What is Loyalty?
Developing Profitable Customer Journeys
Customer relationships can span a number of years or a number of minutes depending on the nature of the business: from cradle to grave, from January to December, from student to pensioner, from acquisition to maximum fulfilment. At Loyalty Consulting UK we help our clients to identify profitable customer journeys that define optimal engagement with an organisation. Understanding customer journeys, and there will be many, helps Financial Services organisations to align their marketing strategy to deliver the greatest return on any investment.
By identifying the journey we then know how to apply a loyalty initiative for maximum effect, identifying who gets rewarded, when, for what and how. Without identifying the optimal journey we are in danger of rewarding the customer for something that appears to be beneficial but is not necessarily the most effective means of marketing investment.
We are experienced in assisting organisations to define the most appropriate customer support processes that help to maximise the ‘loyalty effect’ whilst minimising the potential for customer dissatisfaction. The many support processes required to support a loyalty scheme should focus on the enablement of self service, allowing the customer to earn and redeem with minimal effort. Many of the support processes that cannot be satisfied by self service will therefore naturally address exceptions management.
Poor customer service relating to loyalty programmes can be the source of the worst kind of customer dissatisfaction. The customer naturally feels they have earned the right to a reward, a poorly handled customer service experience can quickly deteriorate into a perception that the organisation is somehow trying to ‘cheat’ the customer or make it difficult for him/her to get what is rightfully his/hers. Customers can be lost through disappointing / poor service which is perceived as broken promises thus turning what should have been a very positive engagement into a disproportionately negative experience.
