How to troubleshoot your loyalty programme?

A data-driven approach to customer loyalty will give you a greater understanding of your customers – what’s important to them and what keeps them coming back time and time again. 

Are loyalty programmes worth it for businesses?

Retail businesses are more reliant than ever on data to tell the story – it’s what drives continual growth, actionable insights and proven ROI.  In Australia, six in ten Australians say membership in at least one programme has changed how they shop, whether by increasing purchase frequency, choosing a brand more often, or recommending it to others. 

If your loyalty programme is lacking action, you're probably missing a lot of opportunity.  While poor performing rewards programmes can be attributed to several factors, it ultimately comes down to how your program works and what it means to your customers.

What makes a bad loyalty programme?

It takes too long to accumulate points, points expire too quickly, or the rewards just aren’t worth the spend are just a few factors that can quickly frustrate customers into ignoring your loyalty programme.  Good news is that your data can highlight these struggles so that you can implement changes. 

For example, if people are regularly signing up to your loyalty card in store but only a small percentage ever reach a $20 discount voucher it could indicate that your instore customer service is working well but the discount incentive isn't achievable or desirable.  

HOW TO KNOW IF YOUR LOYALTY PROGRAMME IS WORKING?

All loyalty programs have a cost, and therefore at some stage, ROI must be tabled. Each program will be striving to achieve several measures, but is it achieving what it set out to do?

Some questions you may want to consider:

• Are members of the program shopping more times a year than non-members?

• Do they, on average, have a larger basket size?

• Are rewards increasing activity?

• What percentage of rewards are lapsing?

• Do we have a clear picture of who our high-value customers are?

Remember, no two customers are the same, so you need to leverage a combination of data to send the right messages at the right time – and to the right members. This will help you gain traction in your loyalty metrics and turn customers into brand ambassadors.

How to improve your loyalty programme

Loyalty program data delivers great insights into why people purchase and engage with your business. When used effectively, it can tell you where to invest your time and money and how to tweak your strategies. Identifying gaps and using data-driven insights to make decisions will ultimately grow your business.

At Datamine, we take the guesswork out of data, delivering valuable insights that help businesses maximise ROI and drive confidence in your loyalty program data. Download our guide to loyalty programmes to refresh your programme or to build one that is win-win for you and the customer.