Editor’s Note - This story was originally published in May's Loyalty Management Online, and is part of Loyalty360’s “Best of 2016.” We wish you and your family a happy holidays, and will return to our regular content schedule in 2017!
For Rich Mohr, VP & Global Product Manager for Rental Operations at Ryder, customer retention is a critical piece of the customer loyalty puzzle. Mohr talked to Loyalty360 about this keen company focus and what role it plays at Ryder.
Can you talk about Ryder’s current customer retention efforts and how they have evolved in recent years?
Mohr: We have a very large focus on retention as well as growing share of wallet with our customers. At the forefront is our loyalty program, RedZone. We hope to engage and retain customers by giving them an incentive to rent with us. We are the only company in our industry that can offer points back on your rental spend to be used for rewards. We continue to grow that program to engage our customer base, such as our most recent offering that will allow customers to use points to purchase Ryder bucks that they can spend on more rentals. We also have a lifecycle marketing campaign that re-engages customers that have not rented with us in three, six, or nine months. We are trying to win back these customers and retain their share of wallet. In 2015, we launched a first time renter program that takes new customers and continues to engage and communicate with them to introduce them to all our services and benefits. Retaining customers to us is about evolving the experience to make sure we are continually bringing new offerings to the table that will show the benefit of our service compared to our competition.
What would you say is the biggest evolution in loyalty marketing and how does Ryder manage it?
Mohr: I would say the biggest evolution is communication. It has become so clear to us at Ryder that customers’ expectations have changed, and if you don’t have an open dialogue with your customer base to understand their needs and expectations, you are not going to succeed as a partner in their success.
Ryder has evolved our customer satisfaction surveys to include close-loop processes that ensure the customer feels that their feedback is being heard. If they have a difficult situation happen with our business, we don’t just want to hear about it, we want to make it up to them and ensure it does not happen to them or anyone else in the future. We take pride in that and we make sure the customer feels they are being heard.
What metrics does Ryder use to track customer retention and how have those metrics changed in recent years? Mohr: We use our customer base tracking. We track our base actively and, specifically, we track our active base, reactivated base, deactivated base, and compare it year over year. We have seen a big jump in the stability of our active base and the growth of our reactivated base.
How does mobile fit into the customer retention equation at Ryder?
Mohr: You have to speak to your customers in the way that they communicate. These days that is on their mobile devices, even in a B2B world. That was the big push with revamping our reservation site online. We needed to have a mobile responsive site. It is also why we have developed several native apps, such as our Ryder fuel app, to make sure we are providing solutions that work into our customers’ lives and truly provide value in making their business run smoother and more productively.
Is it more important to retain a customer or acquire a new one?
Mohr: Just like in any business, it is more important to retain a customer. It costs so much more money to acquire a new customer than it does to retain and maintain our current customer base. Plus, looking through just the financial aspect, we look to become true partners with our customers and that relationship takes time to build.
What do you see as the future of customer retention at Ryder?
Mohr: We are going to continue to expand and improve on our loyalty program to make sure it stays engaging to our customer base. We will continue to improve on our customer experience and our communication with customers to evolve as a partner as they evolve their businesses and needs. Just like with anything, you always have to keep growing. Ryder does that really well.