Executive Insights
Executive Insights
Loyalty in an Economic Recession
Those companies with a loyalty programme should in theory be better equipped to tackle head on the challenges that an economic recession brings. Access to customer insight allows these organisations to concentrate their marketing efforts on core customers and the tracking of campaigns and response rates should determine the best use of marketing budgets.
Organisations with loyalty tools that are using them correctly should be in a better position to realistically defend market share in these tough times.
Key Indicators of a Failing Loyalty Initiative
Visibility of shifting consumer behaviour is critical in tracking the success of a loyalty initiative and without this it is more likely to fail. It's common for companies to fall into a state of complacency over their loyalty programmes, to neglect customer insight that they have close at hand and to be relieved that redemption levels are low because this reduces operating costs. However a loyalty initiative should be viewed as a source of revenue and not a cost. If a scheme is without clear measurement criteria, then it's difficult to be objective as to whether it is succeeding or not.
Rewarding Existing Customers
Why would you reward strangers and ignore your existing customers? Is customer acquisition more important than customer retention? Didn't they teach us at business school that keeping customers is cheaper than getting new ones? Then why do we continue to sanction marketing initiatives that discriminate against existing customers?
