A Growing Focus on Customer Loyalty

Allison Howen
by Allison Howen 10 Aug, 2015

A new report from Boston Retail Partners (BRP) reveals that loyalty programs are a top priority for 46 percent of retailers.

The "Loyalty Programs - Rewarding the Customer Experience" report found that more retailers are recognizing the need to evolve their loyalty programs for today's tech-savvy customer. What's more, the report addresses how consumers' behaviors and shopping habits have evolved through new technology. Because of this evolution, loyalty programs must now go above and beyond the traditional structure to play a key role in enabling unified commerce experiences and reinforcing customer relationships.

"One of the best ways to know the customer, reach the customer and deliver the right shopping experience is through a loyalty program," said Ken Morris, principal, Boston Retail Partners. "Offering customers exclusive perks, relevant incentives and personalized rewards encourages them to identify themselves while shopping and allows the retailer to further tailor the experience."

The report shows that today's loyalty programs need to strengthen interactions with the customer and increase loyalty by enabling enhanced services and rewards. Retailers can do this by offering real-time customer identification in-store to enable guided selling, customized rewards based on customer preferences, gamification that engages customers and encourages social interaction, as well as mobile tracking and redemption of rewards and offers.

In fact, stats from the report found that a whopping 883 percent retailers plan to have the ability to identify customers when they walk in the store via their smartphones in five years, while 181 percent plan to use gamification within their loyalty programs in the same time frame. Lastly, more than half (56 percent) of retailers plan to participate in mobile loyalty applications in five years.