Loyalty Blogs

We all know the economic outlook is getting gloomier due to ongoing inflation in many big organizations, which is driving brands and customers to look for value. Another focus is the deployment of a more cost-effective marketing and loyalty approach with lesser wastage and more certainty of a positive customer experience. To grow and thrive in the competitive business market, businesses must stay aware of all the latest loyalty trends and figure out how they can redefine their loyalty strategies in 2024.

Before you invest in a good Customer Loyalty Software Solution, it’s crucial to know where your business stands in the loyalty journey, which will help in deciding your requirements precisely.

Loyalty Trends to Keep in Mind for 2024 and Beyond

It is worth noting that customers today become loyal to a brand due to two things- value and experience. As customers are quite busy nowadays, brands must focus on saving customers time and money while delivering positive experiences. Here are the top loyalty trends that will help brands build more meaningful relationships with their customers-

1. Rise of Coalition Loyalty

Loyalty coalitions will be one thing that will gain huge popularity in 2024 with many new multi-partner collaborations, which are likely to launch or relaunched with extended features.

Coalition Loyalty Program can help businesses access new customer bases while ensuring that the cost of running a loyalty program is low. As brands are now aware of the power of loyalty partnerships, they are more likely to capture a greater share of customers’ wallets rather than build an independent loyalty program.

2. Classify Customers Without Friction

One benefit of having a dedicated loyalty program rather than a coalition program is that it allows retailers to identify customers at the point of sale, collect data for themselves, and reconcile value between partners.

Mobile wallets act as a great way to identify customers without friction, making it a zero-effort solution for the end user where they only need to add a loyalty card to their wallet of choice.

3. Growing Loyalty Demand in Retail & Grocery

As we witness the frequency and magnitude of spend on grocery businesses, we know that many retailers came up with discount-based loyalty initiatives in 2023. However, instant discounts based on shopping baskets may deliver value for some brands, but it has not gone smoothly for all brands due to reasons like poor CRM capabilities hampering customer profiling, and issues with self-control terminals.

The Auto-checkouts are also being reconsidered due to their impact on customer experience, which means the right solution will be to have a few staffed checkouts for people who like to use them. But the point is you cannot rely entirely on the self-checkout screen for loyalty.

4. Switch from the Traditional Loyalty Program to Composable Loyalty

Composability is gaining attention as partnered solution vendors have greatly improved and simplified their APIs, making digital transformation less hectic. From being just transactional, loyalty programs must evolve with a centralized strategy that encourages the entire customer journey & influences positive outcomes.

In 2024, we will witness more connectivity between loyalty platforms and composable tools for eCommerce, content, products, social commerce, POS, etc. This will help in encouraging customers to serve themselves in many effective ways and reduce friction for all stakeholders resulting in better value, and better experiences.

5. Use of Modern Technology for Precise Targeting

Though cost-cutting techniques have been popular in 2023, it has also reduced customer engagement for many brands. It is important to note that costs must be controlled but only in particular areas like daily operations and infrastructure, which will have little or no impact on customers.

Cost control will be one of the most important trends in 2024 while keeping more focus on customer value. This is possible by making use of innovative technology, which will reduce the wastage of loyalty investment and offer highly targeted offers at lower operational costs.

6. An unsteady economy is likely to shake up CLV in 2024

Due to significant ongoing unsteadiness in the global economy and the people’s budget, marketers are more likely to keep an eye on the Customer Lifetime Value across all their current and past customer segments. If customers become more frugal, many brands will lose sight of spending habits on branded goods and services, which the currency relies on as a way of a valuable customer.

Brands must focus on simple value enhancement like bonus points or discounts on the goods a customer needs to buy, which will make it more likely the customer will add other items to the basket when they visit the store. The goal is to engage more less-frequent customers at a lower cost.

7. Keep More Focus on Experiential Rewards

Making use of experiential rewards is an essential step as it helps customers build memories that hopefully link to the brands. The rewards can be exclusive event tickets, travel experiences, cooking classes, meet and greet with celebrities, early access to new launches, etc.

Using such rewards can help in delivering value to hundreds of customers at a time with a very low delivery cost. Experiential rewards have been a big advantage for loyalty programs in recent years due to their high emotional appeal as experiences are often more appreciated by customers than rewards.

Final Takeaways

After going through the blog, you are now aware of the most useful loyalty trends your brand must focus on in the coming year. However, ensure that you work with the loyalty team that can help you optimize customer value and customer experience unlocking new opportunities.

As you operate in a market that is constantly evolving with changing customer expectations, evolving with the trends that are relevant in your business sector is essential or else your customers will start looking for options and may find greater value somewhere else. If you are looking for a cost-effective way to increase customer value, connect with our loyalty experts today!

Being a top-notch Enterprise Loyalty Program provider, Novus holds year-long expertise in helping businesses maximize their loyalty ROI with solutions aligned with the latest trends. Book a demo to see how Novus can help your business unlock new customer value in no time.