every decision you make around features and functions should be made with customer value in mind.
Understanding and Overcoming the 4 Challenges of Loyalty App Deployment and Maintenance
Anytime you deploy a customer-facing solution like a loyalty app, you have to balance the needs of the users outside the company, the internal stakeholders in sales and marketing, and the IT or DevOps teams that are responsible for deployment and maintenance. The best way to keep that balance is to understand the challenges, have clearly defined roles inside your company, and bring in experts where needed to advise, customize, and implement.
Although every deployment is unique, most challenges companies face and how to overcome them can be grouped into one of four categories.
Integrating With E-Commerce, CRM, and In-Store Shopping
Once you have chosen an existing loyalty app or developed your own, the next step is to use enterprise integration services to plug your solution into your existing tools and platforms. Start by understanding the application programming interface (API) of your loyalty app and of the other applications you need to connect to. Then, document when and where data needs to flow and implement the connections.
Getting the Application Into the Hands of the User
The best customer loyalty plan implemented with an outstanding loyalty app won’t do your company any good if users are unaware of the app or struggle to get access. Marketing campaigns are needed at launch and beyond to ensure they can get to your mobile loyalty app through the proper app store for iOS and Android. A web version of the app should also be available through a browser on phones, tablets, and desktop systems. And don’t forget to leverage QR codes in emails, websites, advertising, and even in-store to make download and installation a click away.
Keeping Customers Engaged
Once a customer has installed an application and signed in, the key to success is keeping them engaged with the brand. A good example of going beyond a standard point-based application includes implementing push notifications to make users aware of offers and available perks rather than waiting for them to remember and look for offers. You should also provide a way to remind them of their point status in real time.
Gamification is a growing tool for engagement. When done correctly, it provides entertainment and connection for customers and motivates them beyond discounts. Gamification tools like establishing levels, offering rewards for achievements, and making your referral program competitive can be easily implemented.
Maintaining Loyalty App Freshness and Appeal
The biggest long-term challenge of any loyalty app is keeping it and the loyalty program it supports new and relevant. The best way to meet this challenge is to schedule regular team meetings with stakeholders to review the customer data you have collected, evaluate which aspects of your loyalty program are working, and review the user experience.
Grow Customer Retention With a Successful Loyalty App
You have spent time and money turning prospects into customers. Now it is time to take advantage of that investment and build a long-term relationship — a relationship starts with designing, building, and deploying your loyalty app as part of a comprehensive loyalty program. The step in the design process is to take the time upfront to understand the needs of every stakeholder, your customer's priorities, and the challenges listed above. Then, decide what your team looks like to build and deploy your solution.
The best way to start that process is to reach out to Focused Labs and make us part of that team. We build a relationship with our customers using modern DevOps and agile processes, coupled with an approach that helps your internal team develop a culture focused on maintaining your software solution long after we have completed the project. Our talented team understands this space and has experience fitting key features to your unique needs. Remember, a loyalty app is about creating a connection with your customers, a connection that changes and improves over time. The best way to do that and differentiate yourself from your competition is with great software. Reach out, and let’s work together.
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