Kieran Kilmartin, VP International marketing, Pitney Bowes Software, offered his views about customer loyalty during an interview with Loyalty 360 CEO Mark Johnson, stressing one key word: Retention.
“For me, it’s all about retention,” Kilmartin said. “The big play there is about retention of the customer.”
Another equally important loyalty component is brand advocacy, Kilmartin said.
“Trying to promote customers to become advocates of your brand, I think that’s what loyalty is all about,” he said. “If you look online when people are incentivized to like brands, it gives you a distorted view of loyalty. People are very fickle these days. For me, it’s about retention and staying with the brand and becoming a true advocate of the brand.”
Kilmartin said some recent research focusing on social media resulted in varying opinions from companies and consumers.
“Loyalty is about bringing the right experience and ensuring that you have the best interests of the customers at heart all the time,” Kilmartin said.
Building brand advocacy has to start internally, Kilmartin said. He referenced the John Lewis Partnership, which is an employee-owned U.K. partnership that operates John Lewis department stores and Waitrose supermarkets.
“The culture is very positive and the people live the brand,” Kilmartin explained. “Brands have to know if they’re creating the right culture.”
If an organization isn’t “living the brand,” Kilmartin said, it will stand in the way of creating engaging customer experiences.
“The people on the front line have to be living and breathing the brand,” he said.
What is the biggest challenge for retailers to create loyal customers in Europe?
“Getting a handle on all your channels, and getting control over those channels,” Kilmartin said. “It’s all about content and channels. “Clearly, technology is a big enabler there for retailers, banks, telcos, and insurance companies. Customer relations should be a sum of your interactions, and it’s something you’re always trying to improve. Figure out the customer journey.”
When it comes to the loyalty industry’s biggest buzzword – data -- Kilmartin said location data is becoming very important.
“You need technology, so how do you make it more interesting?” Kilmartin said. “Location data is becoming paramount. We’re all mobile now. We all communicate via social media, email, tablet, smartphones. If you add the dimension of location, suddenly you can make everything more relevant and targeted.”