CRM
End of Summer Specials
It is that time of year. Labor day is approaching fast, soon the leaves in the trees will begin to fall, football pools startup and the skiers get their gear out. We also know it is a great time for fun at the casino. We have a fall special we want you to know about.
If you signup for a new RewardsForce account before November 1st, 2012 we’ll knock off 25% of your bill for 6 months. RewardsForce wants to keep this winter warm with this slick deal. You can contact Jeremy to receive a virtual demo today at sales@rewardsforce.com or 206-552-9770.
Privately Delivering Value to Your Customers
As a kid I never understood why my father would get so angry when I’d sign up for those sweepstakes boxes. Win a trip to Mexico? Sure. Get a free lunch? I’m in. Enter to win a BMW? Here’s all my personal information, call me when I should pick it up. I was a marketer’s dream. I would always notice that mine was one of maybe five other slips in the box. “This car is mine!” I’d think, but there’s a reason why no one opts in to these promotions. These campaigns died out because people don’t want to hand out their personal information; turned off by telemarketers chiming in at dinner time and emails related to all kinds of “enlargement”. There seemed to be no regulation over our content besides the marketing company choosing the highest bidder.
But as our spam email folders filled and junk mail started to out number our real mail, people began fighting back. When the cashier at Williams-Sonoma asked customer Jessica Pineda for her zip code during checkout, assuming it was part of the process, she gave the number and thought nothing else of it. Weeks later Jessica started receiving catalogs mailed to her home address. Fed up, in 2008 she filed a class lawsuit against the retailer asserting an invasion of privacy claim. “On February 11, 2011, the Californian Supreme Court unanimously reversed the lower courts’ decisions by ruling for the plaintiff.” The State of California now places up to a $1,000 penalty fee per incident for illegally collecting and using personal identifiable information (PII). In her post “Loyalty Program’s Privacy Value” from 89degrees, author Jundong Song covers how PII is being handled by companies and different tactics they use.
On a lighter note, not all companies are taking advantage of user’s data. As loyaltylab.com highlights in their post “Loyalty is Complimentary Marketing“, Safeway launched a new site called FoodFlex which takes your shopping history and offers a “series of reporting tools to analyze your purchase history for cholesterol, protein, and more. Best of all, you can then see healthier alternatives to the items you have been purchasing.” This is one of few tools that uses the information the company collects and spins it for the user. Taking this approach, complementary with your marketing plans, is a great way to express the value of data collection to customers and encourage adoption.
Photo Sources: 1. affordablepackagingproducts.com 2. loyaltylab.com
Gino Valente
4 Things not to forget when setting up your rewards club
Simplicity.
When it comes to operating a rewards club simplicity matters. Planning for a rewards club can be daunting, a bad design choice can have unintended consequences which could lead to an ineffective club. For example, some casinos produce complex comping procedures and algorithms to maximize profit. However, these complex methods to earn points make it hard to explain to customers how their dollar goes further, making it difficult to enroll new members. Here are four things that decision makers sometimes forget to consider while designing their club.
1. Training: make it easy for your employees to get behind your club.
Ensure that you as management have provided adequate training to all users of the system. This means providing information on how your rewards platform works and how the club will function. The knowledge you provide makes it easier on the employees to explain the benefits of the club to customers. An easy way to take it a step farther is providing pamphlets that explain benefits to customers that employees can go over.
2. Goals: set small, measurable goals.
Setting goals is good, but somewhat meaningless if the goal cannot be monitored and the result measured. Keep the goals small and measurable with simple, outlined metrics. This allows you to easily monitor your clubs health and quickly implement changes which will positively affect your bottom line. Examples include goals for club member visitation rates, total registration milestones and promotion usage rates.
3. Feedback: receive and react.
Gather customer feedback and comprehend the results. According to a study by the CMO Council, 37% of respondents stated they “saw no real value in the rewards being offered”. This is a simple problem that could be rectified by simply reaching out to members for feedback. After all, the club is designed to develop lasting customer relationships and you can accomplish that with less effort by understanding your views. In short, ensure you develop channels to receive feedback from your customers.
4. Processes: make registering as easy as possible.
Create streamlined registration processes that have as few steps as possible. It is extremely important to fill in a customer profile completely so you can better serve them in the future. However, filling out a complete customer profile with names, demographic data, mailing addresses, emails and phone numbers is likely time consuming. You should consider the length of your registration process and create a single minimum item to register such as asking for a drivers license.
The drivers license works as a method to collect a name, demographic information, mailing address and a photo if you need it. Second, by asking for a single item everything is quicker and easier. This also allows you to break this process up into multiple parts, for example, collect all of the information on a customers drivers license when they sign up and next time they come to redeem a promotion try and get their email address.
