Can social media really drive customer loyalty?

You’d be far stretched in life to find someone who didn’t want to be rewarded. The feeling of being valued and wanted is an emotion that we all hold dear and strive to achieve. For a number of years now, retailers around the world have been playing on this basic human emotion and have been driving customer retention and sales by creating loyalty programmes.

 

 

However retailers aren’t getting it right all the time. In fact, most current loyalty programmes are short-sighted in their approach, offering basic ‘points means prizes’ rewards. To elevate their position, retailers need to analyse the identity data they have on customers and offer them a reward that is relevant to their engagement with your business. Whether it is a supermarket offering a regular port drinker a set of crystallised port glasses, or a sports store offering a regular buyer of tennis products an opportunity to get cheap Wimbledon tickets, retailers need to break the loyalty mindset of ‘one reward for all’ and find the loyalty element that fits each of their customers individually.

 

 

 

 

Social media has been a game changer for the way that retailers collect data and interact with their customers. It has allowed them to gain access to more personal information about their target market than ever before. Retailers can now see in real-time what their customers are interested in, they can also interact, ask questions and learn. Monitoring the conversations that customers are having online can play an integral role in shaping a successful loyalty programme. By harnessing the power of social media and using it as a tool for learning, retailers will be able to profile their customers with more accuracy and can therefore better tailor the rewards they offer them.