Are You Doing Everything You Can to Build Loyalty?

Customers have a million options and the fight to acquire – let alone retain – a strong customer base is more difficult than ever. With new programs and features being offered at every turn, companies must provide offers that meet consumer’s demands while delighting them in a unique and powerful way. Doing so correctly can yield significant customer retention benefits. In his groundbreaking book, The Loyalty Effect, Frederick Reichheld demonstrates that building loyalty with 5% more customers would lead to an increased average profit per customer between 25% and 100%.

That’s not cash that anyone wants to leave on the table.

Yield Customer Retention Benefits with Loyalty 2.0

Loyalty360, a trade group focused exclusively on helping organizations build loyalty and maximize customer retention benefits, says that we are now in a new paradigm: moving away from the focus on customer loyalty that requests information in return for a discount or reward. Consumers know the drill and aren’t fooled by what is essentially a marketing tactic in order to help the company retarget advertisements and build products. Not to say that this isn’t useful for the company and eventually the consumer to a certain degree, the issue is that it’s an opaque process for shoppers.

Is this traditional approach to loyalty really what the customer wants?

Today, companies looking to yield significant customer retention benefits must think about how to amass brand loyalty – saying “let us pay attention to you and we’ll make it worth your while.” This includes a multi-pronged approach that marries a superlative user experience, excellent product, and compelling offers – all of which are customized to the needs of the consumer. In fact, 80% of shoppers would switch stores or brands if offered something compelling.

What is a Compelling Brand-Enhancing Loyalty Offer?

If we listen to the marketplace, it’s clear that consumers are serious about protecting their identities. In an era of hyper-connectivity with near-daily stories of data breaches, personal data is more exposed than ever. The resulting identity fraud can cause long-term financial and emotional distress. Understandably, over 64% of consumers have stated that they are nervous about the threat of identity theft. As a result, identity protection has expanded into a $3.2 billion industry that’s growing by at least 3% every year. While stand-alone identity protection companies amount for a large percentage of the market, diverse companies are using identity protection as a valuable complement to their product portfolio.

A report from Accenture Strategy recommends an expansion of what companies currently think of as the loyalty eco-system – coupons or complimentary upgrades – and should instead “establish trade partnerships with organizations that offer complimentary offerings and channels to increase the impact, relevance, and exclusivity of their value propositions.”

Identity protection is a smart choice for companies taking Accenture’s advice. Caring for customers’ personal identity can strengthen your brand identity through a valuable add-on that speaks directly to customers’ demands. Building loyalty in a brand and reaping its benefits, means listening to consumers and giving them what they want.

For the past 13 years, Generali Global Assistance has supplied white label or co-branded identity protection services for the travel, financial, insurance, association, employee benefits, legal, and retail industries, among others. Each company is seeking to drive loyalty by providing a valuable, high-demand feature that differentiates their product portfolio and increases opportunities for customer engagement through additional touch points. Engagement drives loyalty: engaged consumers buy 90% more frequently, spend 60% more per transaction and are five times more likely to indicate it is the only brand they would repurchase in the future. All of these factors lead to engaged customers delivering three times the value to the brand over the course of a year.

Are you interested in how to build brand loyalty, drive engagement, and boost long-term revenue with identity protection? Learn about our hassle-free, high-yield identity protection platform.