Loyalty Blogs

Many years back, reward currency used to be in physical form such as dinner sets by gas stations, free toasters by banks for the new account sign-up, etc. This means the giveaways were in the form of compensation to the customer for long-term loyalty and repeat business.

Today, things have changed tremendously and businesses with loyalty programs create value for their customers by delivering rewards in a variety of formats and choosing the one that is suitable for the customer and business relationship. Loyalty currency can include a wide range of reward types such as discounts, reward points, miles, gamification, savings, or experiential rewards. Even some businesses have chosen to reward their customers by offering crypto, travel rewards, investment account contributions, etc.

Before you build a loyalty rewards program, you must ensure that you choose the type of loyalty currency that works best for your customers and business needs. In this blog, we will discuss everything you need to know about the flexible reward options available to customers to help you make the right decision and enhance business growth.

Understanding the Present Scenario of Customers

As shoppers today have multiple options when it comes to products and services, this makes brand loyalty quite difficult to achieve. Customer finds it easy to find alternatives if one brand is not meeting their expectations and they can easily switch to another brand that is offering better services or cheaper alternatives.

This makes brands struggle to retain customers for a long time and build loyalty. Expert research conducted by Marigold’s 2023 Consumer Trend Index says a third of customers swapped their favorite brands in 2022 where they say loyalty programs, customer experience, and data privacy as their main issues. However, another research found that almost 70% of consumers identified loyalty programs as significant to sustain long-term loyalty.

So, the main key is to build loyalty using rewards programs that offer flexible currencies. This will not only help merchants and brands provide choices to customers that they are looking for but also help in maintaining convenience, usefulness, and relevance.

Using Flexible Rewards Options To Boost Loyalty

Whether you want a loyalty program for a small business or a big brand, building an effective reward strategy depends on understanding what exactly your customers want and the right delivery channels based on how customers are shopping – online, in a physical store, and both. Ensure that you do not follow a single engagement process to gain loyalty from customers.

Successful brands have recognized this and now credit card companies are offering cardholders a variety of reward options. For instance, credit card rewards programs offer points to customers that can be redeemed for different purposes like gift cards, products, airline bookings, hotel accommodations, travel, concerts, and more. There are credit cards such as the Citi Premier Card, Sallie Mae’s Accelerate card, etc. that enable customers to apply rewards to their loan balances.

Companies must connect their reward program with their brand’s objective to help respond to customer needs and experiences. Providing flexible reward currency that is strategically planned for a brand encourages customers to come back, and re-engage which helps in building loyalty and boosting revenue.

How to Build a Flexible Rewards Program?

When you plan to build a loyalty program that goes beyond a transactional customer relationship while choosing the rewards currency that reflects your brand, there are three questions that you must ask yourself first. They are-

1. Have we done enough surveys among our customers and received feedback on what they are looking for in the loyalty program?

2. Have we done enough research on our competitors that are offering similar services and what can we do uniquely to differentiate from them?

3. How flexible is our loyalty program? Are they offering alternate reward currency and the capability to personalize them?

Businesses must take time the review technical implementation considerations to make sure that they have all the elements in place to enhance the customer experience and rebuild their brand’s mission. Here is a list of the elements that must be kept in mind while building a flexible rewards program.

– Data Analytics

Ensure that the brands have access to high-quality data along with the analytical skills to review and assess the impact of alternate loyalty currencies. This data includes several things such as transaction history and any form of customer engagement data i.e. site or app visit, email reply, redemption activity, and more.

After analyzing the data, the insights that have been extracted will help to guide the strategy, design, and direction of the loyalty program development.

– Customization

Personalization plays a huge role as it helps the company to build more interesting and tailored customer communication where they can offer individual reward offerings based on customers’ preferences and specific needs.

– Right Resources

Ensure that the company providing your loyalty program has a bunch of skilled experts such as data scientists, analysts, product managers, and strategic loyalty leaders who have enough experience to help you make the right decision based on the input of data and analysis.

– Loyalty Processes

Choosing the right resources will ensure that all the processes are carried out properly for a loyalty program development where the team reacts quickly to incrementally improve and optimize the program.

Final Takeaways

As we are now aware of the increasing need for reward programs to integrate more flexible loyalty currencies, your business must offer customers the ability to redeem and apply their rewards in multiple ways. Today, customers not only look for discounts or deals, they want a completely different experience where they are given choice & freedom to select from diverse reward offerings.

If you are planning to integrate flexible rewards currency in your loyalty program to make it stand out and boost engagement among customers, connect with the experts of Novus Loyalty, a reliable loyalty solution provider that enables businesses of all sizes to build loyalty programs that offer freedom and flexibility to their customers when it comes to earning and redeeming points and rewards.

It’s time to make your loyalty program more engaging and worthwhile to customers by mapping the right type of rewards that are aligned with your customer’s lifestyle and the brand’s mission. Book a demo with Novus today!