How to Keep Your Customer Loyalty Program Fresh and Engaging

How hard do you work to retain your customers? Repeat customers are a hidden treasure trove. You've convinced them to do business with you before, so it's easy to persuade them to come back again and again, especially if your product quality is unmatched and your service exceptional. And it costs much less than you spend to win new clients.

There are different ways of keeping clients in your corner, and a method that's consistently popular with buyers is the good old loyalty program. Ecommerce superstar Shopify says 84% of shoppers will stick with a business that has a customer reward program.

Read on to discover how to keep your loyalty program fresh and engaging.

1.  Offer Non-Monetary Rewards

For most customers, monetary benefits are the primary motivation for joining customer loyalty programs. But cash incentives aren't the only rewards a business can give. Come up with unique benefits your clients would enjoy.

This strategy works best with buyers who love your brand. They are more than consumers—they're devotees, your volunteer advocates. And they're ready to try any new product you put out just because they trust you. Use customer journey and persona analytics to identify which clients belong in this category. You want to choose those with the highest customer lifetime value to earn a high ROI.

Consider organizing special activities for this group. Think of:

• Private tours of your company or production plant
• Behind-the-scene peeks at how their favorite product is made
• Surprise meetups with a local celebrity or leader they adore
• Free talks with experts on subjects of interest to them.

2.  Share Random Surprise Rewards

Your customers know what loyalty perks your program offers. They know the rewards they'll get when they hit specific thresholds. Imagine their surprise when they wake up to 48 hours of double or triple points for every qualifying purchase they make.

You can do this on special occasions when people are inclined to shop more. Weekends work great, too, because most folks shop between Friday and Sunday. But that also means stores are crowded during weekends, and service can be slow in many places.

Schedule your multi-point reward offers to run on weekdays to catch the attention of shoppers who don't want to waste hours waiting in line. You'll have guided them away from their shopping nightmare and thrown in a gift while at it.

3.  Simplify the Rewards Scheme

You may have seen loyalty programs where the customer must meet impossible standards to qualify for the prize offered. Sometimes the gains are just not worth the effort or investment. And many customers will forgo the rewards program if you ask too much of them.

How do you avoid this pitfall? By removing any friction that could leave shoppers frustrated.

For instance, you may require shoppers to buy from your online store to qualify for a customer loyalty discount. But then your online shop is challenging to navigate or keeps crashing. You can scrap the requirement to buy online and give the same rewards when customers buy at the physical store.

4.  Offer Relevant Rewards

Customer rewards programs are not merely something to entice customers. Today's customer is quick to cut ties with businesses that don't value them. And your loyalty scheme will fall flat if the rewards you give are not valuable to customers.

Rewards of little value look like:

• Limiting discounts to low-value items
• Poor quality of giveaway merchandise
• Freebies that don't match the customer's needs

5.  Partner with Other Service Providers

What's better than a generous, gift-giving store? Two generous, gift-giving stores. Find businesses offering products or services related to what your brand does and partner with them to offer incentives.

The pull here is that shoppers will likely grab the deal when receiving two related items. Offering unrelated products may not work well because if the buyer finds only one of the two items valuable, they may snub the offer.

You can create your offer however you like. For example, have rewards for customers who shop at both stores. Or put together a deal where customers who shop at either store within a given period get a gift from the other store.

6.  Use a Loyalty Program Management Service

Running a business is involved and becomes doubly so when you throw in a loyalty plan that needs monitoring. Outsourcing the customer loyalty program management to a third party lessens the load and puts your clientele in good hands.

Rewards programs management solutions track customer loyalty metrics, so you always see:

• Which products customers love
• What actions drive sales
• The most popular offers and more.

They also often offer tools like customer lifetime value calculators and ROI calculators to help you determine your client's value. And because everything is laid out in a single dashboard, it's easy to monitor all the metrics without juggling multiple applications.

Summary

Customer loyalty programs are one way to keep your customers coming back, but only if you implement them correctly. Use these tactics for offers and deals that encourage customers to engage with your brand consistently.