You’ve therefore determined that you require a loyalty programme in order to increase customer retention in your e-commerce store. Great! It’s an exciting time in the development of your brand. What, therefore, ought you to do? Do it yourself or hire a third-party supplier of a loyalty programme?

There are, in essence, three choices.

You have three options for building your programme: internally, through an agency, or through a provider of third-party loyalty programmes. Now, this last part is what Antavo does, and in this blog post, we’d like to explain the distinction between creating a loyalty programme from scratch and doing the same thing with the aid of a third party provider.

How complicated is the proposed loyalty solution?

Would you like the programme to be integrated with every marketing and automation technology you now employ, such as your CRM, ESP, or POS? Do you want the app to be mobile-compatible? How does your mobile app fare? How many other consumer behaviours (for example, rewards for acts other than purchases) would you like to honour through your loyalty programme? Which channels—from social media to email—would you like to incorporate into your plan for communicating with customers who are loyal to you?

A modest programme that merely rewards purchases and offers a few prizes, without affecting your social media accounts or email correspondence, can be implemented in-house at a cheap cost, but it will still take a significant amount of time. However, you should think about whether a programme of that nature will actually keep viewers interested. Long-term success won’t come from an uninteresting programme.

The answers to the aforementioned queries have an impact on how long it will take you to build and launch a reward programme. Of course, you can go with your team if you want to create a modest loyalty programme for a small store and keep the entire project internal and private. However, selecting a partner with fashion industry experience and a versatile loyalty platform can save you months—or even years—if you’re looking for a complex programme that is interwoven into every communication channel you have.

obtaining the necessary information from a loyalty provider

Do you want to know how to be sure a provider of a loyalty programme won’t let you down? To be sure you’re speaking with an informed physician, try asking these questions:

Analytics

Verify that you are receiving accurate data. For instance, how many points do your members spend and earn each month? Or how much money is made through rewards in loyalty programmes? You need to know this information in order to determine whether the loyalty programme is effective. Even though you’ll still need to combine that data with Google Analytics and social media statistics, make sure your loyalty provider is giving you a solid foundation so that you can save time on reporting.

Individualization and white-labeling

Of course, you may create the most distinctive loyalty programme on the market when you construct something in-house. Without a doubt, it will reflect your brand and voice entirely. However, you should also think about the design to make sure it blends in with the rest of your store. In order to obtain the same seamless appearance when working with a third party, you need choose software that is totally white labelled. Ask: How will this look on our site? as a result. A good provider will typically offer a programme that is specifically tailored to your preferences. Each of our customers at Antavo has a programme that complements their brand.

Your front-end developer and designer can recreate the look and feel of your store throughout the loyalty programme using custom CSS and HTML.

Data protection

Customer data, such as personal information, payment information, and in-store activity data, are needed to engage customers and create a tailored fashion experience. All of this data needs to be treated with caution and security. You won’t need to give any data to a third-party source since you may develop the entire loyalty programme in-house. But it goes without saying that the security of all of your customer data should be a loyalty programme provider’s first priority.

Antavo has several layers of security, and we continuously monitor our service to look for abuse, fraud, and hacking. Additionally, we have your back when it comes to GDPR.

Project oversight and assistance

A loyalty programme at your store requires both managerial and technological efforts. If you decide to handle these tasks internally, you’ll require a small, focused crew. One area where a loyalty programme provider might help you save money is there. Make sure you hire a professional account manager to assist you with best practises and staying current with market trends, from developing the point logic for your programme to organising marketing campaigns. A client success team will also assist you in keeping track of the effectiveness of your loyalty programme and will get in touch with you with suggestions and ideas for enhancement, saving your team time on analysis and planning.

You’ll still have complete creative control and brand voice, but you’ll excel in performance optimization.
Give thought to your choice
Even if your marketing and development teams are outstanding and have the skills necessary to create and manage a high-performing loyalty programme, you still need to consider your costs and timescale. Check out the comparison table below to see the differences between working with a third-party provider and going in-house: