- In the USA, between 2013 and 2015 there has been a 26% increase in customer loyalty memberships
- Engaged customers buy 90% more frequently
- Every year, bad customer services cost companies around $41.000.000.000
- 73% of customers say that a nice customer service rep can make them fall in love with a brand
- 68% of millenials would choose another brand if it meant obtaining more rewards
See? There are more and more loyalty programs and we can understand why.
Grow your brand with a loyalty plan.
Now if you are still not convinced, just know that loyalty programs have been proven to boost growth. Indeed, many times loyalty programs have been successfully tried out in several industries, including tourism.
It has been established that customer loyalty represents one of the best ways to speed up your growth. Moreover, keep in mind that retaining existing consumers is much cheaper than trying to find new ones. In fact the real difficulty is to reach new customers. So setting up a loyalty program might represent an important initial investment, but you will soon reap the benefits of it.
Thanks to a loyalty program, your reputation will also get better. How? Well, this is easy. If a consumer is loyal to your brand, probably it is because he is fully satisfied with your services and thus he will be more likely to promote your brand to his pairs.
Also, remember that if you lead a loyalty program that includes attractive rewards for your purchasers, you are more likely to get your consumers to spend more. However, you cannot just offer any rewards, you have to make sure that they fit your customers’ wants and needs.
Know your buyer-persona.
Of course, in order to do so you will have to lead market researches to know what are these wants and needs. You need to know who your customer is, to know him the best that you can to offer the relevant reward.
Another positive consequence of a loyalty plan is that your customers will be happy because you show your intention of creating a relationship that will benefit to both of you, and not only selling to your own profit.
The ultimate reason why you cannot NOT set up a loyalty program is that once it is well established, you can relax because it will not need too much car. Indeed, loyalty is self-sustainable: the more a client purchases, the more rewards he gets, etc.
Fast five. Build your own program to create guests' loyalty.
Now that you are well aware of the importance of building your own program to create guests’ loyalty if you want to boost your growth, you have to learn a little bit more about how you set up your program. Of course every program is different. You can endlessly customise loyalty programs and adapt them.
The steps when building your program of loyalty should follow the same path no matter which program you choose. We just came out with a few steps that you can easily follow. Here are the five steps.
1) You have to investigate
Investigating is the first thing you need to do, and probably one of the most important if not THE most important step. Investigating means you have to know everything there is to know about your current guests. What do they pay for? How much do they spend? How often? What is your profit on these sales?
2) Prepare your program
Survey your guests: are they satisfied with your services? What is it left to be improved? What would they like to be offered? In the nutshell, you have to understand their needs and wants.
Why is this step of paramount importance? Because it is now that you will decide which program you should adopt, according the result of your survey. You will see what program fit them better. Maybe you will have to implement two different programs, maybe even more if their thoughts differ.
The only thing you must keep in mind is that you should always try to satisfy the most of your guests you can.
3) Define your objectives
Having an objective is one the key factor you cannot ignore. Your objectives are considered to be good if they follow the “SMART” rule: they should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-based.
4) Set your budget
Building a loyalty plan requires an important investment at the beginning. Sure, you will soon find out that your profit will be much higher but yet, you have to evaluate what part of your resources you will allocate to your loyalty plan.
5) Measure
As we said in step three you have to set objectives that are measurable. So, once you have implemented your program you have to measure how profitable is it (in our case, measure how your guests’ loyalty has evolved). And if it is not, you will have to change direction!
You can check this article if you are interested in learning more about the different shapes your loyalty program can take
Are you convinced now of the necessity of building a good loyalty program? So let’s go! And do not forget that brand loyalty lies on 3 pillars: quality, trust and recognition.
