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Loyalty Newswire - August 12, 2019

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By: Wise Marketer Staff |

Posted on August 12, 2019

In loyalty news this week: some big brands are making big strides, we might be on the cusp of a much more intelligent AI, several solid bits of consumer data & privacy advice, brand loyalty is REALLY fickle, and some of the softer loyalty metrics get some much-deserved love. Here is what we’re following:

LOYALTY PROGRAM NOTES

How DSW stepped up its loyalty program

Quotable: “DSW rolled out the new loyalty program in May 2018, featuring faster rewards, free shipping and returns, a three-tiered reward structure and greater digital integration. Since then, the company has seen a 6 percent increase in year-over-year sales — the highest in seven years — and an additional 1.6 million app downloads.”

Alibaba Expands Membership Perks for 88VIP

Quotable: “During an exclusive concert for 88VIP members in Shanghai last week, Alibaba announced expanded year-round discounts to cover 388 brands, ranging from Sennheiser and Blueair to Onitsuka Tiger and Pizza Hut, up from the 88 brands that first joined the scheme last August. Throughout the year – even during 11.11, the world’s biggest shopping day– members will get 5% off when shopping at the participating brands’ flagship stores on Alibaba’s Tmall and Taobao marketplaces.”

Associated Food Stores Loyalty Program Logs Increased Basket Size, E-Coupon Use

Quotable: “The program has driven increased customer retention and sales, with AFS corporate stores reporting the average basket size of rewards members is $14.75 higher than that of non-rewards customers. Further, digital coupon use continues to annually: E-coupon redemptions are up 34 percent and coupon clips are up 20 percent from 2018.”

CONSUMER DATA & PRIVACY

Consumer Data Concerns: Let’s Admit There’s A Problem

Quotable: “The ad tech industry today is effectively chasing quarters into oncoming traffic. We are taking user concerns like privacy entirely too lightly, or talking about shiny things like "cookieless," which to date is more hope than strategy. If we don’t address these issues quickly and effectively, the industry is in for a moment of reckoning. Collectively, we are not dealing with the long-term threats with combined, shared resources.”

Let 'Ethical by Design' Guide Your Use of Consumer Data

Quotable: “Consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about both security and privacy, especially when they read articles like this one that explain how companies use online activity to predict future behavior. They’re also concerned about security, as data breaches continue to make headlines. And they’re right to be concerned: More than 105 million Americans experienced cybercrime over the past year, coming in at about 27 victims every second.”

Paving the Way for Best Marketing Practices, CCPA Elevates Data Stewardship

Quotable: “Understanding CCPA before it takes effect is the most important next step for marketers.  Marketers should learn how to work within CCPA’s guidelines and when the time comes, federal legislation. Communicate what you know and how business practices under CCPA will impact consumers.”

TRENDS

2019 Shopper MegaTrends: Hot or Not

Quotable: “So what do consumers want? Here is a list of things retailers should focus on: order-only stores with products shipped to homes (73%), grab-and-go stores using self-checkout from customer’s own phone (69%), curbside pickup (69%), interactive shoppable screens (58%), and pickup lockers or kiosks (55%).”

CX

Digital-First Strategies That Truly Improve CX

Quotable: “Amazon, for instance, uses decision-tree bots to help its mobile app users self-serve — or get routed to the appropriate agent based on their issue type. According to VentureBeat, "bots, artificial intelligence, and messaging in customer support offer an 8.6% increase in profit margin per customer," which is why 25% of companies have already emulated Amazon’s messaging-based support strategy. Our company has also found success in offering a form of consumer-to-business messaging as part of our platform.”

Delivering Great Customer Experiences Starts with Showing Them Real Respect

Quotable: “Almost half (43%) of consumers have blacklisted a brand as the result of a bad experience. While more than one third (34%) of consumers said they would never shop with a company again after just one bad experience.”

BRAND LOYALTY

50% Of Aussies Shoppers Wouldn’t Care If Favourite Brands Vanished Overnight

Quotable: “Around 40 per cent of respondents revealed they would buy a brand they had never heard of if it was recommended to them by Siri, Alexa or Hey Google. As a result, Cognizant describes voice interfaces as “the new gatekeepers”.

TRAVEL

TripAdvisor Looks to Counter Google by Considering Loyalty Initiatives

Quotable: “TripAdvisor stated Wednesday when it released its second quarter earnings that “TripAdvisor members visit directly 5x more, cross-shop 4x more, come back to the site 3x more and generate more revenue than the average TripAdvisor user.” Through the second half of this year and into 2020, TripAdvisor plans several initiatives to grow its membership base, the company said. Among them, the company said it plans on “determining which type of loyalty program makes sense for our community…”

LOYALTY STRATEGY

Turn Casual Customers into Brand Ambassadors

Quotable: “According to a Forrester study, about 29% of respondents said they rely “completely” on big data when making decisions. More than half of the brands surveyed agreed that small data is critical to unlocking the thoughts and emotions behind customer actions. Be active and authentic in the process — even with the negative reviews — to build consistency within your audience.”

CUSTOMER JOURNEY

How to Adapt to New Technology and Gain a Holistic View of Your Customer

Quotable: “Remember that not every user journey is the same for all your digital properties. A mobile experience is different than a desktop experience. A native app is different than a mobile experience. A mobile experience is different from a tablet experience, and so on. You can’t lump each user journey into one experience. It’s not a one-size-fits-all implementation because each flow is different. Depending on the complexity of your business and how integrated your product development teams are, you need to spend the time and resources to create digital experiences that maximize device usability to gain a holistic view. The larger goal is to develop a user journey that crosses all devices so that the experience is seamless, regardless of the device being used.”

PAYMENTS

Are Digital Payments Really Killing Cash?

Quotable: “Many people feel that businesses that don't accept cash are discriminatory against people with lower incomes, recent immigrants, or those who, for other reasons, may not have access to credit and traditional banking. Backlash is so strong that legislation is taking shape against cash-free businesses. Philadelphia recently became the first U.S. city to ban cash-free businesses, and others (including New York City) may soon follow.”

AI

The brain inspires a new type of artificial intelligence

Quotable: “Using advanced experiments on neuronal cultures and large-scale simulations, scientists have demonstrated a new type of ultrafast artificial intelligence algorithms -- based on the very slow brain dynamics -- which outperform learning rates achieved to date by state-of-the-art learning algorithms.”

‘You’re Pretty Stupid.’ What Can Happen to Your Business When A.I. Goes Awry

Quotable: “Aiming to appeal to millennials, who are less inclined to linger in casual-dining eateries than their parents were, the company developed an A.I.-assisted system, starring social-media-friendly chatbots, that doubled its off-premises orders in a single year, to about $150 million annually. TGI Fridays did this by, first, starting with a relatively small part of its business—people looking to save time by ordering in advance—and working out any bugs before expanding the system. Second, Kannan quotes Sherif Mityas, the Fridays executive who spearheaded the effort: "Measure the hell out of everything" along the way, to see whether your system is producing the results you and your customers want.”

PEOPLE

Alliance Data Announces Leadership Changes Within LoyaltyOne Business

Quotable: “Alliance Data Systems Corporation, a leading global provider of data-driven marketing and loyalty solutions, announced the departure of executive vice president Bryan A. Pearson, effective as of August 9, 2019. Mr. Pearson served as president and CEO of LoyaltyOne® and as CEO of BrandLoyalty. LoyaltyOne owns and operates the AIR MILES®Reward Program, Canada’s most recognized loyalty program.”

CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY

The real cost of customer loyalty programs

Quotable: “A recent report by Power Retail found that seven of the top 10 reasons shoppers declined to join, or stopped using, a rewards program related to the belief that it “takes too long to earn rewards”.

Loyalty and Retention Secrets

Quotable: “You can’t account for the magic,” said Walsh. “Sometimes it’s about how long they stay in the store, or how many times people said ‘love’ about their shopping experience. The Restoration Hardware store on Wilshire Boulevard built a garden area, and people had work coffee dates there. That doesn’t point back to dollars or points that are redeemed,” but it does indicate how these consumers felt about the store’s atmosphere. “You can’t bean count love,” she added.”

The Loyalty Newswire is compiled and edited by the staff at The Wise Marketer.