“Just being loyal isn’t good enough,” Marg said during his session, “The Importance of Engaging Your Most Loyal Customers,” on Monday during the 4th annual Loyalty360 Engagement & Experience Expo. “At the end of the day, there is only so much spend you can get from people and you need to move them to a place where they are advocates.”
Marg discussed how one of its clients, Ruum, which sells children’s clothing, wanted to spark customer engagement and retain its best customers.
Marg said Ruum wanted to build brand loyalists and, even more importantly, brand advocates. And as a new brand, Ruum officials, needed more than just a loyalty card. It wanted data on individual customer activity and to leverage its VIP customers. It wanted a comprehensive engagement program along with incentives to enroll and stay engaged.
Ruum wanted to track customer spend and frequency, and offer surprise and delight rewards. The company wanted to build and reward brand advocates, measure and improve customer lifetime value, and improve understanding of consumer shopping trends.
After implementing a loyalty program, Ruum’s enrollment rate reached 70%, and its loyalty program members account for a staggering 90% of its revenue. Ruum wants to leverage its VIP customers, formalize advocacy, measure its effectiveness, increase in-store interaction, and provide a unified customer view and its experience.
By segmenting its VIP customers, and providing exclusive offers to them, Ruum gained significant momentum.
In the future, Ruum wants to continue moving customers to VIP status, use in-store beacons, SKU level monitoring and incentives, mobile engagement, and peer-to-peer and social advocates.
Marg believes it’s crucial to measure and improve Customer Lifetime Value. VIPs often times are looking for simple things that don’t cost brands much money, such as reserving 7a-noon on Saturdays for VIP members.
Ruum currently has about 250,000 loyalty program members in 30 states.
“Being advocates between purchases can significantly help brands,” Marg said. “Buy-in, what we stand for, and emotional attachment are huge components of the customer journey. Understanding what will move the needle for customers is huge.”