Earning Customer Loyalty through Datadriven Solutions

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During Thursday’s Loyalty360 webinar, Mind the Intelligence Gap: Get on Track to Earning Customer Loyalty, which was presented by Clutch, Mark Harrington, Vice President of Marketing at Clutch, told attendees that marketers trust a data-driven solution to earn customer loyalty.

“The challenge is how do they get to those answers within the data,” Harrington said.

According to an Experian Data Quality Study, 63% of marketers rate data collection as a top priority for loyalty while 87% of marketers say data is their most underutilized asset according to a Teradata Global Data-Driven Marketing Survey.

Harrington referred to a “runaway freight train of data” and, while 44% of marketers say they’re collecting customer behavior data, the average company manages four internal customer data sources (e.g. POS, ecommerce, middleware), five social network accounts, and one mobile application.

“Most marketers have a massive wealth of data,” Harrington noted. “They simply may not know about it. The data is daunting given its fast and furious nature. Many don’t know how to start given organizational and resource limitations.” Earning Customer Loyalty

The Challenge of Intelligence is a “derailing issue” for marketers, Harrington explained due to the following key points:

Volume: Data generation from millions of customers

Velocity: Real-time, non-stop data generation

Variety: Independent, fragmented data sources

Veracity: Lack of data synthesis creates distrust

Harrington outlined some critical themes to help the process:

Fast Track Steps to Success

Get It Together

Synthesize Your Fragmented Data

PITFALL: Most organizations have upward of 10 different customer data sources (e.g. point-of-sale system(s), ecommerce platform, middleware networks, mobile applications and social accounts) generating massive volumes of information in real-time.

ISSUE: This data is generally fragmented and isolated, typically inaccessible to Marketing or accessible on a limited basis.

SOLUTION: Centralize and synthesize fragmented customer data from every source integrated into a “hub” to gain a holistic view of your customers across dimensions like:

Purchase activity
Channel behavior
Promotional response
Lifetime value
Social engagement

Know Their Name

Identify Your Best Customers

PITFALL: Most brands can name their best performing location or product/SKU, but few can identify their Most Valuable Customers (MVCs), who can drive upward of 80% of a brand’s sales.

ISSUE: An inability to identify a brand’s MVCs prohibits the brand from effectively engaging these individuals on personalized levels to deliver value, build evangelism and even replicate. MVCs aren’t just transactional customers. MVCs can be based on frequency of visits or on social engagement.

SOLUTION: Analyzing the resulting intelligence from your synthesized customer data help you to understand customers based on:

Robust customer personas
Advanced customer segments
MVC identification
Customer tendencies and trends

Get Personal

Embrace Individual Engagement

PITFALL: Most marketers’ limited view of their customers forces them to adopt a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to engagement, communications and promotions.
ISSUE: This approach falls into the trap of providing the same value to a customer regardless of purchasing $10 or $1000 or visiting two or 20 times per year. This too can erode margins and actually decrease loyalty given the lack of relevancy the rewards can have for the customers.
SOLUTION: Gaining customer insights allows you to incorporate “intelligent customer engagement” for your MVCs based on personalized dimensions like their shopping tendencies, channel preference, product purchases, frequency, etc.

Stay on Track

Engage Ongoing Optimization

PITFALL: Customers can shift their preferences quickly and frequently, leaving brands that don’t optimize their strategies and tactics regularly back at the station.

ISSUE: A lack of ongoing campaign and communication optimization can lead to irrelevancy for your customers.

SOLUTION: Optimize your marketing strategy and related tactics for each customer segment in real-time through your customer intelligence. Understanding how your customers’ behaviors and actions are shifting can:

Maximize MVC value
Allow lapsing customer reengagement
Help you discover business shortfalls

Harrington described a case study involving Harley-Davidson.

Customer Identification

CHALLENGE: Needed to identify and understand different customer segments to extend lifetime value into other products and services since most motorcycle purchases are a once in a lifetime luxury purchase. Also wanted to build evangelism to drive referrals to the dealership. Customer loyalty to the Harley-Davidson brand is typically very strong, yet can be sporadic at dealership level.

SOLUTION: Clutch synthesized the data sources at dealer level across various channels (e.g. POS, ecommerce) and built a custom ‘Open Roads Rewards Program’ for additional insight which drives personalized cross-channel customer engagements.

RESULTS: Identified an array of multidimensional MVCs across known and unknown customer segments. Built out personalized campaigns and engagements focused on supplementary products including gear, services, and bike ancillaries.

Due to this new program, Harley-Davidson has earned evangelists, Harrington noted. Due to this new program, Harley-Davidson now has new customer ID segments: Big Time Biker, White Collar Rider, Weekend Warrior, and Retired Rider.

Harley-Davidson and Clutch will be featured in a session titled, How Consumer Management Supercharges Harley-Davidson’s Success, at the 8th annual Loyalty Expo presented by Loyalty360 – The Loyalty Marketers’ Association . The Expo will be held April 27-29, 2015, at the Loews Royal Pacific Resort at Universal Orlando in Orlando, Florida.

What’s more, Harrington discussed:

ENGINEERING LOYALTY
VIA EXPERIENCE

TECHNOLOGY: Advanced platform that: