Jane Ricciardelli, Chief Marketing Officer for Exchange Solutions, is always glad to talk about her company’s Smarter Loyalty solution for IBM Commerce. The solution helps marketers manage their loyalty programs in a completely measurable fashion based on real-time customer behavior.
Loyalty360 caught up with Ricciardelli and discussed the company’s Smarter Loyalty solution for IBM Commerce.
What is the genesis of Smarter Loyalty for IBM Commerce solutions, and what characteristics make it unique and attractive to loyalty marketers?
Exchange Solutions has been an IBM Business Partner for over a year now. As part of this relationship, we have integrated with some of the IBM Commerce offerings on the customer data side, such as IBM Tealeaf and IBM Digital Analytics. The WebSphere Commerce integration is the latest addition to our partnership and brings our Smarter Loyalty capabilities to every retailer using WebSphere for their ecommerce platforms. We are the only loyalty solution to be certified by IBM as Ready for Smarter Commerce, which means that our solution has been validated by IBM.
How has it been received by brands and what has been the feedback?
Brands are really excited to have a loyalty solution available to them within the WebSphere platform. It means that they don’t have to separately manage their loyalty system from their ecommerce platform. And they can optimize their marketing spend, by focusing on low propensity, valuable behaviors, instead of incenting everyone on their site with a mass discount. Marketers also like the fact that Smarter Loyalty is performance-based, so they only pay for the incremental behaviors they drive, which means their loyalty program is completely measurable and profitable. Finally, the integration means that it’s a turnkey solution–there are minimal requirements for IT to get involved, which makes CMOs very happy!
What are brands able to do now in real time that they couldn’t before when using this solution?
The real-time aspect is very important. Brands can interact with customers when they are on the site, which is the best time to influence behavior with an incentive. In addition, Smarter Loyalty automatically adjusts the amount of incentive, based on the customer’s real-time behaviors on the site and their propensity to perform a targeted behavior, so that the incentive offered is valuable, relevant, and timely.
How does it achieve greater customer engagement?
Smarter Loyalty is data-driven, one-to-one loyalty. Every customer receives offers that are tailored for them. The Smarter Loyalty platform uses proprietary algorithms and machine-based learning to ensure that the retailers offer just the right amount and the right type of incentive. All this happens in real-time, while the customer is on the site, which is the best time to engage with them!
Do you believe loyalty programs to be the great differentiator for marketers?
Loyalty programs are a key part of the puzzle for marketers, but first the product or service has to effectively meet the customers’ needs. No loyalty program is going to replace that. A good customer experience is also critical to success. But loyalty programs are a great way for marketers to build their engagement with their customers, and personalized loyalty programs take that one step further by offering relevant, targeted incentives, which can be a big differentiator versus mass discounts or segmented offers.
How do you define customer loyalty and has that definition changed or evolved in recent years?
Customer loyalty has really evolved. For marketers, it used to be all about retention–provide offers to keep customers coming back to their store. But now, there are so many different behaviors that can be driven through a customer loyalty program. Every behavior that has value for a retailer, be it writing a review, providing profile information, buying in a new category, referring friends, posting to Pinterest–they all are part of building customer loyalty and engagement and can be incentivized through a Smarter Loyalty program. The customer data that is available now, from all channels, is incredibly valuable and can offer actionable insights into what motivates customers to perform behaviors and get rewards that they value, while delivering more value to the retailer–the ultimate value exchange. In many ways, we feel that the technology has finally caught up, to allow us to create loyalty the old-fashioned way, one customer at a time.