Millennials are driving disruption for brands. Not shy about airing their opinion on any matter, millennials’ impact on corporate is clear: they are forcing brands to adapt to their ever-evolving preferences.
This millennial shake-up is making it very difficult for brands to build loyalty and maintain profitability, but a senior marketing official says brands cannot afford to forego the need to build long-term and sustained loyalty.
Customer satisfaction
Figuring out how to continually satisfy and retain customers is the holy grail of marketing, especially in times of innovation, competition and constant industry change. And loyalty is turning out to be particularly challenging across industries.
Nigel Howlett, Managing Director International at Epsilon, a global marketing company, says the lines between loyalty and customer relationship management (CRM) are getting blurred in a healthy way, globally and also in India.
“Loyalty is a subset of CRM: how you manage your customers. Loyalty is about the customer’s understanding. They are not two different things, it is a dimension of CRM,” he said.
Getting consumers to be loyal also means providing them personalised experiences. Noting that consumers have grown to expect personalised content, a recent Epsilon study showed that 90 per cent of consumers found personalisation appealing, with the study showing how those consumers are 10 times more likely to be valuable customers.
Personal recognition
“Personal recognition is an important thing for consumers,” Howlett said. “Take the example of an airline which maps down every detail of the customer journey and which uses it in their customer strategy. It is also a target play."
But there are certain hurdles. Even in a loyalty programme where your brand has the attention of the consumer, to decide which message to send, you need insights to know if your consumer falls into the 94 per cent of Indian consumers who value cash back and discounts, or the 59 per cent of Indian consumers who value loyalty points, or both.