Creating A Customer Reward Program That Actually Inspires Customer Loyalty.

Jan

Creating A Customer Reward Program That Actually Inspires Customer Loyalty.

Categories: Customer Service, Marketing, Sales, Systems

According to research, customers have between 10-15 loyalty cards or programs that they’re participating in. This signifies that they are happy to participate in discount and incentive programs but not happy to commit to brand loyalty.

So how can brands encourage and incentivize and promote customer loyalty?

The answer lies in a careful mix of three elements:

Buyer Experience
Compelling Incentives
Promotion of the loyalty program

Buyer Experience

Much more than customer service, buyer experience is the story of your store, from the second your customer enters the store until well after they have left happy.

Creating an amazing buyer experience begins with creating a vision for your company. A brand story, but so much more. Your company vision must encompass the big dreams of the brand, the passions, the dreams, and what it aspires to come.

If your brand doesn’t have a vision, you’ve got problems right there.

All of your team need to be enrolled and inspired by the vision – setting the company rules of the game around vision will mean that all of a sudden, your business is like a football field, and you are the coach, encouraging your team to kick goals in the right direction. Everyone knows their role, everyone knows the objective, and everyone is inspired when they walk out on the field to play.

A vision is not enough, to create amazing customer experiences, you need to define what that looks like, then deliver it.

Begin with the basics:

Impeccable, polite, friendly service.
Immaculate cleanliness – not just in the food industry
And an amazing product range, that does what it says it’s meant to.

Then build in the wow factors. These will vary from company to company – but you might be the café with powerpoints as well as free WiFi for laptop usage, or the real estate agent who has a range of services to assist a vendor to get their house up to immaculate sales standard.

The little above and beyond things that set you apart from the crowd are what inspire loyalty. But they’re meaningless and useless if you don’t get the basics right first.

Carefully document and systemize the minimum standard of service, and ensure that everyone in your team is trained and enthusiastic to deliver them.

The second step in creating a customer loyalty program is having compelling incentives.

10% off just doesn’t cut it anymore. Everyone is doing it. No one is interested in a free cup of coffee after they have purchased 10 cups.

Compelling incentives have to give your customers a feeling of exclusivity. A few ideas might be:

VIP Products only available to loyalty club subscribers
Closed door sales
Store vouchers and joint venture partner vouchers
Exclusive, significant, member discounts

One café I saw get this almost right was San Churros – they had the standard buy 10 coffees, get one free loyalty program – but on completion of the program they upgraded you into the “order of the churro” where you received a special looking plastic membership card, and then received 10% off every order you placed with them from then on.

This was fantastic, but unfortunately they missed out on the next magic ingredient of customer loyalty:

Promoting the incentives program.

The basic steps in promoting a customer loyalty program are simple – have your team ask people if they’ve signed up for the program. Every customer should be prompted every time. Don’t rely on customers to remember their loyalty card – they won’t until you condition them to do so!

Taking it to the next level is where the magic begins, this is where we incorporate social media into the mix, the use of applications, and check ins, and social proof.

If you digitize your program, you have the ability to:

Have your loyal customers check in at your location when they make a purchase
Share their experiences and check ins on Social Media
Get rewarded for performing certain tasks – such as interacting on your Social Media Platforms, bringing friends with them to your store, purchasing certain products, participating in certain promotions….
Connect and converse with all of these customers via SMS marketing, or Email Marketing, or Phone Marketing – because you’ll have all of those details at your finger tips
Track buyer behavior and segment buyer groups within your customers – allowing you to take your incentives program to a whole new level, based on exactly what your customers are interested in.

The best news is, setting up a digitized customer loyalty program is both simple and achievable. Binkd has software that can turn your customer loyalty program into a program that actually inspires customer loyalty – and builds your sales and marketing.

Binkd can handle everything from the software, through to providing you with an app to completely digitise your reward program, or a nifty looking card for your customers to scan each time they attend your outlet.

The secret is in the systems and the follow up – once you’ve got your basic customer experience in place. Create the experience, deliver the service, systemise the program, then take it to the next level to add value to both you, and your customer.

Photo credit: Nick J Webb

Sep

Is Your Business Alive? Check It’s Pulse Once A Quarter.

Categories: Systems

Comments: No

Why quarterly you ask? Because you’re doing business in the 21^stcentury, where consumers have almost constant online access via computers, phones and iPads and could be (should be!), on your website buying your products while you’re reading this article. Consumer moods now have a shorter life cycle, so if you want to keep up with the fast changing pace of business you need to stay on top of who you are, who your business is, what your product is and whether it hits your target market. That’s where the QBR comes in. A QBR gives you a measure of your business health so there are no nasty surprises at the end of the year. By tracking your performance, you can identify when your business or sales plan isn’t working and make the necessary changes to get you back on track.

The inevitable exception is when it’s really obvious where the problem lies, in that case stop procrastinating and tackle the problem. On the flip side of the coin if you’re busting your gut working 80 plus hours a week but your business has never really taken off then you need to start doing QBRs to identify where you need to improve your operations.

A QBR is about more than just tracking profit and loss, of course these are important but we’re interested in helping you identify the aspects of your business that directly affect your profits. Grab a notebook and start answering these questions:

1. Who are you and who is your business?

Do you have a clear identity for yourself and your business? Write down your personal life mission, values and vision. Now write down your business mission, values and vision. Do your personal and business identities match? If your business doesn’t reflect your personal values then you may need to rethink your business. For micro businesses to grow into small and medium enterprises (SMEs) you need to be passionate about your business and it needs to reflect your core values. Your customers will sense your dishonesty if your business values do not match who YOU are.

Over time your values may change, if you see this trend in your QBRs that’s OK, businesses need to evolve in order to excel. Just make sure these changes flow throughout all aspects of your business.

2. What are your goals?

Make sure they are specific and measurable. I want my business to make more money is not specific enough. Instead try: My business will turnover $150k which is a $50k increase from last year and I will achieve this by generating 10 new customers a month and increasing my current customer purchases by 10%. Goals must have a due date and a measurable outcome such as profit, market share, number of working hours or employees etc. Don’t forget to list your (and your employees) rewards for achieving those goals. Rewards can be varied depending on your business and lifestyle, you may like a cappuccino machine for the tearoom or maybe a cleaning lady to give you more YOU time at home!

3. What makes you unique?

How are you differentiating yourself from your competitors? Remember that what is unique today may be old by the end of the week. What are your competitors doing? It is important to assess whether your competition is offering the same product, if so you will need to up the ante. Don’t forget to monitor the needs of your market and regularly tweak your products and marketing to ensure you are always on target.

4. Do you have a marketing and sales plan?

A marketing plan is about getting warm leads for your business. A sales plan converts those warm leads into dollars. Is your marketing plan designed to capture the interest of your target market and prime them for sales? Remember an effective marketing plan means leading your market not trying to catch up with knee-jerk reactions. OK so you’ve captured their interest, have you written a sales plan to convert their interest into dollars? If not think about how you would describe your product, why it is unique, and why your customers want it? Remember people buy emotionally and justify logically so make sure you show the customer how the value of your product far exceeds the cost, use examples don’t just talk at them. Be prepared for objections. Write some points to discuss in order to overcome their “But…” Signs that you can begin closing the sale are when the customer asks for a summary of what you have discussed or asks about payment plans and guarantees. To help the customer say yes ask closed questions like “which day would suit you best”, “how soon would you like that delivered” or “how would you like to pay for that?”

5. What sort of reputation does your business own?

Do you always deliver on time and in full? How many customers have complained or returned their products? Remember that the ultimate testimonial is repeat business from customers that are so happy with your product they tell all their friends on Facebook to visit your website – word of mouth referrals rule!

Every business operates differently so you may have to modify how you ask the QBR questions to get the most impact for you. Your business is what you make of it, step up or step out of the way.