The final installment in Loyalty 360’s four part series, “Industry Insights 2012” wraps with predictions and trends from: ChoicePrivileges, CCG, Medallia, RewardsNOW and Relational Capitol Group.
Company thought leaders from various backgrounds and industries shared predictions for top industry trends in 2012, and highlighted what they are looking forward to seeing develop for their industry and company. You will find these exclusive insights highlighted through a four part thought leader series on Loyalty Management Online and in the upcoming Q1 2012 issue of Loyalty Management.
Read Industry Insights 2012 (Part 1).
Read Industry Insights 2012 (Part 2).
Read Industry Insights 2012 (Part 3).
Gregory D. Brown, Vice President, Loyalty, Promotion & Relationship Marketing - ChoicePrivileges®
From an industry standpoint, it is exciting to see continued rebound in the economy, albeit choppy from day to day. This is driving favorable unit revenue growth in the hotel industry and portends a decent year to come. As for our company, most excited about our Relationship Marketing infrastructure development that will significantly upgrade our marketing interactions with past and potential guests.
As for predictions of top industry trends, more mobile, more talk about social media, and more periodic angst about the global economy as it ebbs and flows over the year.
David A. Slavick- VP, Retail Consulting & Business Development - Customer Communications Group
Reading the tea leaves to see what is to come for 2012 reveals a very clear picture. The view is of a retail CRM landscape experiencing high demand for solutions that leverage data and insights to drive measurable incremental behavior. A newly emerging planning pillar will emerge/grow strong in the coming year to support brilliant implementation and timely response analysis for social media campaigns linked to in-store experience. Powering up the data to deliver differentiated value and personalized service to high value customers through reward programs will be critical to sustain member interest/satisfaction and continued participation. Technology and the growth curve of smart phones will help drive more and more retailers to adapt their data management, content and offer strategies/tactics to achieve real-time recognition and reward.
One consistent theme that will continue into 2012 is how important personalization is to remain relevant and engaged with program members. Retailers will challenge themselves, their technology partners and their creative agencies to leverage to an even greater extent all that is available to them: from data/insights out of purchase history, self-administered survey responses, preference center/purchase intent details, and data append insights, as well as qualitative research to deliver an engagement strategy based on customer worth. More and more programs will evolve to tier based designs – with distinguishable value propositions for both credit card and non-credit based members, more personalized communications/variable formats and unique services to solidify participation, ensure satisfaction and referral, plus during the course of the year encourage migration up the value/profit curve.
Borge Hald, CEO - Medallia
Social Media
In 2011, there was a lot of momentum around monitoring social sites. In 2012, the focus will shift to acting on social feedback. Whereas B2C companies like Netflix, Dominoes, and JetBlue have been visibly concerned with social media monitoring, the interest level from B2B companies is also increasing.
Location-based Reporting
In 2012, companies will start looking beyond the brand for reporting solutions that reveal insights on specific hotels, store branches, restaurant locations and more. Specific location-based data will help employees act faster to their
Mobile
Smart phone penetration is exploding, and technology has emerged that optimizes the survey experience on specific devices. Mobile is a powerful channel to receive feedback and close the loop "in the moment". We'll see growth around mobile data collection, mobile reporting, and mobile technology such as text-based surveying and QR codes.
Unstructured or Text Feedback Analytics
Text analytics represents a paradigm shift. It offers the opportunity to better understand customer sentiment through more effective questionnaires that generate richer customer insight.
Defeating Data Silos
As customer experience management gains momentum, feedback is being collected across more departments. Organizations need help unifying feedback channels for a more complete picture of their customers.
Less Market Research
The shift away from the market research VOC model toward customer experience management will also see gains, particularly in areas that have adopted CEM less rapidly like retail banking and insurance.
Predictive Analytics
Predictive analysis stands to play a bigger role in customer experience management as companies look at feedback to determine what operational changes they could make and what the effects of each change could be
Steve VanFleet, CEO and President - RewardsNOW
We see two parallel emphases for loyalty marketing in 2012. On the one hand, it will include more of a focus on enterprise-wide or what we are calling ‘relationship rewards’ where customers are encouraged via rewards incentives to have a deeper, broader experience with a financial institution or a business entity. In exchange, customers will want loyalty programs to be ‘about me’ and very relevant – which means offering redemptions that are significant and pertinent to a particular customer segment or base. This means that a financial institution or business will have to ensure that their programs offer a rich suite of redemptions to appeal to their respective, diverse customer base. As a result customer analytics will be more important than ever as well. From an institution’s or business perspective - loyalty will be thought of as a goal, not a program and customer engagement will be the driver in loyalty programs.
Consistent with this emphasis on relevancy and engagement, and in tune with this “Age of Deals”, financial institutions and business entities will look to provide value to their consumers to enhance the relationship through access to relevant discounts and deals at merchants. This will take various forms and be delivered through multiple channels, but a shift towards more targeted offers will be seen. At the end of the day, it will be about targeting and reaching those consumer segments that adopt new technologies first to receive those relevant, timely ‘value-added’ offers. And it will also be about which institutions and organizations are ahead of the curve in getting themselves out there with both the technology and offers.
Chris Malone, Chief Advisory Officer - The Relational Capital Group
1) Grassroots protests like the Occupy movement will continue to grow in size and influence, especially online. They will continue to demonize faceless, monolithic companies and brands that primarily look out for themselves at the expense of their customers. In 2012, forward thinking companies will embrace these movements and pledge to balance profits with a greater emphasis on transparency, human capital and trust-based customer relationships.
2) Despite the growing time customers spend online, email will not survive as a means to communicate with them. In 2012, bellwether companies will adopt applications like Twitter, Facebook and Salesforce Chatter to dramatically reduce email headaches and improve productivity in working with customers. Doing so reduces spam, viruses, phishing scams and inbox management for customers. Companies that remain heavily dependent on email will be left in the dust.
3) As companies and brands start to reconnect and establish one-to-one relationships with consumers using social networks in 2012 , the differences between B2C and B2B sales and marketing strategies will be reduced dramatically. Social networks and mobile devices both enable and demand one-to-one communication with customers. Mass marketing and “one-size-fits-many” communication to consumers are headed for life-support.
To contact the editors, please email mailbag@loyaltymanagement.com. To subscribe to Loyalty Management Magazine, please click here.
79% of users currently use social media to communicate with their customers. Now we want to know: What is the primary use for communicating with customers via your company’s social media channel?
Your Comments0 Comments
There are no comments for this article post.
Leave A Comment