Got Loyalty Data? It Might Need Rethinking

The majority of retailers have loyalty programs to drive customer engagement and additional purchases. In fact, 90-plus percent of retailers have loyalty programs. The explosion of these programs is driven by today's empowered consumer. In the era of the consumer review, an ever-increasing number of digital channels and a 24/7 shopping cycle, retailers have less control over consumer shopping behavior than ever before.

However, organizations can still influence the customer experience and ensure consumers come back to make additional purchases. Since the cost to acquire new customers is so high, retailers look to increase the lifetime value of each customer to drive additional revenue. This is often accomplished through loyalty programs.

One of the main requirements for a successful loyalty program is an engaged customer who sees benefit in the program and as a way to better connect with the brand. This all starts with customer signup.

Customers can sign up for loyalty programs in a wide variety of places. In fact, according to a recent Experian Data Quality study, individuals can sign up for loyalty programs across an average of 2.15 different channels. The most popular channel is a company's website, followed by point of sale and the call center.

During the sign-up process, organizations collect a lot of data. Forms can vary considerably in length, but on average, customers must complete more than three different fields to sign up for a loyalty program. The most popular field is email address, which is requested by 76 percent of retailers.

While retailers see many benefits from loyalty programs — 70 percent see a return on investment from them — they also come with challenges. Seventy-six percent of retailers say they have loyalty program challenges, with the two biggest being too few customers signing up and poor contact data.