Did you know that a 5% increase in customer retention produces more than a 25% increase in profit?
This statement was made by Bain & Company, to illustrate that customer retention truly pays off. And the reasoning behind it is simple:
Loyal customers are likely to buy more from your company, while the operating costs to keep them engaged and to serve them are less. More importantly, loyal customers tend to tell others how great a service you offer, winning over new customers for your retail business using free word-of-mouth. And last but not least: these returning customers stay loyal to your brand and often are even willing to pay a premium to continue to do business with you rather than switch to a competitor.
Forrester discusses the impact of brand loyalty and personalized engagements on customer retention in their latest Loyalty Solution Wave (Q2/2021). Simply doing what you always did no longer fits the bill when it comes to loyalty. In their report, Forrester notes that “over the past five years, we’ve seen brands evolve their loyalty efforts from offering purely programmatic rewards to delivering personalized and enhanced experiences to support customer retention and engagement goals.” In other words: retail customers’ expectations of loyalty programs have moved on from simply collecting points and redeeming those afterwards for a discount, to desiring a
much more personalized experience.
It’s evident that handing out the smartest rewards and most appealing offers is no longer good enough. Winning and retaining customers in the post-COVID era requires retailers to reimagine their loyalty and customer engagement strategies. How can retailers truly incorporate digital channels into the mix, offer personalized experiences embedded in a ‘holistic’ loyalty strategy, and turn customer data into useful insights that help them better plan incentives, promotions and loyalty campaigns?
We covered the answers to those questions and more in our webinar with Forrester.
Watch the replay to hear from, guest speaker
Mary Pilecki, VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research present her latest research tracking how retailers are using loyalty to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nicolas Pelletier, Diebold Nixdorf Director, Strategic Software Sales, explained how DN is helping retailers to improve brand loyalty and retain customers through the use of personalized engagements.
The future of loyalty is changing before our eyes—and what your organization can do to stay out in front.
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