Confused?
This is the common expression which occurs when I asked the
marketing managers or the decision makers in this domain.
What is the difference?.... is the next question I face from
them.
Most of the companies in Middle East initiate a loyalty
program because either they are following the loyalty band wagon or their
marketing department has to come with “New initiative”.
This ambiguity in understanding the difference clearly
reflects in their approach, when they hire an advertising agency to develop a
loyalty program and far worse when they approach loyalty software and hardware
vendor.
You must me thinking these are those small companies next door
which you see operating a couple of stores, but the matter of fact they are not whom I
intend to talk about .
I am specifically talking about some of the leading
organizations, banks and groups who are not short of resources.
The result is obviously a delivery of another frustrating
loyalty program which the brand and the customer was better without.
A list of these loyalty programs like these can be quite
extensive in this region. However my objective here is not to name and shame
but to highlight the root of the problem which is the lack of strategic
approach to this marketing element.
Customer loyalty should be a strategic approach evolving
right from the bottom of the vision and mission of your company. Retailer should question why they are offering this
loyalty program. It should be a part of mid to long term strategy of the
organization to gain competitive edge in the market.
Only when a strategic approach is adopted, the whole program
dynamics takes a new dimension.
A classic example is the recent report by Strategy Analytics
Wireless Device Lab on iPhone Owner Loyalty Declines: Is Apple Losing its Innovation
Edge? which found that only 75 percent of iPhone owners in Western Europe
say they are likely to buy their next phone from Apple, down from 88 percent in
2011. US repeat purchase intentions have also seen a slight decline, down from
93 percent in 2011 to 88 percent in 2012.
What does this mean to you?
Loyalty cannot be earned just by great marketing
Apple has always had a strategic approach when it comes to loyalty. They do great marketing too. Yet Apple is not able to retain their iphone customers, why? It could be because Apple has not been able to come up innovative with their new iphone lately which is an expectation from all their loyal customers.
ReplyDeleteYes that is right, This is a clear indicator that popularity of the product is not a measure of loyalty towards the product. There are various elements to measure loyalty for which a separate market research needs to be conducted to gather holistic data from both online and offline sources.This where most of the middle east companies fall short.
ReplyDelete