Today’s Loyalty Newswire is loaded with CX insights, CRM enhancements, and some interesting technological developments. Plus, loyalty provider announcements and airline loyalty program expansion news. Here is what we’re following in loyalty news …
CX
Experience Matters Most to Loyalty Program Members
Quotable: “Almost three-quarters of what drives member satisfaction relates to the experience, including ease and enjoyment (13 percent), brand alignment (12 percent), recognition and support (11 percent), personal relevance (10 percent), data usage and trust (8 percent), digital (7 percent), meets needs (6 percent), and communications (6 percent).”
Optimizing customer experience is critical to surviving
Quotable: “Data tells a story—and analyzing it helps to humanize it, enabling companies to make sense of customer behaviors which can then inform how they should invest in products, services, and technology.”
Creating an Experience Beyond Shopping
Quotable: “Eliminating shopping and queue times may seem like small initiatives, but given that the average person will spend nearly two-thirds of a year (235 days) waiting in queues over the course of a lifetime, these small knock-on time savings add up to big differences.”
If the Customer is Always Right, Make Sure You're Using the Right Tools
Quotable: “The longer CX data sits unused in a repository, the less value it has, and while many legacy CX systems provide useful weekly or monthly reporting, the reality is that in next-generation, high-speed businesses, CX data must be current to be actionable. Data should be captured at multiple moments, rather than, for example, at the very end of a transaction.”
CRM
Salesforce Customer Data Platform begins to take shape
Quotable: “The idea behind the CDP isn’t all that different from good old-fashioned CRM, but instead of using a single source of data in a single database, Salesforce’s bread-and-butter product …”
SOCIAL COMMERCE
Chief Data Officer of Poshmark on Social Commerce Growth
Quotable: “Buy buttons are tricky because they require upfront work on the consumers’ part—they have to link their accounts to various buy button offerings. Shoppers typically want to check out in the easiest, most frictionless way possible.”
PROVIDER NEWS
European Loyalty Platform Makes U.S. Debut
Quotable: “The marketing technology company currently works with retailer and CPG companies across Europe and Asia, including 7-Eleven, Circle K, Shell Oil, Red Bull and Coca-Cola.”
Cheetah Digital Integrates with Sabre
Quotable: “Sabre has incorporated the cloud-based Cheetah Loyalty solution into the Sabre Commercial Platform, adding loyalty management capabilities to the platform’s comprehensive offerings and providing a successor to Sabre’s Frequent Flyer Manager technology.”
PAYMENTS
Mastercard takes step toward industry inclusivity with True Name™ cards
Quotable: “Mastercard is teaming up with issuers to help alleviate some of the challenges transgender and non-binary individuals experience throughout the payment process by introducing True Name™ cards. These cards will allow applicants to use their chosen or true names without requiring a legal name change.”
LOYALTY STRATEGY
Why Loyalty Programs Should be Identity-Driven Convenience Programs
Quotable: “Despite the possibilities digital systems offer, only 55 percent of brands personalize content, offers and user experiences, according to a Forrester Research survey.”
It’s time for companies to rethink how they reward customers
Quotable: “According to IRI Worldwide, 74% consumers globally choose a store based on its effective loyalty programme. And this holds true across generations, especially millennials — 79% of whom want ‘a strong loyalty and discount programme’.”
The Narcissistic Consumer
Quotable: “Marketers today should remember these four things: 1) Today’s consumers are not yesterday’s consumers. They are motivated by different things. 2) Empathically understanding your consumer’s psychology allows you to predict, with confidence, what will resonate and what needs to be fixed. They won’t love a brand unless they feel loved, too. 3) Consumers want brands that connect them with others and give them a sense of belonging. 4) Shoppers are activists and quicker to anger.”
AIRLINES
Qantas Rewards Overhaul
Quotable: “Qantas will provide an additional 30% award availability across the board annually, which is more than a million seats. Additionally, they plan to establish partnerships with Air New Zealand, China Airlines, Bangkok Airways, Air France and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.”
“One of the interesting factual reminders that came out of the coverage this week of Qantas’ rejig of its leading loyalty program was that it turned a $372 million profit last year – close to half what Qantas made from its entire domestic airline business.”
Air France-KLM and Accor Partner for New Enhanced Loyalty Program
Quotable: “Accor Group and the Air France-KLM Group are strengthening their existing partnership by offering, for the first time in the European travel industry a dual reward scheme to their entire global loyalty customer base. Every time our customers travel on a flight marketed and operated by Air France and/or KLM, or stay a night at an Accor hotel, they will now simultaneously earn both Flying Blue Miles and Le Club Accor Hotels Reward points.”
LOYALTY TECHNOLOGY
Alibaba, JD.com Seek to Lock in Merchant Loyalty
Quotable: “Bestore Co Ltd plans to link facial recognition technology with the e-commerce giant’s account data by the year’s end. For customers opting to have their facial data in Bestore’s systems, that means shop assistants will be able to check on what food they like the moment they enter one of its stores.”
Also Watch: Executive Interview: Brandon Logsdon of PDI Marketing Cloud
The Loyalty Newswire is compiled and edited by the staff at The Wise Marketer.
