Winning Customer Loyalty From The Passenger Seat

In today’s cluttered marketing environment, it is becoming increasingly difficult to win customer loyalty. Consumers are becoming promiscuous - hunting for deals on deal sites, and fighting each other for bargains during record-breaking Black Friday sales; low confidence in the weak economy means consumers have to continue to be financially responsible; consumers expect to feel the VIP treatment as standard; and as consumers spend more time in the digital world, marketers have to find new ways to connect, engage and remain relevant.

The marketing environment has changed. Customers have changed. The way customers consume content, engage with brands, how they shop and how they interact with one another - has all changed. What hasn’t changed is the way many brands approach CRM (customer relationship management).

There is a changing dynamic in the ownership of the relationship between brands and their customers. As marketers, we are no longer in control of this relationship.

As marketers, we need to take an interactive approach to CRM and how we build customer loyalty now and in the future. We need to foster interactions, connections, engagements and experiences between customers and brands. We interact with customers in the places they engage with each other, and in places they feel comfortable engaging with us.

Consumers have more power than ever before and emerging technologies are changing the way people shop and behave - your CRM and loyalty marketing programs needs to evolve. Our customers now have the ability to build up brands, and to also bring them to their knees. So choose now - do you want brand advocacy, or anarchy?

To build a better relationship with your customers, you must first engage them, and then keep them engaged. Only then will those consumers decide whether to change the dynamics of their relationship with you.

We, as marketers, are simply bystanders. We are in the passenger seat. And it’s from here that we must drive engagement, interactions and experiences, and ultimately earn customer loyalty.

Havas Discovery has developed ten core principles of loyalty marketing that are relevant to today’s marketing environment. Stay tuned as our agency unveils the ten principles of CRM right here on the HAVAS Discovery blog over the next few weeks!