Introduction
With the novel coronavirus shoving people into a digital-only way of life, it becomes important for businesses to shift the focus of the customer experience to the virtual world but with a human touch. Your brand’s relationship with your customers has an emotional component that has been nourished over time through many online and physical touchpoints, even through loyalty rewards programs, guided by expectations, and confirmed through repeat purchases. As this Oracle report puts it rightly, the Coronavirus has affected the way people shop. And therefore, you need to improvise the way you look at strengthening customer loyalty. A crisis reveals a lot about the nature of your relationship. And the way the world has chosen to respond to this crisis – through ‘lockdowns’ is forcing people into physical separation & isolation from family, friends, & workplace. Consequently, organizations are adapting to a remote or digital way of doing business and dramatically changing the way they strive to pique customer interest. In this blog, we will elaborate on how you can wield loyalty programs to win customer loyalty.
Loyalty programs keep you customer-focused.
In this pandemic time, you need to be customer-focused rather than self-serving; that’s what a loyalty program teaches us. We at WovVTech serve many shopping malls, airport shops, and other organized retails; they are all B2C, and their most important stakeholders are people who are craving comfort and connection. In this difficult time, what should be the most relevant question for you? – “How to boost my top line?” No, “How to increase market share?” Not either. The most important question for you right now should be, “How do I serve my customers in the most meaningful and human way?” And this is where shopping mall loyalty programs can work wonders. Through your loyalty programs, you must have established multi-channel connections with customers and use them to provide mental support, which they need most.
Infuse human touch into digital
When it comes to customer communication, brands, especially in the B2C domain, running retail loyalty programs rely on an omni-channel setup as they need to spread the word in a 1:1 way. These interactions may be categorized in different types – physical interaction: where you indulge in face-to-face communication, remote interaction: where you indulge through mobile phone, & digital interaction: where you communicate through online mediums. Up until now, the emphasis has been on creating efficiency by transitioning every interaction type into an automated, machine-like way. Now in these times, the focus has shifted; instead of focusing on efficiency, businesses are leaning towards strengthening the emotional side of communication. Now you have to have a human tone on virtual channels. In offline and online loyalty programs, the emphasis is on enhancing loyalty; thus, this setup is well poised to meet the current demand for emphasizing the human side of the interaction.
Loyalty programs promote contactless loyalty.
B2B loyalty programs are the champions of contactless loyalty, wherein you establish a long-lasting relationship with your customers and keep them on for repeat purchases, all while keeping human contact to a minimum, which has become a necessity during this pandemic. The best loyalty programs thought beyond short-term changes when they started promoting contact-free delivery, curbside pickup, and contactless payments. The philosophy behind these initiatives was to forge long-lasting relationships by providing comfort, creativity, and a futuristic orientation. Though physical separation was not on the agenda, it came naturally with it, and now, in modern times, it has become the most striking feature. We provide OKEN, a SaaS platform that powers both Android and iOS apps and has the provision of QR code scanning for contact-free payments, which in a way has become a requirement today. We already have many examples of brands utilizing such technology to turn things around. Walmart is one of them; they are providing customers the option of contactless payment through QR code scanning through their smartphones to sync Walmart Pay for contact-free payment.
Loyalty programs show a shared future.
In this time of pandemic, we are feeling vulnerable, and now we need mental support and emotional bonding not only from our friends and family but also from other stakeholders with whom we engage in life. A business is one of them. As we are going through pain and suffering together, we are getting deeply connected with all those around us who have the same story. These emotional realities are also true when it comes to relationships between businesses and consumers. We, as consumers, are seeking greater collaboration and emotional connection with brands. Loyalty programs for small businesses bring businesses and customers together. They are tier-based loyalty programs that pull customers even closer as the relationship matures. This is the need of the hour. You need to treat customers above and beyond as a transactional partner and as an emotional partner, and rewards programs help with that.
Conclusion
As we are getting positive news from many places, which is suggesting a weakening of the pandemic, and as more and more people are becoming resistant to the virus through vaccination, the first light is breaking the darkness on the human horizon. Now is the time to look ahead to the future. Companies want to return to normal business and provide value to their customers. Do you have something to offer that can improve people’s lives? This thing does not have to be a novelty in the product mix; you can even do so by crafting an innovative package of product and practice. So, why not use a customer loyalty program for this? They are capable and productive.
