How can brands establish loyal customers?
Many consumers tend to shop across various brands and channels to find the best products and services at a reasonable price, making establishing brand-loyal consumers tricky. Nonetheless, insights into shopping behavior and preferred loyalty program benefits can make this mission a little easier. Finding products on sale and good customer service were the top reasons Australians continued shopping from a particular brand in 2022. Furthermore, Australia’s active loyalty program members asserted that their most sought-after benefits were regular discounts, cashback based on spending, and the ability to pay in full using loyalty points.Quality is key in the ever-growing loyalty programs landscape
Having a loyalty program doesn’t always equate to automatic brand loyalty, as the quality of the program offered is also very important to consumers across the country. Australian loyalty program members reported shopping more frequently and spending more with brands with a rewards program they liked, with many recommending good programs. Overall loyalty program satisfaction among Australians was reasonably high in 2022, with almost 70 percent of active users satisfied with the schemes they were using. However, satisfaction with petrol, insurance, energy, and telco loyalty programs was relatively low compared to those in the supermarket or restaurant categories.Loyalty program engagement and building trust
In 2022, just shy of 90 percent of consumers in Australia were enrolled in at least one loyalty program, with around 45 percent of program members reporting actively using their memberships. Supermarket loyalty and frequent flyer programs were the top two types of loyalty schemes engaged with among Australian consumers in 2022, with beauty loyalty memberships recording the lowest engagement.Personalized recommendations have become key in incentivizing customer engagement and fostering reward program loyalty, with some welcoming this more than others. Several program users have raised concerns regarding sharing payment details and personal data with businesses offering loyalty programs due to possible unwarranted use of their private data. Despite reservations, many customers feel the benefits outweigh the risks if sharing their data results in highly relevant offers. Therefore, the quality of personalized recommendations, alongside other tools, such as gamification, is vital in customer retention; if customers feel their valuable data is not used to create equally valuable recommendations, they may turn away in search of another program.
