Customer attraction and retention strategies are more important than ever before as customer behaviour, both what they want and need from retailers, is influenced by increased options and the fact that South African consumers are still largely financially distressed, says Peter Ludi, Business Development Executive at redPanda Software, a specialist enterprise retail software development company.
“We work with retailers to strategically look where the world is going so that they can adapt and be prepared to take advantage of opportunities, but we also listen to what their current challenges are,” he says. “The understanding that about 80% of South Africans have at least one loyalty card in their wallets tells us that consumers are looking for value.
“There’s an emotional aspect to loyalty programmes, where customers seek recognition from the company where they spend their money, and then there’s the intention to save money or extract added value. A relevant loyalty programme must sit at this cross section,” says Ludi.
Beyond this, loyalty programmes are not just crucial in attracting and retaining customers, but in an era where consumers, especially the younger generations, are increasingly influenced by values, a good loyalty programme can go a long way towards building brand resonance, securing both long-term loyalty as well as driving impactful behavioural change.
“Knowing where the leading markets in the world are headed, and how quickly South Africans – both businesses and consumers – adopt new technologies, we made a calculated decision to partner with Loyal Guru to bring a global best-in-class solution delivered in South Africa by a rand-based organisation with local support,” says Ludi, adding that the cultural match between the companies was immediately apparent. “After introducing Loyal Guru to a number of local retailers and seeing their reactions, we knew their solution resonated with our market needs.”
Borja Sanfeliu, CEO of Loyal Guru, explains that the SaaS product is the result of more than 10 years’ software development around more than 60 enterprise retail customer needs. “All indications are that the loyalty market is going to grow by up to 5x in the next five or six years. And so when we met the team at redPanda Software, who are specialists in retail, we immediately realised we were aligned on DNA – to innovate in the retail sector. We have the solution their current and future customers need and they have the expertise and market knowledge to implement it efficiently and effectively,” he says.
Sanfeliu says that Loyal Guru builds trust with retailers as it addresses three main problems, which he says are shared around the world. “First there is the front house, the different tools to interact with customers, such as ecommerce, POS and marketing cloud. Then, the programme needs to run on clean and actionable data, and so this must be in place. And finally, personalised content. This is how you automate personalisation for millions of customers.”
He explains that various retailers will naturally be at different stages of maturity where each of those three challenges are at different phases of sophistication. “Retailers need a solution and implementation partner that are agile and who respond quickly to needs. Yes, technology enables business, but you don’t need all technology to enable business and so there must be a commitment to finding the best solution that trims the fat and delivers value,” explains Sanfeliu.
Ludi agrees, adding that having a multi-vendor strategy enables an implementation partner to work with a variety of APIs and vendors to build tailored and best-fit solutions for retailers of all sizes and complexities. “The outcome, certainly with Loyal Guru, is a good customer experience with easy to use products as the flow and journey has been tested with millions upon millions of customers across use cases globally. Secondly, and this is vital for trust, there is simple and clear transparency about how consumers earn their loyalty rewards.”
Sanfeliu says influencing customer behaviour is an area that will see massive growth around the world. It provides brands with an opportunity to resonate with consumers based on their brand values. “Here, a retailer rewards customers not just for transactions but also for behaviour. For example, a fashion retailer may encourage its customers to return clothing for recycling and then reward that behaviour.
“A brand that encourages healthy eating may reward exercise or sport involvement, and even then, the reward may not be points or savings on the next transaction, but rather another service, such as a tailored diet programme for the customer. The potential use cases are almost endless, but they all are premised on the massive opportunity for companies to meaningfully resonate with customers based on their values, all the while influencing their communities for the good.”