aheadCRM

    Some time ago my wife Nicole posted a small series of blogs about the topic of Loyalty on ciber.com . In these readable blogs she identified and summarised three main strategies of acquiring loyal customers, which are Every day low price Classic loyalty programs that base upon cash-back options or that are points based Hybrid models To gain and retain loyal customers it is necessary for Retailers (or brands, or …) to get into a mutual engagement with the customers. In order to achieve this it needs something like a WOW!-factor. An important way to get this factor for Retailers is the usage of social media (or social CRM when being more advanced). Every day low price of course means plain ole price competition. No WOW!-factor whatsoever involved here. On top of that there can be only one competitor that actually has the lowest price. All the others go in from second place onwards. Given that, competition only on price is the surefire way to a Retailer’s death if the Retailer

    A while ago I blogged about threats and solutions in the retail industry that have their origin in rise of social media; with this post I would like to continue on this topic, focusing on possible solutions for retail companies.     This blog also ties in to a recent article by Mark Tamis on Social CRM in Retail . In his article Mark describes an interesting and elaborate scenario that showcases a technology enabled, consumer and network driven decision process, using the example of buying a party dress. This example is interesting because, although the process is entirely consumer driven, the involved companies use the technology to add value to the customer, thus achieving a win-win situation.     What the involved companies (a retailer and a hairdresser) are doing is establishing customer loyalty by Engaging the customer   Providing a superior shopping experience, combining online- and offline aspects Enabling the customer to get immediate feedback from their network Wit

Brick-and-mortar retail businesses face a combination of ever-increasing customer expectations, customers being “educated” to expect and receive promotions, and of course an ever increasing competition in the market place for their customers’ share of mind and share of wallet. On top of all this they need to realize that they do not control the communication to their customers anymore, let alone being capable of controlling the communication in between their customers. As many bloggers, including myself, and analysts already stated, the advent of extremely user friendly and ubiquitous mobile devices and web applications essentially decoupled retailers from communications between their customers and even led to their marketing messages becoming part of the “background noise” for lots of consumers – just something one filters out when it comes to getting serious information. Of course there are exceptions, especially considering that retail businesses reacted to this threat. For retail