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Why Do I Consider H&M to Be a Bad Loyalty Program?
H&M put a lot of effort into creating their H&M Loyalty Club for devoted customers, but their subpar customer service fell short of expectations. Continue reading to learn why I believe your client retention approach can be improved while costing you less.
Disclaimer: The author of this piece is a marketer, and the consumer is a “millennial.” In 2018, I had the opportunity to join the H&M Club in Poland, and I choose to share my extensive experience with their loyalty programme.
This article was written to share some of my experiences with the H&M rewards programme and to provide you with advice on how to improve.
You’ll discover:
How H&M’s email marketing plan was a failure.
More on why having a loyalty mobile app is essential.
Poor customer service when making in-store purchases.
how to avoid making these errors.
Give your customers a choice – H&M and the need for a loyalty app
The H&M Club’s mobile app is related to their additional issue. Speaking specifically on the need for having it. We’ve been debating whether mobile applications are fading and who actually needs them for a few years now. A significant emphasis on mobile apps began about 2014. It is no longer necessary to download a separate app each time you want to purchase on your mobile device thanks to responsive websites.
In any case, I’m not arguing against the H&M loyalty app. In reality, they demonstrated how a quality mobile app should be made.
My issue (and not just mine) is that I would have to reserve the majority of my phone’s storage capacity for shopping apps if I wanted to download every retailer’s app.
Every time I went into H&M to make a purchase, a member of staff would ask if I had their app so they could scan my barcode and award points. In the meantime, companies like Empik or Orsay don’t require me to download any apps in order to participate in their customer loyalty programme; I can simply give the staff my name or my phone.
Again, a little more personalisation is what I wish the H&M loyalty programme offered. A sizable portion of millennials and older generations of customers don’t want merchant apps on their phones only to occasionally display the code. Participation in the rewards programme shouldn’t be contingent on having the mobile app; it should be an option.
A loyalty programme compromises the customer experience
You had to be quite patient when shopping in-store when H&M introduced their loyalty programme in my country (Poland), and for many months after that. Before clients completed a transaction, all staff members offered them to download the app and join the programme. You can envision the result. Each potential customer had to locate the app, download it, register, and scan the code in order to take advantage of the 10% discount.
If you’re in a hurry—and aren’t we all these days?—and you have to deal with the same situation while waiting in line repeatedly, you start to feel a little uneasy. In the end, allowing customers to shop easily on their mobile devices cost the business countless upset in-store client encounters. Again, not appropriate for the rate of client retention.
In these situations, having a dedicated helper in-store after the rewards programme debut would be a smart idea. As a result, your team has the opportunity to welcome individuals to join before they proceed to the register and avoid a growing line. You can use the Lidl strategy, which addressed the similar issue by giving customers pamphlets with thorough instructions at the checkout. The flawless purchasing experience should be the starting point for all consumer interaction activities.
Avoid the dangers of the H&M rewards programme.
The H&M example demonstrates that, even with great loyalty programme software, loyalty programmes consisting of repeated acts carried out in bulk are insufficient. I haven’t taken advantage of the vast majority of Club offers due to a massive invasion of the customer’s email and a very unpleasant in-store experience. I also stopped going to the supermarket as frequently as I did. The secret to retaining devoted clients supporting your company is personalization. Investigate the data of your greatest clients and concentrate on personalisation rather than being overly concerned with extending the program’s reach.
Not all of your customers will be devoted supporters, and that wasn’t ever the intention of loyalty campaigns. Consider specialised coupons for specific customers, gift cards for their birthdays, and incentives based on their past purchases.
Last but not least, whatever medium you choose to communicate with programme participants, avoid sending anything that can be traced back to an individual and avoid turning your messages into a deluge of SPAM.
Check out our entries on the Zooplus, Kaya, and Zalando rewards programmes for some excellent examples of rewards systems.
Improve Customer Loyalty Software to prevent the errors made by H&M Club.
Promotional offers and communications can be personalised with the help of a strong customer loyalty programme. You can tailor the offers depending on information about the customer, their preferences, previous purchases, and more. It assists you in avoiding bulk, pointless messaging to your customers. One customer only receives the same offer once from it. You may target your consumers with the appropriate incentives to capture their attention and encourage their involvement thanks to its real-time rewards customisation and fine-grained customer segmentation capabilities. To enable the highest level of personalisation based on the information you already know about your clients, the finest customer loyalty software interacts with your CRM system and other databases.