Automated loyalty programs have become a standard offering for large customer-facing businesses. For example, online retailer Amazon offers a variety of programs such as Amazon Prime, which offers expedited free shipping and other perks for paying members, and most major supermarket and drugstore chains have some kind of card-based program where shoppers receive targeted discounts and earn credits toward future purchases.
However, customer loyalty is just as, and probably more, important for SMBs. Indeed, SMBs already face significant pressures on pricing, product selection, and convenience that are largely caused by their larger competitors, and each individual repeat customer is more crucial to an SMB than to a large enterprise.
A recent Boston Globe blog post recommended that SMBs start offering loyalty programs, and the idea makes a lot of sense. However, loyalty programs require technical expertise and employee training that many SMBs do not have the internal resources, knowledge or time to deliver. Following are recommendations of a few key ways MSPs can step in to help SMBs design, launch and maintain loyalty programs.
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