The Right Tools for the Digital Consumer: The Loyalty Tech Stack Your Team Needs in 2022

What have you done for me lately?

We live in a customer-centric world where every digital consumer has earned the right and has the power to ask this question. Consumers can choose at the drop of a dime who they buy from in today's world and which brands they can take down with only 140 characters.

It's incredibly costly to lose a customer - it costs five times as much to acquire new customers (or re-acquire a customer) as it does to retain the customers you already have. Unfortunately, it's also very easy to lose a customer in today's world - 75% of US consumers changed their shopping behavior and shifted to new brands during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, brands need to focus on creating new ways to establish loyalty and retain their customers.

This leads us to loyalty programs - it's no wonder why brands struggle each quarter driving frequency and share of wallet with the earn and burn models they're still using. Earn and burn models are no longer sustainable in a world where consumers expect personalized, unique, rewarding engagements in the form of offers and experiences.

Think about the journey and experiences that you’re creating for your customers - how are you making it unique or personal? How does it make them feel special? Brands that keep customers loyal are the ones that are giving consumers a more modern, engaging experience.

There are many different strategies, tactics, and tools that brands use to create a powerful loyalty program. Technology is the single largest enabler of modern and personalized loyalty programs. So as a community, Loyalty Innovators will be focused this year on helping brands create best practices and standards that will help all members evaluate and evolve their loyalty tech stacks and associated program processes.

To kick this off, we've compiled a report consisting of insights from 100+ loyalty leaders in our community running programs of various maturity levels called “The Right Tools for the Digital Consumer”. Our report investigates some of the broader market changes pushing this evolution and highlights why maintaining the status quo with loyalty programs and loyalty tech stacks isn't sustainable for brands. The report also includes survey data of 1000+ consumers highlighting why they're unhappy with current loyalty programs. In order to move beyond earn and burn, brands need data infrastructures to personalize for each customer and advanced technologies to scale the use of all that data.

We will be covering this topic in several different ways this year, as our community works together to standardize how loyalty works in the modern era. So if there are particular areas that you want to learn more about, connect with caitlin.cassady@loyaltyinnovators.com, and we'll make sure we've got you covered!