The Real Deal: Big "L" loyalty

Personalization should be integrated into the entire customer experience—including your loyalty program.

As you develop your personalization strategy, you must do so at both the brand and program level.

Watch this 2 minute video to see Tamara Oliverio, Senior Director of Strategic Consulting, define Big "L" vs little "l" loyalty and talk about how you can shift from program-centric to customer-centric loyalty.

Video transcript:

Tamara Oliverio: Personalization should be integrated into the entire customer experience—including your loyalty program. As you develop your personalization strategy, you must do so at both the brand and program level. It’s important to understand your brand-level loyalty, or “Big L” Loyalty. Big L Loyalty is the passion, dedication, feelings and trust people have for your brand that moves them through the customer lifecycle and motivates them toward lifetime loyalty.

“Little l” Loyalty is implemented at the program level. It’s the fundamental components that support Big L Loyalty, like what rewards your members earn and how they redeem them. Transitioning to Big L occurs in three stages:

• Transactional. During this first stage of maturity, brands don’t have extensive programs to retain customers. There’s nothing “purposeful” keeping them connected, such as messaging and campaigns that are personalized using 360-degree customer views. Brands rely on discounts, sales and non-targeted communications to win customers back.
• Customer centricity. During this stage, brands develop an explicit loyalty program or an implicit behind-the-scenes best customer strategy, and use data capture to get a fuller picture of their customers. They may implement institutional tactics to entice customers to come back. CRM and loyalty programs are actively in use here, and personalization strategies are in play.
• Enculturation. Here’s where brands go above and beyond the traditional loyalty program. Loyalty is enculturated. During this stage, brands build customer-centricity into their DNA and culture, creating experiences that draw customers back. It’s here where marketers can communicate with 1:You messages—a holistic customer experience that’s personalized to the individual across all interactions.

To make the transition between stages, marketers need to understand ‘the how.’ This shift requires an integration of systems and programs across the company. Additionally, culture adjustments are needed from the highest levels of leadership and change management is recommended. The mindset (or leadership style) needs to be re-prioritized from what the company needs to what’s best for the customer, a customer-centric approach. Lastly, it requires a leap of faith in that customers will respond favorably.