Coining a term that captures the critical role loyalty plays in creating the seamless customer experience evolving in the marketplace today, Kobie Marketing, St. Petersburg, Florida, recently released a whitepaper called Omnichannel Loyalty: Designing the Ultimate Customer Experience.
By definition, omnichannel loyalty (OCL) is the customer-centric approach to maximizing cross channel marketing that builds brand allegiance at first impression, driving cumulative effect on loyalty-related outcomes over time. Put another way, OCL is the next evolution of the multichannel marketing experience that retailers aspire to deliver, but rarely do.
Omnichannel loyalty in practice (almost)
Meet Amy, a tech-savvy sophisticated shopper who navigates seamlessly between brick-and-mortar and online worlds taking advantage of the best deals possible. Constantly incentivized to become a more loyal customer thanks to a combination of digital and real-world technologies, Amy doesn’t need to reach out to retailers or search online via her mobile device because her omnichannel loyalty experience begins each time she receives a personalized relevant text message, Twitter feed or email (depending on her unique preferences) alerting her to potential deals, savings and, most importantly, her personal buying interests. Regardless of the industry, the technology exists today to deliver this personalized experience to each and every customer, and in so doing build long-term brand loyalty in the process.
The shifting marketplace
Shrinking margins are forcing businesses to identify new ways to know their customers, manage those relationships and create more relevant loyalty rewards programs. Imagine if retailers could improve the customer experience in such a way to create a seamless personalized interaction with each and every customer, across all of these different channels, so that customers didn’t feel like they were being “sold” at all? One way to accomplish this is by offering channel-optimized loyalty programs that meet the individual needs of customers at all touch points.
Recent research is compelling: IDC retail data reveals that multi-channel customers spend 15% to 30% more than single-channel customers, and that omnichannel customers spend 15% to 30% above multi-channel customers.
Here is a link to the White Paper to learn more about how technology can help businesses understand and deliver a more effective customer experience that attracts, engages and retains more customers.