At Loyalty360, part of our mission is to discover the trends that are affecting the customer loyalty industry. We do this by speaking with brand and vendor representatives across a range of verticals. In preparation for our upcoming webinar on the topic of trends in customer behavior, we spoke with two executives from Maritz Motivation: JR Slubowski, Sr. Marketing Strategy Director, and Evan Snively, Loyalty Strategist. They offered one huge insight gleaned from Maritz’s internal research: 70 percent of customer loyalty is up for grabs.
To learn more about how to keep that 70 percent, register now for the webinar on September 25.
As we all know, customer loyalty is a huge topic. What specifically were you looking to uncover in the research?
For some time, we have anticipated that a revolution in customer marketing was just on the horizon. We now find ourselves enveloped in that change, and in talking with peers, clients, and readers, we have found that almost everyone acknowledges they are still struggling to fully capitalize on the shifts taking place.
So, our goal was not to simply define where the changes have landed us today, because that will result in continually playing catch up. Instead, we focused our efforts on uncovering actionable, bite-sized, consumer insights that loyalty practitioners can use to stay ahead of the curve when designing more effective loyalty strategies. The ability to confidently leverage opportunity in a changing landscape—that was the outcome we were looking for, and we believe we found it, though perhaps not always in the usual, expected places.
In the report, you mention that 70 percent of consumer loyalty is in flux. What other data points stood out and why?
We covered a lot of ground in the study. At a broad level, we looked at general consumer and loyalty program preferences in a manner that allowed us to collect insight about new areas of interest as well as add data points from 2019 to some more tenured topics. This has enabled us to track the trajectory of important trends. One example is that the influence of mercenary tactics continues to decline. Brands who are putting all their eggs in this basket are becoming more and more exposed to competitors.
We also took some deeper dives to see how consumer preferences varied within specific industries and even drilled into a handful of iconic brands. The interesting insights here come when looking at the data comparatively. How do consumers’ expectations change when they are interacting with a credit card provider versus a banking partner? How does the way a consumer conceptualizes their loyalty to brands in general shift when asked about a specific brand?
For the 70 percent of consumers who say their loyalty is in flux, how did the survey pose this question?
We asked a stand-alone question that was intentionally designed to force the respondent to select how they perceive themselves as a consumer—and to a certain extent a person. There were 3 potential answers: “1) I am very loyal and only buy from my favorite brands”; “2) I am loyal, but always looking for a better deal”; “3) I am not brand loyal.”
The good news for loyalty marketers is that only 2 percent of the population fell into the last bucket. Of the remaining 98 percent, 28 percent aligned with answer one and 70 percent aligned with answer two.
While 70 percent of consumers stated their loyalty is constantly in play, the more we analyzed the data, the more we found how a consumer answered this question had a notable impact on his or her preferences on a significant number of topics across the board. Instead of looking at this question in a silo, we cut the rest of the data by it and saw that the distinction was measurable enough across a multitude of topics that it warranted the creation of two distinct loyalty identities: the Unshakeables and the Ephemerals.
In the webinar you’re going to focus on these two different customer types, the Unshakeables and the Ephemerals. Can you explain these types and their characteristics?
In the simplest form, they have different consumer needs that must be fulfilled in order for them to feel good about purchase decisions. Both segments are critical—there is no escaping that in today’s world—but different aspects of the brand experience are important to them. How you initially capture their attention or recognize that they are at risk of attrition often differs.
Unshakeables, for instance, tend to be more romantic consumers, attracted to emotional and identity-based language and imagery. While they happily wear blinders to competitors, they also become hyperaware of the brands they do interact with, which brings with it both opportunity and challenge.
Are both segments typically profitable?
Both segments are certainly profitable. But how you maximize wallet share and lifetime value will vary significantly. They don’t want to engage with your brand in the same way and creating an environment that caters to this diversity of needs can be difficult for brands. But it’s downright impossible if you aren’t even aware it is happening.
What are some takeaways that you will share during the webinar that attendees will not want to miss?
The number one takeaway is that 70 percent of consumer loyalty is up for grabs. Understanding what that means for your customer engagement strategy is something that people will need to tune into the webinar to find out.