To achieve customer loyalty brands need to build genuine relationships with customers. Phil Dunk, managing director at River Marketing, offers six tips to creating a loyalty programme
Traditional B2B loyalty programmes, which are based on ‘points’ schemes or discount offerings, have a number of fundamental drawbacks. These elements lack creativity, are hard to differentiate and rarely make the participants feel truly valued as customers; much less loyal. There is a danger, therefore, in placing too much emphasis on them.
The challenge for companies or brands in a B2B context is to create and maintain genuine relationships with customers that will stand the test of time and be resistant to the threat posed by competitor points or discount schemes.
Genuine loyalty can be achieved only through taking a long-term, strategic approach. If business customers are to feel truly loyal to a supplier, there must be a real relationship from which buy-in can be gained. A company or brand that invests in engaging customers in a professional way has the greatest chance of achieving loyalty, particularly when it uses its loyalty programme to reinforce the relationship.
Here are six key considerations for companies or brands planning to embark on a B2B loyalty programme.
1. Understand your customer base
This may seem obvious but, in order for a supplier to establish what its’ customers really want from the business relationship with them, they have to know and understand each one, including the individuals within the organisation. Who are its key influencers? What they do? What difficulties do they face and what motivates them?
By researching and profiling the customer base thoroughly, companies can have this information at their fingertips, and be in a position to design a loyalty programme that takes full account of it.
2. Avoid a ‘one size fits all’ solution
Off-the-shelf solutions do not create – and cannot retain – genuine loyalty, so companies should avoid making them the basis of their loyalty programmes. Everyone is different and the factors that drive one audience might not have the same effect on another, so it stands to reason that the customer offering should be bespoke – differing according to the company, the brand and its people.
Once the supplier really knows its customer base – who the key individuals are, what makes them ‘tick’, the day-to-day issues they face – it’s possible to create a unique loyalty programme that will offer them what they actually want and need. This will help to make them resistant to competition and will encourage true loyalty.
3. Recognise the limitations of a points system
While collecting and redeeming points is still at the centre of most traditional loyalty schemes, it is never the primary reason for a customer’s loyalty to a brand. As competitors will have similar offerings, a supplier can end up ‘buying’ business from customers who don’t remain loyal to their brand if they get a better offer elsewhere.
Points schemes can usefully form part of a successful loyalty programme and can be a measure of a customers’ commitment to it, but it’s vital to understand the primary reasons for loyalty – that is, the elements that create a close and lasting working relationship.
4. Help customers to overcome everyday challenges
When a supplier truly understands its customer’s business – how it prospects and markets, who its customers are, what barriers it has to selling and what its aftersales opportunities are – it’s in a position to offer some of the tools the customer needs to build its businesses.
For example, helping the customer with lead generation and administration, delivering free training, offering co-branded local marketing support and providing discounted tools of the trade, can all help customers to feel they are being supported on a day-to-day basis, which will in turn encourage them stay loyal to the supplier or brand.
5. Create a dialogue
Successful B2B loyalty programmes are underpinned by regular interaction and meaningful dialogue with customers. Speaking to them as individuals, in a language they can understand and relate to; breaking down barriers and making them feel valued; ensuring that an emotional link is created between the individual and any rewards offered, will all help to build sustainable relationships with customers.
It’s imperative the dialogue is genuine and that it makes a business customer feel part of the supplier’s business. And, with digital techniques enabling exciting and innovative ways in which to communicate, this is easier to achieve than ever before. For instance, the use of social media – such as Twitter and Facebook – to communicate with customers as individuals or groups, can make communication more fun and relaxed and, providing you get the tone right, create a healthy dialogue in which everyone in the organisation can take part.
6. Consider using a specialist provider
To ensure that the business-to-business loyalty programme is given the emphasis and professional treatment it deserves, it’s worth giving consideration to outsourcing it to a specialist provider.
The key is to look for agencies that offer a consultative approach and cost-effective, bespoke solutions with real attention to detail. They will be far more innovative and offer a great deal more value than agencies who simply manage a points collection and redemption facility.
Those organisations who put their customers, as individuals, at the heart of their loyalty programme, while ensuring that it is professional, tailor-made, interactive and engaging, will be in the best position to accomplish genuine and lasting commitment from those customers. Investing sufficient time and effort into building and maintaining the relationship is, without doubt, the key to achieving genuine B2B loyalty.