One of the biggest challenges faced by businesses after they launch a customer loyalty program is popularising it amongst their customers and sustaining a healthy enrolment rate. While many choose to invest heavily in advertising the benefits of the program, others come up with creative and attention-grabbing promotions, in hopes of getting noticed by their customers. However, a majority of small and medium businesses cannot afford either of these options, and need to deploy inventive strategies in order to maximise customer sign-up. In this post, we will discuss how you can use existing employees, like cashiers, floor managers, and shopping assistants to promote and popularise your loyalty management program:
Collect customer information
Cloud-based Customer Reward Programs thrive on data and will be able to help you retain loyal customers only if you have a comprehensive database of customer information. Cashiers and loyalty operators can collect detailed information from your customers in-person since they have the customer’s attention and are incentivising them with an instant reward or saving. The reason why this approach is more effective than others is simply because during checkout, customers are relatively relaxed, become more approachable, and most importantly, have the time to provide you with the information you need.
Increase sign-ups and enrolment
Training your employees to identify recurring customers to build a positive relationship with them can do wonders for your customer loyalty program. Sales personnel, shopping assistants, and cashiers can be effectively used to reach out to new potential loyalty members by helping them pitch the rewards program most aptly. If done right, this personalised approach to getting new sign-ups for your loyalty program can be much more effective than seasonal discounts or flash sales which require a mandatory sign-up. However, adequately training your employees in soft skills like communication is of critical importance in order for your employees to ensure a high conversion rate.
Educate customers
One of the biggest challenges that retailers and managers face while running Customer Reward Programs is satisfactorily answering customer queries and providing them quality grievance redressal mechanisms. Studies have shown that a major reason why loyal customers lose interest in a loyalty program is due to unsatisfactory service and lack of clarity on rewards. But, by training your staff to be ‘loyalty experts’ and allowing them to educate customers regarding the terms and conditions of the program, you can kill two birds with one stone. Training the employees that directly interact with your customers – cashiers, assistants, and floor managers – can significantly improve the way you provide customer service to your most loyal customers.
Promote and advertise offers
Last, but not the least, is the effectiveness with which cashiers and loyalty managers can promote existing deals and offers. By helping loyal customers find the offer or discount that is just right for them, you can customise your loyalty offerings in a personal manner. In addition to improving customer goodwill and establishing positive customer relationships, using your cashiers and loyalty operators to promote loyalty offers can help you collect first-hand, instant and reliable feedback from your customers. What’s more, you can also influence customer behaviour and purchase habits by training your employees to strategically offer information on rewards and discounts.
A majority of Customer Reward Programs fail to effectively retain customers because they are unable to get the right message using the right channel to their customers. Coupled with an intelligent loyalty solution, your employees can act as your most effective salespersons and marketers. So make sure you also invest in a quality loyalty software solution to bolster the efforts made by your team. Loyera is one such expert loyalty solutions that can help you retain loyal customers. Simple, cost-effective, and intuitive, Loyera has been designed and priced keeping in mind businesses of all shapes and sizes. With important add-ons like POS and E-Commerce, Loyera can help you streamline your business operations and support sustainable business growth. To know more about how your business can benefit from Loyera, get in touch with us today.