How to create a loyalty experience that’s brand-right and customer-centric

Our world is changing rapidly due to disruption and uncertainty, forcing brands and consumers to change how we live our lives, how we communicate, and how we connect, particularly in the moments that matter the most.

Just as our world is changing, the loyalty landscape is also evolving. Brands and loyalty professionals are seeing dramatic market shifts, constant disruption and uncertainty, the advancement of the “tech of tomorrow”, the rise in social engagement, the importance of privacy, the significance of data, and leveraging data to power up hyper-personalised experiences, and the increasing customer expectations are forcing brands to think differently about their customer loyalty strategies, and the technology and services to support them. This is compounded by the fact that consumers are concerned, and anxious about the current global situation. Their time has been disrupted, distraction is everywhere, and customers are being served hundreds of messages daily across a multitude of channels.

Communicating with your customers during times of disruption is more important than ever – but relevance, transparency, and being authentic is critical. For brands and loyalty professionals, you need to understand what’s important to your customers today and develop meaningful loyalty experiences, while recognising and rewarding customers in the moments that matter most. It’s not new news that, loyalty marketing is evolving from a transactional programme where members earn and redeem rewards to a more holistic customer experience, which is focused on personalising the entire experience while building relationships with your customer. Or as we say in Epsilon, evolving from a 1:1 to a 1:You experience. The opportunity to really understand your customers and put your customers at the heart of your loyalty programme, lie’s in getting your loyalty value proposition right. 

This can be achieved by utilising a framework such as Epsilon’s Loyalty Evaluation and Design (LEAD) process, which helps brands create a loyalty experience that’s brand-right and customer-centric, and consists of four distinct phases: discovery, evaluation, design, and plan. What makes this process so unique is it infuses a blend of data, insights, analytics, experience and, creativity to help brands develop a unique loyalty experience that’s right for the customer…and the brand. (Get in touch if you’d like to learn more about our LEAD process).

As part of the LEAD process, we use the 5 C’s of loyalty strategy - competition, culture, company, cost-benefit, and customer – to assess critical components and inform the loyalty design recommendations to form an ideal loyalty experience for you and your customers.

The infographic below outlines the 5 C’s in brief. However, if you would like a more detailed insight into the framework take a look at our SlideShare deck.

In conclusion, when developing your loyalty strategies, focus on your customers and on creating meaningful emotional experiences, with a 1:You mindset. Create a value proposition that engages your customers and aligns with your goals and objectives, while taking care to balance “hard benefits” and “soft benefits”. When devising your strategy framework, think about the type of loyalty solution and partner you need. Is your primary goal to work with a loyalty technology partner to manage your loyalty campaigns? Is it a package solution? Are you more interested in a consultancy service? Or a hands-on, highly customised loyalty strategy, analytics, and marketing service? Epsilon’s PeopleCloud Loyalty solution is a market-leading end-to-end solution, and we’re the ONLY company that has been named a leader in the 2019 Forrester Waves for both Loyalty Technology Platforms and Loyalty Service Providers. This is a powerful validation for why the world’s leading brands trust our loyalty expertise. To learn more, please feel free to contact us.