While many loyalty management platforms have undergone a tough year and a half, Antavo has capitalized on the market and grown exponentially, expecting 300% year-on-year growth by the end of 2021.
“The 3x growth is surprising for us, too, but I really hope that others also experience this in the industry,” says Zsuzsa Kecsmar, co-founder and CMO of Antavo. “[There’s] a huge boom in the market right now.”
Antavo, which specializes in enterprise loyalty technology, offers a wide range of services to a multitude of brands, ranging from BMW in the automotive industry to Benetton in the fashion industry. Kecsmar has been involved with the company since its inception and spoke with Loyalty360 CEO Mark Johnson during a “Loyalty Live” session about their approach to loyalty program management, as well as innovations and strides worth exploring in the loyalty sector.
Kecsmar says Antavo strives to push loyalty programs out of their comfort zone and start making them a more personal experience. She talks about the potential opportunities she sees in customer loyalty, including further implementing paid loyalty and lifestyle loyalty programs. She uses Amazon Prime as a key example of how paid loyalty programs should be used, citing that the investment from the customer is a great start to establishing customer and emotional loyalty.
When discussing lifestyle loyalty programs, Kecsmar suggests companies start rewarding their members for non-transactional activities, such as working at their job, bringing back used items, and leaving a product review – ensuring the company is on their mind even when customers aren’t purchasing from them.
Antavo is also top-notch when displaying a passion for creating loyalty programs. For example, Kecsmar’s office is transformed into a storefront shop to help retailers visualize their program.
She points out the real inventory items, cashier stand, a kitchen – all culminating in an environment that demonstrates how a loyalty program would work in a real-life retailer setting.
When asked what differentiates Antavo from other customer loyalty providers, Kecsmar is quick to answer: “Two things: no code and [we are] headless.”
While this may appear to be confusing jargon to the average listener, Kecsmar explains with relative ease. Antavo makes a point to be as accessible as possible to their customers. To achieve this, the team ensures that once the program launches, there is no software/IT engineer knowledge necessary to manage the program. She says that the programs function via selecting preset segments that provide options “as exact as coding – but without coding.” Rest assured, there is plenty of room for creativity in Antavo’s services.
To explain what “headless” means, Kecsmar says Antavo utilizes an application programming interface (API) centric approach, meaning the program can seamlessly work with the front and back-end of systems. Their work can be easily restructured/reused for omnichannel purposes, allowing the programs they create to integrate with other services.
Looking ahead three years, she believes that lifestyle and paid loyalty programs will be more prevalent in the consumer’s life. Kecsmar also stresses that industries need to be on the lookout and ensure they are in customers’ top two or three paid loyalty programs, as she sees two or three being the maximum number customers are willing to pay for.
Discussing the future of zero-party data and its implications, Kecsmar urges loyalty programs to offer rewards for members voluntarily giving out information. With restrictions coming into play, it’s clear that loyalty programs are the “gatekeepers” of information and can control the amount of data they receive.
“If customers are able to fill a survey or do some profiling, this is when [brands] are able to collect customer data,” says Kecsmar. “[This] helps to tackle this new challenge of the difficulties of the future around data.”
Antavo represents the spark occurring in the loyalty industry; they see a landscape brimming with opportunity, and brands will be fortunate to continue working with them as they pave the way for further innovation.