The Mobile Loyalty Program Formula: Reduce Friction, Collect Valuable Data

Consumers view loyalty programs favorably and willingly enroll to receive rewards from their favorite brands. However, if the program is not easily accessible and intuitive, it will inevitably lead to a lag in member participation, rendering the program less effective. In fact, the average consumer belongs to 14.8 loyalty programs but is only active in 6.7 of them. There are several factors that create friction for loyalty members—one being as simple as consumers forgetting to bring physical loyalty cards along when they shop in-store. Another includes consumers refusing to jump the hurdles of connecting their in-store profile with their digital profile. In addition, consumers often use different email aliases to prioritize their communication with businesses, leading many members to forget which email or phone number they initially used to sign up for a loyalty rewards program. These outdated processes not only create friction for the consumer during the buying process but also lead to inaccurate customer data for brands, deepening the chasm in the consumer-brand relationship. To improve the customer experience of loyalty programs, brands are turning to mobile to drive enrollment and participation. Mobile can instantly connect a consumer’s relevant data to a loyalty program, expediting enrollment and participation and ultimately ensuring accurate customer data for brands. Your Brand’s Sustainability Story Can Build Trust Expediting enrollment Consumers are looking for easy access when it comes to joining a loyalty program wherever they are in the customer journey, be it in-store or online. Physical environments, in particular, create unique friction in terms of enrollment. This is because traditional methods of signing up, such as associates manually entering customer information, can take several minutes, causing some brands to resist incorporating loyalty program enrollment into the checkout process and potentially slowing down the checkout line. Brands can eliminate enrollment friction at the physical store through a simple, one-tap action at the point of sale to complete an NFC-triggered loyalty program enrollment process in seconds. As the consumer taps their mobile phone to enroll, the brand can instantly give the consumer access to a digital loyalty card that will forever live on the consumer’s phone. The digital loyalty card is then connected to a retailer’s loyalty system, populating actual data from the user’s device. From there, brands can continue to quickly move consumers through the enrollment process. Brands can also enroll consumers outside of the checkout line by facilitating quick enrollment via SMS when consumers purchase an item online or in-store. Or, they can have consumers scan a quick QR code at the store entrance when they arrive to gain a discount and instant access to ongoing rewards. Just 2 Brands Have Sustained Global Growth for a Decade Facilitating participation The biggest draw for consumers who enroll in loyalty programs is to receive value for their purchases that can grow into points or other benefits, such as free shipping and early access to new products and services. Mobile-focused loyalty programs invite users to use loyalty points across all channels with timely notifications, targeted messaging and easily accessible rewards. For example, brands can enable consumers to seamlessly add a digital loyalty card to their device’s mobile wallet. With mobile wallet capabilities, brands can more easily deliver a loyalty program that provides relevant content to shoppers and gives them easy access to redeem points. With mobile wallet, brands can continuously deliver lock-screen notifications with updated program status information, as well as the latest rewards, benefits or deals for each member. For instance, mobile wallet’s ability to provide timely and current information includes brands sending a notification with a member’s current points balance after a transaction or an update when they’ve moved from silver to gold status. This keeps members not only aware of their status but also drives further engagement and purchase frequency. The personalized nature of a mobile loyalty program also allows brands to use zero-party data and take personalization to a new level by leveraging customer attributes like behaviors, location and sentiment to intelligently deliver timely, relevant messages. Furthermore, brands have the opportunity to completely design the presentation of a mobile loyalty pass to ensure a streamlined brand experience. They can add their logo, a unique tracking barcode, make it NFC-enabled as well as provide additional useful information like a quick link to the retailer’s app and website. To Deliver Better Customer Experiences, Put Privacy-Enhancing Technologies to Work Collecting accurate and secure data Loyalty programs work better if customer data is accurate. Using each customer’s individual data, rather than relying on third-party data, leads to a better customer experience because the brand understands the various ways in which each member is unique. And since each customer has their own individual phone tied to their loyalty card, there’s no more duplicate or shared data. As a result, targeting existing customers based on program status, customer milestones and past behaviors offers unique opportunities to reach out regularly and keep them highly engaged. Using SMS, brands can even collect sentiment from their customers. For example, if a customer “likes'' or “dislikes'' a message, that sentiment can be fed back into a CDP or other customer data management system. Brands can pair this type of data from online shopping to what customers bought in the store to create a well-rounded and accurate customer profile. Brands can also ensure consumer data is secured using the native mobile wallet embedded in iOS and Android. In addition, they need to create protected, personalized links for mobile wallet distribution that, when delivered through SMS or secured email systems, are fraud-resistant and cannot be duplicated. The mobile loyalty program formula To truly succeed, loyalty programs need the right formula that helps brands maximize enrollment and participation while also minimizing friction throughout the shopping journey to deliver accurate data from which the program can build upon. By tapping into the unique aspects of using mobile throughout the loyalty program, brands can increase retention and create a standout customer experience. How Marketing Leaders Can Prepare for a Recession