A customer club, or a loyalty program, is a strategic tool for identifying and rewarding loyal customers.
The customer club aims to strengthen customer relationships and ensure that customers are more satisfied and return to the company time and time again. The basic idea behind membership is to create regular customers who get a permanent and long-term customer relationship with the company. This means that the company sells more often and more at a lower cost.
In reality the loyalty program becomes a marketing platform that can replace or complement other marketing. Marketing is expensive and a customer loyalty program offers huge savings, because one does not have to spend precious funds all the time to get new customers into the store or online store. A loyalty program from Diller® is a software platform that ensures communication and dialogue with customers, and where all communication is in accordance with GDPR legislation.
If a customer changes vendor after they have first started collecting bonus points, coupons or discounts that the loyalty program has provided, they lose their saved benefits. This means that they feel that they are “losing money” by changing vendor. The result is often that they choose to remain with the store to get the benefits they have already earned, often despite the fact that the other store’s offer is cheaper. In other words, a loyalty program provides a strategic advantage for the company.
Loyalty is not a program to be administered. Loyalty is a feeling.
There is a difference between repeat business and loyalty. Repeat business simply means that someone transacts with you multiple times. You likely offer them some sort of convenience – price, location, selection.
Loyalty is different. It’s a willingness to go out of one’s way to choose to do business with you. When we are loyal we are willing to suffer some sort of inconvenience to continue to do business with you.
Stephen Shedletzky, Simon Sinek Inc.
Article from April 2021 (LinkedIn)