GiftCard Partners Blog

It’s a social world out there!  And loyalty programs are firmly embracing the concept of social loyalty, an extension of loyalty programs that supports customers’ actions on social channels. As a marketing and incentive engagement company, are you including a social loyalty component in your loyalty program offerings?

A positive customer experience is something that every company strives for on a daily basis; experience is the main driver for loyalty. Happy customers are loyal customers and loyal customers are brand advocates. Oracle released a global survey of 1,300 senior-level executives from 18 countries that yielded new insights on succeeding in the ‘customer service era.’ Key findings from the survey included:

You may find it easy to attract new customers with the lure of incentives, deals or promotions. BUT, are you keeping them after that? A recent Forbes article,
Warning: Is Your New Customer Coming Back? 4 Steps You Should Take Now, explains that spending all that effort and time bringing in new customers may be costing you a lot more than it would keeping an existing one- in some cases 6 to 7 times more! Of course attracting new customers is a crucial part of your loyalty program that should not be abandoned but a healthy balance between attracting the new and nurturing the current can spell success for your loyalty program as a whole. Recognizing your current customers in a unique way can give them that sense of ‘special’ treatment that encourages them to stick around: Try Saying Thanks - Sounds simple enough but it’s sometimes forgotten that a thank you goes a long way. Try sending a ‘Thank You for Your Loyalty’ email to customers who reach the one year mark, five year mark, etc. Customers don’t always need an incentive or reward for being loyal, just a little appreciation. Use holidays as a way to appreciate your current customers- Sending out gift cards to
The Children’s Place on Mother’s Day, gift cards to
1-800-Flowers on Valentine’s Day, or gift cards to
CVS/pharmacy on a customer’s birthday shows how much their loyalty means all year round. Take the time to take a special interest in your customer, it’s got its rewards. Check out Forbes,
Warning: Is Your New Customer Coming Back? 4 Steps You Should Take Now to get more ideas on keeping your customers close.

Loyalty360 recently released
Understanding Customer Engagement: The Opportunities & Challenges Marketers Face Today. The report goes into depth about defining exactly what customer engagement is and the importance it has for today’s marketers. Depending on the organization or company, customer engagement can come in a variety of forms but one consistent thread needs to be addressed and acknowledged: look at customer engagement as a
two-way street, a constant dialogue between a company and its customers. In the report Marc Glazerm, VP Brand Loyalty from Kobie Marketing discusses the stages of moving the customer across the “engagement continuum.” Glazerm explains that, “The overarching goal of course is to move someone into the Advocacy stage, where they've grown so much, earned so many points/status, claimed their winnings and rewards and now believe so fervently in the brand and its wares that they can’t wait to tell the world about it and share the benefits with friends and family, in turn creating new members with their own customized life cycle.” Without rewards, engagement can take a hard hit. Giving customers the gift of choice and flexibility, with rewards such as gift cards, can increase traffic to your brand or service and in turn raise engagement levels.
To learn more from other leading marketers in the industry check out Loyalty360’s full report here.

Customer incentives and rewards have long been a staple of retail loyalty programs, because they work. People buy more and stay loyal when they are thanked with a gift. Large corporations have also embraced loyalty programs as a way to retain customers and even grow, by offering incentives for customer referrals. One way to improve upon loyalty programs is to offer flexible gifts that everyone can use, like gift cards. Here are just a few of the high points: