They claim that perfection cannot be rushed. This is particularly relevant when preparing to make a significant decision, such as selecting from the vast selection of loyalty programme providers.
Why? Because there are many different types of loyalty programmes, just like the firms that offer them. Your objective is to locate the one that works in perfect harmony with your marketing platform, has an easy-to-use backend for the management team, and is capable of supporting any of your business objectives.
I’d like to offer you this simple instruction, which comes with a helpful worksheet, to help you. You will be guided through the process of assessing loyalty programme service providers.
Step 1: Familiarize yourself with the business
Finding out more about the organisation is the first step in analysing loyalty programme platforms. Starting with positioning and target audience can help you understand the platform’s major goals.
The quantity and placement of offices also reveal something about the company’s global presence, or lack thereof. Last but not least, be sure to view any available case study or testimonial. If a service has experience dealing with brands that are similar to those in your industry, it is always a good sign.
Step 2: List Important Features and Technical Solutions
A loyalty programme service provider’s “system seller” characteristics are constantly highlighted on the front page. However, it’s worthwhile to look about and find out what else the providers of client loyalty programmes are capable of.
For instance, do they provide a universal solution or is their Loyalty Logic adaptable enough to meet your particular business requirements? Do they provide modules for gamification? (They’re currently quite popular.) What types of reward concepts does it support, too? mainly because there are other alternatives to discounts and coupons.
Regarding the technical underpinnings, I advise looking at the platform’s UX. You may need to devote your IT resources to assisting the CRM staff in running loyalty marketing if it wasn’t created to be user-friendly. The ability to perform A/B tests is also essential, and machine learning (also known as Loyalty AI) is an uncommon but valuable capability.
Step 3: In-depth Integrations Research
A loyalty programme can provide you with a lot of benefits, but it won’t be very useful unless it works well with your marketing automation, e-commerce, and CRM platforms. However, this necessitates a protracted conversation between the CTOs of your organisation and the provider of the eCommerce or retail loyalty programme.
You can now make the following conclusions:
Does the vendor of the loyalty programme offer omnichannel capabilities, such as POS support or mobile passes?
Is the platform compatible with reporting or business intelligence software like PowerBI or Tableau?
Are review websites like Trustpilot integrated into the service?
Step 4: Verify the Data Protection & Security Strength
Particularly if you’re using Gamified Profiling, a loyalty programme creates a lot of client data. This is why it’s so important to check for data security as soon as possible in the decision-making process. The inquiries that you ought to be posing are:
Who owns the data? Provider of the loyalty programme or I, the customer?
The loyalty programme complies with GDPR, right?
Is the environment where the data is hosted secure?
How does the procedure for backing up data look?
Exists any safeguard against fraud?
Step 5: Request Information About Client Support & Account Management
In addition to the platform itself, a loyalty programme provider worth your time should give excellent customer assistance. The management team may provide direct support or consulting in this regard.
Speaking of which, account managers are a must-have. After launch, they are your initial point of contact, offering reports, programme overviews, and information on new reward platform features.
Final Step: Request Pricing
The typical cost of using a loyalty management system is a monthly or yearly subscription charge. But the loyalty programme provider decides what the final figure is based on. The features a client utilises may at times affect the amount. In other situations, businesses charge you based on the number of loyal customers who are actively using the programme, allowing the programme to expand along with your company.
Predicted ROI and implementation or setup costs (as well as the associated launch schedule) are other crucial factors to take into account. A word of advice: resist the urge to let the promise of quick and huge earnings cloud your common sense; a wise decision is based on more than just ROI.