Charles thinks that the reason is that advancements in marketing technology have created an expectation for seamless customer experiences – and the redemption catalog should no longer be a separate platform. If the general ecommerce platforms enable a new payment method, then customers should be able to pay with points - in addition to credit cards, Paypal, etc.
GLOResearch published recently on Skift showed that…
“…being unable to book all the wanted options in one place was consumers’ biggest frustration with their loyalty programs — and 40 percent said a broader selection of rewards would increase their engagement.”
Of course, customers have long had to log into separate environments for loyalty redemptions versus general shopping with the brand.
So why is this increasingly important now?
Read on Currency Alliance website
The reason is that advancements in marketing technology have created an expectation for seamless customer experiences – and the redemption catalog should no longer be a separate platform.
Fortunately, the main technological improvements needed to streamline experience – such as enabling ‘pay with points’ alongside other payment methods at checkout – are easier than one may think.
It doesn’t have to be complicated.
If the general ecommerce platforms enable a new payment method, then customers should be able to pay with points – in addition to credit cards, Paypal, etc.
How technical architecture impacts on loyalty innovation
Many loyalty professionals would like their members to be able to earn and burn points relatively freely across all touchpoints, but their legacy loyalty platform restricts this.
Today’s retailers across nearly every sector, however, mostly have the following setup:
- a loyalty platform, with an integrated CRM, which holds and manages data on loyalty program members
- an ecommerce platform, with an integrated CRM or CDP, which manages customer engagement across all other channels.
This leads to data siloes that increase complexity in profiling customers, and also to challenges in serving customer desires across all touchpoints.
With a thin layer of cloud-based technology, Currency Alliance can help bridge these environments with almost no implementation cost.
Chipotle Rewards (in the USA) has solved this challenge – and the results are spectacular.
The new competitive standard in loyalty
Chipotle Rewards went from 8.5 million to 20 million members in the 12 months to February 2021 – and more recent reports indicate they have now reached 30 million members. That is an impressive 15% of the US adult population.
Summing up how this was achieved on MarTech.org, Jason Scoggins, Chipotle’s director of loyalty and CRM, said,
“At the foundation of our program is a CDP that stitches together all of our data and ultimately gives us that 360 view of the customer. From there we onboarded a best-in-class CRM platform as our primary email engine which also integrated easily with our mobile vendors and offer-management tool to provide that cross-channel orchestration.”
“Cross-channel orchestration” implies that Chipotle customers are able to carry out points transactions at any point of sale: in-store, online or via the app.
And with the CDP – rather than loyalty platform – at the heart of their program, the brand maintains a single view of the customer. This allows them to optimize customer lifetime value at every customer touchpoint, and achieve better ROI on loyalty marketing.
Building a loyalty program for the customer relationship economy
Of course, brands can also achieve a ‘broader selection of rewards’ through partners that accept your points/miles as the method of payment. This type of collaboration has been growing exponentially as program operators try to give members more choice – especially less frequent customers who need a greater incentive to stay active.
For instance, Accor – the hotel group – has gone from about 50 partner brands to 108 in the years since 2019, which contributed to increasing membership by 40%.
But the difference I want to draw attention to here, is between steadily broadening your loyalty program (tactical), and breaking down the walls that restrict future growth (strategic).
Currency Alliance has written extensively on how to overcome the constraints of legacy loyalty program design and those platforms that support it.
A few examples in our blog include:
- enabling ‘pay with points’ at every point of sale
- by adopting a SaaS loyalty points bank and loyalty rules engine, that integrates into your enterprise CRM, rather than maintain redundant customer data siloes
- and by connecting with other brands in minutes, rather than months, via Currency Alliance’s marketplace for loyalty partner collaboration. After all, there is far more value in the ecosystem than within your own business.
Today, relationships are critical to stand out in the customer’s mind – and customers expect the brand to be loyal to them, and not just demand loyalty from the member.
That means we have to combine all experiences around touchpoints with consistent delivery of value to sell with a sustainable profit margin.
No large loyalty program can realistically rebuild their entire loyalty platform without a major effort.
But with readily available cloud-based tools, you can start to re-shape your loyalty capabilites around customer experiences which are more valuable for brands, and customers alike.
Visit CurrencyAlliance.com or reply to this email to find out more.
