The Big Handshake 2024 - lifting the lid on loyalty

With major brands Holland & Barrett, Central Co-op, Nike and IKEA taking to the stage alongside leading loyalty experts like Marigold, Antavo, and Apadmi, there was a wealth of useful discussion.

We take a look at the key topics, trends and takeaways.

The sense of momentum around creating compelling loyalty experiences was an immediate source of optimism, but pause for thought came in the shape of two key stats.

Only 11% of attendees believe their customer loyalty program fully engages customers. And more than 60% feel like their offering could be doing a better job. 

So what’s to be done?

What do customers really want from loyalty?

Customer appetite for loyalty programmes hasn’t diminished, but what consumers really want is flexibility and choice. 

Research from loyalty platform Antavo found that 40% of consumers want more ways to earn points, and 81% would rather shop with brands which let them choose how to redeem their rewards.

Alongside flexibility is a clear appetite for gamification - 37% of consumers are currently playing games and quizzes to earn rewards, and 45% would do this more given the option.

Personalisation - getting the balance right

Personalisation is always a hot topic. All businesses want to get it nailed, but many are still not where they want to be - 67% of attendees admit they aren’t there yet. And getting it half right can sometimes be worse than not doing it at all. 

Loyalty expert Marigold suggests that 40% of consumers have expressed frustration at receiving content that is irrelevant to their needs. Customer attrition is a harsh reality and a third of consumers switched from brands they were loyal to last year, which can be make or break for retention.

Get it right and customers are more than willing to share their data in return for truly personalised and useful rewards, with 94% agreeing that this was a fair exchange.

That’s reinforced by Marigold again, who found that 62% of consumers feel their favourite brands treat them as individuals, and 70% of customers will happily pay more to shop with brands they have formed an attachment to.

So what can be done to drive personalisation?

Can automation help and is AI the answer?

No conference would be complete without a mention of AI and The Big Handshake was no different. But in an effort to make it more relevant to real life, Apadmi and IKEA took to the stage to look at how AI can feed more meaningful personalisation. The session looked at automated chatbots and Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) - what could be more real life than ordering a pizza?

Customised conversations can be created with Chatbots across sectors such as retail, financial services, healthcare and travel. Generative AI can help with customer support, increasing customer satisfaction, unlocking sales and conversion, improving operational efficiency and driving overall customer retention and loyalty.

Being able to do that quickly and efficiently with the right tone of voice becomes easier with AI, but where it gets really exciting is when agentic apps are introduced. The announcement of Apple Intelligence in June shows how important AI on the device is going to be.

It seems almost inevitable that at some point soon, apps will need to cater for software agents on the device and now is the time to start thinking about that.

The implication is that users may prefer to interact with apps and the services behind them without ever looking at the UI, that’s when automated conversations can start to happen.

Common challenges, big results

There are, of course, several barriers for brands trying to take a more forward-thinking approach to loyalty. Common themes were lack of resources, finding time to properly plan, expertise to develop and implement a program, as well as a lack of technical knowledge and capability within existing teams. 

The biggest challenge for those in the room was difficulty integrating new technology, with 45% highlighting that as the biggest factor getting in the way of achieving higher customer engagement with their loyalty offering. 

Getting it right though can lead to significant returns. Antavo suggested the average loyalty scheme produces a 4.8x return and Apadmi has seen an ROI as high as 12x with client Co-op through an effective mobile loyalty product. 

The most impressive number, though, came from the oft-quoted best in class case study of Starbucks, which boasts 27m rewards customers who generate 55% of the company’s US revenue… 

Ultimately, as The Wise Marketer suggested at The Big Handshake, if you are asking  ‘will I make money with loyalty’, maybe you’re looking at customers through the wrong lens. Yes, transactional value is clearly important, but the key to unlocking your full loyalty potential is to calculate the overall brand value an effective strategy can bring.

Apadmi creates bespoke mobile digital products to help you get closer to your customer.  If you’re facing a gap in technical capability, or you’re looking for ways to better use mobile experiences to unlock value, our experts are on hand to help. 

Get in touch, we’d love to hear more.