Why Customer Experience Management and Why Right Now?

You run a successful business, your customers are primarily repeat offenders, and your marketing department is giving you everything you ask for. Why would you care about doing more around customer engagement and, more importantly, why would you do it right now? These are great questions that customer loyalty marketers should be asking themselves. After all, who has the money to invest in the latest fads without solid reasons?

Skepticism is a good thing, but you’d have to agree that if there were compelling reasons, you should act—and soon. Here are the reasons others are implementing loyalty platforms and why you should, too.

The Connected World

First and foremost, we live in a recently-connected world that’s growing more so every day. Customers walking through the door are very likely to be carrying a computer in their pocket, and are interacting with your brand whenever and wherever they choose. Are you there and available to engage? Does your presence outside of the store look more like a billboard or do you ask your customers to raise their hand for your loyalty programs?

If you’ve invested in customer loyalty programs that include mobile loyalty, your answer to these questions is the difference between a shopper walking through the door and a connected, loyal customer. A loyal customer is now one that you recognize and immediately pick up the in-person part of the relationship. While that shopper may have been in before and may come back, the loyal customer shares information with you at a level that betters your products and provides the strategy for how and when to engage.

That strategy becomes reality through the use of a loyalty platform that can tie together data, understanding, and action across any connected channel.

No Brand Is an Island

Secondly, while you’re thinking about your next move, you’re not alone. Many brands realize that the connected world and loyalty are two parts of the same solution for engaging customers effectively. At this point, the value of taking a platform approach to customer experience management isn’t in doubt. The only question is this: Which brands will capitalize on the connected world now, and which will wait, possibly until their customers have gone in the direction of a better experience with another brand?

This post first appeared on the Loyalty Lab Blog and has been lightly edited.