Checklist to Consider While Choosing Loyalty Platform Providers
- Posted on December 10, 2022 by Robert
- Reading time about 6 minutes
We live in a highly competitive business era where brands are struggling to win customers’ hearts and make them choose you again and again. Loyalty platforms act as a helping hand to acquire new customers as well as retain existing ones. With the increase in the adoption of loyalty solutions, loyalty marketing is also gaining huge attention.
With various vendors to choose from, it is becoming difficult for brands to choose the right loyalty platform provider that is right for their business needs. In this blog, we will check out the list to consider while choosing the best business loyalty programs.
Growing Importance of Loyalty Marketing
Research by Statista says the global loyalty management market will reach up to 5.57 billion US dollars in 2022. Market evaluations believe that the loyalty management ecosystem size will surpass 24 billion US dollars by 2029 growing at a CAGR of 23.5%.
With increasing issues of financial recession and global inflation, more and more brands are looking for fool-proof loyalty programs to safeguard their business, which has increased the number of loyalty marketing vendors & partners across the world.
Tips to Choose the Right Loyalty Platform Vendor
Whether you are an owner of a startup business or a large-scale enterprise, it is difficult for your business to choose the loyalty program that is right for your customer needs. Though established brands have a strong foothold and a huge customer base to work with, evolving customer expectations and stiff competition is making it difficult for businesses to choose the perfect enterprise loyalty programs.
To help in your search for a good loyalty partner, we have shortlisted a checklist that works best for both startups as well as large-scale enterprises.
· Customized Solutions
Ensure that you go for a loyalty solution provider that offers customized loyalty solutions to help you build a distinct brand identity in the market. Having an individualized approach is needed to develop customized solutions that are unique to your brand image.
The right loyalty partner understands the significance of customized solutions and will help in designing loyalty strategies that embody your brand values with guaranteed results in your marketing & business goals. Your program should reflect your brand identity and must be the extension of your marketing strategy that focuses on improved customer experience.
· Privacy Commitments
Choose a partner that is committed to privacy and is a part of the global data privacy movement. Go for the loyalty vendor or partner who ensures that your customer data is safe. As Google is coming out third-party cookies by 2023 end, loyalty and referral programs have emerged as a reliable medium to collect zero and first-party data.
Take the help of a competent loyalty partner that follows global data privacy laws to help you safely, legally, and ethically collect customer data with ease and help you build customized programs that can bring higher ROI.
· Gold Standards In Security & Compliance
Security and compliance are the top aspects when it comes to digital businesses. If your business size is high, you must be dealing with a large customer base, which means you need top-level security and compliance.
Your loyalty program should be proactive rather than reactive to evolving security issues. Before you choose the loyalty partner, ensure that they have detailed operating policies, procedures, processes, SOC security, and compliance standards. This means that the vendor you choose fully meets the established security criteria and is capable to prevent unauthorized access to data.
· Go Beyond Legacy Architecture
To meet the evolving needs of your customers, choosing a loyalty software partner that thinks beyond legacy architecture is essential. That is why the loyalty vendor you choose to partner with has robust & advanced digital architecture along with its data center infrastructure.
Making use of cloud-based infrastructure ensures that your loyalty program is fully equipped to recover data & restore service in times of disruption. Additionally, your loyalty solution provider must have a robust and reliable support team that is available 24×7 to ensure seamless operations.
· Easy Monitoring of Status and System Health
The best thing about working with an experienced loyalty solution provider is that they can oversee and monitor system health and program performance. However, you should check on the system periodically, if not at regular intervals.
This will keep you abreast with the performance and even identify any potential issues before any big mishaps happen. This is an essential step for preventive maintenance ensuring no room for any discrepancies.
· Quick and Efficient Program Launch Process
Integrating your loyalty platform with other platforms like eCommerce, payments, social media or even customer experience platforms is essential. Choose the loyalty partner that provides smooth and seamless integration as running a loyalty program in isolation, disconnected from other applications and programs, may not generate desired results.
Focus on integrations to maximize the full potential of your loyalty strategies. Make sure that you choose the right loyalty solution provider aligned with the technology and the bandwidth to integrate your loyalty and referral program effectively.
· Robust APIs for Seamless Implementation
One of the main features of a good loyalty program is efficient customization. Every customer is different, which is why having a rich set of APIs can help to build custom extensions and offer various features for personalized customer experience.
Before you finalize the loyalty solution provider you choose to work with, ensure that the platform is robust and dynamic to add custom extensions. Using the support of your loyalty partner’s expertise, you should be able to incorporate any custom extensions of your choice on your loyalty marketing platform.
Key Takeaways
Hopefully, after going through the blog it must be clear that every business needs a suitable loyalty program that works best for their business goals as well as customer needs. These programs are not only essential to reward repeat customers with personalized experiences but also help them to bring new ones through referrals. Loyal customers are the ones that are more likely to make a repurchase, refer more, and try out any new products/services.
Novus is an all-in-one Rewards Program Platform that holds years of expertise in delivering result-driven and high-performance loyalty strategies to large and medium-scale businesses. With a strong presence across the globe, Novus offers a set of RESTful APIs for all key objects and methods making it easy to integrate with the world are leading technology platforms. Book a demo with our experts to see how Novus can add value to your business with customized loyalty solutions.