In today’s challenging economic times, more retailers are turning to customer loyalty programmes and frequent shopper initiatives to grow their business. And if the local numbers are anything to go by, this is starting to pay dividends. Research shows that 74% of economically active South Africans were using loyalty programmes last year.
Perhaps even more significantly, the same research shows that, on average, South Africans belong to almost nine loyalty programmes. Of course, as fuel prices continue to rise, inflation hits all-time highs, and the ongoing uncertainty about global food supply chains due to the conflict in Ukraine, one of the world’s six breadbasket regions, consumers will increasingly turn to loyalty programmes to benefit from discounts and other value adds. These benefits are solely for consumers who are willing to part with personal data such as their buying habits in exchange for receiving these benefits.
Being able to tell who bought what and when, can provide powerful insights to brands looking to get a competitive edge. Mining this data for patterns of spending can, for example, show retailers the ‘sweet spot’ for pricing items in a way that maximise their profits while shoppers are still happy to purchase the goods at that price.
However, a shift is starting to take place as consumers have access to more loyalty programmes than ever. This means that retailers must start prioritising interactions over transactions. It is in this space where the LoyaltyPlus FrequentShopper solution comes into play.
“LoyaltyPlus has built customer incentive solutions for our clients to create the kind of loyalty that has retained and delighted many of their customers over the years. For us, it is about helping our clients identify the specific customer behaviour to benefit their business,” says Frik van der Westhuizen, Marketing Director at leading independent customer relationship management company, LoyaltyPlus.
FrequentShopper features a Web-based management portal that can be accessed by customer service agents regardless of their geographic location. This makes it ideal at a time when hybrid work is normalised. It also features flexible accrual and redemption processes based on purchase value, or product categories. This means clients can match rewards to margins or revenues. Furthermore, the solution comes standard with advanced fraud prevention analytics, account suspension, and blacklisting features to protect against potential revenue loss. Keeping compliant with the likes of the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) means FrequentShopper also encrypts and safeguards members’ data.
“We have designed FrequentShopper to be completely customisable. Our clients can therefore apply a variety of configurable business rules to their environment while also introducing important self-service capabilities to their loyalty programmes, something that modern consumers have come to expect of retailers,” adds van der Westhuizen.
Other standard features include data analytics and reports to monitor key performance indicators and integration with existing retail accounting systems to record transaction data for deep customer insights, with point-of-sale terminals for redemptions and vouchers.
“There is also the option to scale-up the FrequentShopper solution as the customer loyalty programme evolves. This capability consists of a range of modules designed for personalisation, revenue generation, collaboration, advanced analytics, and extended integration with systems outside the traditional personal shopping system,” says van der Westhuizen.
For example, intelligent segmentation empowers the client to manage ongoing personalised communication to qualifying members of its target segments. The advanced analytics provide the means to incorporate external data processing for even deeper customer insights and decision support.
To find out how the LoyaltyPlus FrequentShopper solution can help enhance your customer loyalty programme, please contact us today for a full platform demonstration.
