“If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will” – Bob Hooey. And that’s exactly where loyalty programs come in. Why do they work? Rob Meakin, Managing Director at Loyalty Pro, explains.

Those are words for any business leader, retailer or independent store owner to live by. But actually, are you taking care of your customer? Are you putting them first, or your business first?

The difference between the customer of 2008 and 2018 is very different. Ten years ago, online retail was a relative youngster, the high street dominated retail purchasing and waiting 3-5 days for an online purchase to arrive wasn’t considered strange. Nowadays, customer loyalty has shifted from brand to service, Amazon now offers delivery within an hour and consumers do a vast amount of their shopping online.

The decline of the high street store and rise of online shopping have reduced footfall and revenue for many companies looking to compete in an increasingly shrinking space, particularly those in the independent retail space.

In a country with increasing inflation, tightening purse strings and a lack of confidence in its economic future, gaining customers’ loyalty and increasing repeat purchases is more important now than ever before.

Whether you’re an independent coffee shop owner or Managing Director of a local toy store, everyone is looking for a solution to increase footfall and entice the customer back.

Empowering the customer

This solution lies within a loyalty programme that addresses the needs and wants of the customer first and the business second. Yet far too often, loyalty schemes are designed with the latter in mind. Look at Tesco – they attempted to redesign their loyalty offering to make it “simpler” for the customer, but appeared to put their business interests first.

And what happened? The move not only alienated customers, but the social media and general public backlash was so pronounced that it forced the supermarket to delay rolling out their new scheme. What Tesco didn’t do was to think about what the customer wanted. Or if it did, it certainly didn’t do enough market research on it.

It put the supermarket on the back foot and facing a PR nightmare. It took power away from the customer by “simplifying” its vouchers, but what this ultimately meant was reducing some of the vouchers’ values. This was very much egg on the face for the UK’s biggest retailer.

The sweet spot of simplicity

Pulling wool over customers’ eyes in the case of the above example won’t go down too well. But actually, businesses are able to create a loyalty scheme that can find that perfect spot of simplicity and genuine reward.

If you’re a business that relies on repeat custom, you need an easy loyalty solution and one that isn’t going to drive away your customers, and you need to make sure you’re satiating the needs of everyone. In practice, not everyone wants loyalty in the same way; this means that you need to ensure that you’re covering both an app and a loyalty card – and even paper vouchers in some instances.

And there’s no use overcomplicating a points-based system, either. It’s not just about simplicity, but simplicity through choice; after all, it’s what you can do with the points that matters. Offer a discount or promotion at your own store. Allow the customer to donate to a choice of charities in the area. Work with other community stores and business owners to increase loyalty in the region.

Personalising your offering

If you do decide to offer promotions and discounts at your own store, make sure that the rewards you are offering the customer are tailored and personalised to that customer. Using the latest loyalty solutions that can take your data, enhance it and give you a complete customer view are essential for bringing the customer back to the store.

It’s about being clever with the data you have. If a customer is going into your coffee chain Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays generally, why not offer a personalised discount on the Tuesday and the Thursday too, specific to that customer? These days, consumers want the VIP treatment and to be part of the ‘membership economy’ – and you can do that through tailored schemes that cut through.

In this age of wavering customer loyalty, you need to deploy a loyalty scheme that is honest, personalised and simple. But these concepts are not mutually exclusive when we’re talking about loyalty in 2018.

Put your customer first so your competitor won’t have to.

Customer satisfaction isn’t something that resonates when we think about insurance companies, so what are they getting wrong? Karen Wheeler, Country Manager and Vice-President of Affinion UK, here presents for Finance Monthly 4 ways insurers can improve customer fulfilment.

The insurance industry didn’t have much cause for celebration when the Institute of Customer Satisfaction released its latest Customer Satisfaction Index. In a survey of over 10,000 UK customers, the sector faced the unenviable accolade of being the only sector not to improve its satisfaction index score compared to the previous six months. In contrast, banks, leisure and telcos were some of the sectors to show improved levels of customer satisfaction. This bad news was echoed by research by The Actuary, which revealed 27.9% find the insurance sector the worst when it comes to customer service.

So, for an industry which is notorious for low customer loyalty and bad service, what can providers do to build better relationships with their customers?

1. Stand out in a crowded market

The challenge insurers’ face is that they operate in a highly commoditised environment, with customers faced with a sea of overwhelming choice. And the truth is that customers are often only basing their choice on price. According to research by Marks & Spencer, 95% of respondents stated that price was one of the most important factors to them when deciding which insurance provider to choose.

Insurers also know their customers will typically only make contact when they either need to make a claim, or renew a policy. And making a claim usually happens at a point of crisis, for example theft, damage or loss – when people are, understandably, feeling worried about their possessions, health or family.

These factors combined means insurers need to work hard to differentiate themselves from competitors by engaging with customers in a positive way, and finding new reasons to be a part of their lives. For example, thinking beyond the traditional, physical products insurance policies cover – homes, cars, phones – to solutions that can help customers keep their personal data safe online.

2. Deliver the right digital service

In a world where we live our lives through our devices – using apps to transfer money, ordering shopping to be delivered on the same day – it’s clear that insurers need to keep pace with the digital age. However, there are still improvements to be made, a recent survey by Eptica found the UK’s leading insurance companies fail to accurately answer more than two thirds (68%) of routine questions asked through the web, email, Twitter and Facebook.

Looking to the US for inspiration, digital insurer Lemonade is making waves for its digital-first, fuss-free approach to claims. At the start of 2017, its virtual assistant Jim set a world record as it reviewed, processed and paid a claim in 3 seconds – with no paperwork. If all insurers can aim to deliver this level of service, which brings cost and time-saving benefits to consumers, this could lead to increased engagement, loyalty and advocacy.

3. Think outside the box

Many people take out insurance policies and never have to make a claim. The appeal of a policy is the peace of mind it offers; consumers feel better knowing that if the worst happens, they have the support in place to help them. Of course, it isn’t just physical possessions – houses, cars, phones – that people want to protect.

With cyber hacking scandals hitting the headlines every week, consumers are increasingly aware, and worried about, the threat of online fraud. According to research by Callcredit Information Group, 66% of consumers perceive the risk of identity theft and online fraud as one of their biggest concerns around sharing personal information online.

As the old saying goes, prevention is better than cure – and this is certainly the case when it comes to online fraud. If a hacker finds out the password a person uses across several sites, it can quickly snowball out of control. This is clearly a risk many take, with Callcredit also revealing less than half (49%) of consumers regularly change their passwords as a way to prevent fraud.

4. Become their digital guardian angel

So what can insurers do to help their customers? When you consider the perception consumers’ have of their insurers as guardians of their belongings, there is a natural role they can play in helping customers to prevent and detect fraud incidents before they have even occurred – and help assist and resolve issues if they do arise. For example, providing cyber prevention and detection services that continually monitor their customers’ activity online and flags incidents when they’re at risk.

With insurance often seen as a necessary, but not particularly enjoyable part, of life, insurers need to think beyond their remit and consider how else they can add value and benefits to consumers’ lives. That way, they may well move up the table in the next Customer Satisfaction Index.

By Rob Brown, Associate Vice President at Cognizant’s Centre for the Future of Work

Chatbots are gaining in popularity in a number of industries as an important customer service tool, with financial services and insurance particularly keen to roll them out: Crédit Agricole Assurance has Marc, and Bank of America recently announced it was introducing Erica. Barclays, Société Générale, USAA, BBVA, and Capital One have all also begun investigating the technology.

The rise of chatbots is being driven by several converging trends: the popularity of messaging apps, the explosion of the app ecosystem, advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive technologies, conversational user interfaces and a wider reach of automation. Their adoption is accelerating so quickly that Oracle believes that 80% of brands will be using them by 2020. But will the current hype be sustainable over time without a stronger business rationale and better short-term results?

We live in an age of instant gratification, and this certainly applies to exchange of information – the core mission of financial services.  So why are customers confronted with long wait-times on hold, being transferred department-to-department, or having to wait through a list of phone prompts? In the context of chatbots, it is actually not about “the robot” at all, it is all about how easy the end-user finds it to use, and simply whether it works or not. To get it right, businesses should start preparing for the coming bot age now if they have not begun to already. This means peeking into the future and designing bots to respond to today’s customer needs, such as personalisation, context, meaning, first contact resolution, management, as well as bot-human interaction and interface design.

Here are four areas chatbots will evolve.

1. Specialisation and Personalisation
   For chatbots to be effective, they need to become far more specialised in topics and tasks, and have the ability to personalise interactions. As time goes by, we will begin to see this happen. Very soon we will see expert chatbots that specialise in providing information about different banking solutions, while there will be some like x.ai’s Amy, Apple’s Siri or Microsoft’s Cortana that are experts in making calls and scheduling meetings, or helping to orchestrate process steps. For example, your close of escrow got delayed due to unforeseen disclosures from the seller – was the bank notified not to fund the mortgage loan? In-the-moment examples like these will make chatbots more utilitarian and dependable.On the flip side, users will also then need to understand what the chatbots does, specialises in, excels in and – most importantly – where it has limitations. This leads to one of the most crucial design decisions: the history of continuity and personal connection. Consider this element as a “tuning fork” of sorts that brings together and harmonises all interactions a person may have on a given subject.If the user were to stray from a central line of main dialogue, for example, from Siri to Facebook Messenger, a chatbot will need the history and context of other discussions with people, places, and things in order to provide continuity and personal connection. In turn, this will dictate how much personalisation can be brought into the interaction itself. For instance, can the system remember user profiles, previous interactions, the interactions of other users in the system, the current context and the situational bigger picture? Chatbot creators will then need to design them so that they can access this information using a multitude of systems and derive meaning from that information, all while keeping the central “plot line” of context intact.
2. Speed of ResponseOne of the things that makes most present-day browsers so useful is their ability to answer questions at almost the speed of the user’s thoughts – sometimes faster. The experience of a good chatbot interaction is not judged only on its capacity to answer a question correctly but also the speed at which such a response is provided. In the bot world, solving a problem after a first contact with a customer will become a key performance metric.Chatbots that can provide basic solutions in the first instance without the need to paraphrase or explain the problem in greater detail will be the most useful and, by extension, the most popular.
3. “Superbots” – Your Personal Assistant
   The concept of a superbot is not yet well known but will be a significant element in the future of bots. Indeed, as bots become more specialised and popular, they will proliferate. For many companies, managing them could become as overwhelming and complex as managing apps is today. The solution could come in the form of a superbot.A superbot, or “bot of bots,” would act as a personal assistant, getting things done on behalf of the user. That would mean calling other bots to complete tasks such as scheduling meetings, dialing conference call numbers or redirecting the customer to the appropriate page to make a claim. The superbot would know which bot to call for a particular task and instruct that bot to provide feedback to the user, therefore being faster and more efficient. Some platforms already use “global managers”, automated robots that orchestrate workflow, and delegate which process transactions should be worked on by myriad other robots.
4. Humanising Chatbots
   Many of us will have seen an example of a gimmicky, humanoid “greeter robot” deployed in your high-street bank branch but the chances are, it fell short on actual needs-based problem solving for the customer. Chatbots, to the rescue – customers actually want solutions to process common choke-points in the gaps between information flows. Most of today’s technology exploration focuses on enhancing features and improving functionality to enable chatbots to mimic human responses, engaging in a more natural, intelligent conversation with users. Despite the merits of this work, the continued success of chatbots will not wholly depend on their ability to conduct a natural conversation but on the accuracy of their responses to customers’ questions at the moment-of-truth: when the tax bill is due, when the overdraft charge kicks in or when the mortgage documents are being finalised.Humans can sense when they are interacting with a machine, and any attempt to make it appear more human rather than intelligent may end up triggering negative emotional responses in humans— this phenomenon has been called “the uncanny valley” by a Japanese roboticist in the 70s. That is why some novelties robots are merely a distracting detour on the road to real breakthroughs in applying automation that matters to the financial services sector for real and lasting results.

Chatbots will be the vanguard of these efforts, and success will hinge upon their ability to become useful, maybe even indispensable, to human beings. Automation has its limits — and there are some things that robots just cannot do. That is where a blended model of automation augmenting people in their daily lives, conversations, and information requirements can provide extraordinary outcomes. By connecting conversations with meaning, context and intelligence, and providing people with relevant information in real-time and after absences, chatbots will provide as higher quality service and outcomes.

For companies in financial services, in addition to other industries, it requires striking a balance between speed, specialisation, and personalisation provided by chatbots and the ability to cater to human sensibilities and expectations. After all, the main goal is to support users and to make their lives easier.

How much is your brand worth? Donald Trump values his personal brand at more than $3billion.

Shweta Jhajharia of The London Coaching Group defines a business’s brand equity as comprising all the associations, emotions, and experiences that come to mind when a consumer is exposed to the brand: basically, what kind of bond is there between you and your customers? The stronger that bond is, the higher your brand equity. Here Jhajharia suggests four ways you can ensure your business is focused on the right sort of brand equity development.

While being knee-deep in international intrigue and political controversy aren’t problems most business leaders have to deal with, the fragility of brand equity is something that all entrepreneurs need to be aware of.

And what does strong brand equity get you? Someone camping on the tarmac overnight, sipping coffee from a thermos, although dreaming of a Bacardi and coke, while using a biro to write a reminder on a post-it note that the new hoover they’re queuing for is actually a Dyson.

But remember, brands becoming an integral part of the shoppers’ lexicon is an occasional side-effect of success, not the aim; James Dyson won’t care if you call his vacuum cleaners hoovers, but he’ll be quite pleased if every time you see a dustbag-free cleaner you think Dyson.

Your communications, your product performance, your customer service, even your brand name can strengthen or degrade your brand equity.

1. Quality Products and Services

This is the backbone of your whole brand. It is vital that you’re able to deliver a quality product to your consumers if you want repeat purchases and good word of mouth.

Unfortunately, businesses in every industry make the mistake of releasing products for the sake of appearing to be innovative. Releasing a product that hasn’t been fully tested and doesn’t match the performance expectations of consumers (yes, I’m looking at you Windows Vista), can erode brand equity.

Insist that any product or service you bring to market delivers something new for your business’ portfolio; it shouldn’t be there just to pad out your catalogue.

2. Competitive Analysis

A strong brand is a brand that can adapt to market shifts. To be such a brand, keep an eye on industry trends and your competitors’ activities; basically, don’t be Blockbuster.

An effective way for brands to build their brand equity is to target a niche: meet a specific need that no one else is currently satisfying. This radiates both innovative thinking and great understanding of your consumers, and being admired and respected is the hallmark of strong brand equity.

3. Consistent Brand Image

When you understand the market and your place within it, you need to communicate that to consumers in a consistent and engaging manner.

Your products and your pricing are hugely important, but so too are other aspects of your business. From your brand name and straplines to your social media activity, every part of your business that comes into contact with customers and potential customers must be refined to ensure it is highly targeted. For some, a comparison website helped them decide between Sky and Virgin Media, but others will have had their choices influenced by Idris Elba’s manly charisma or by David Tennant’s kooky charm.

Establish your brand image from the start, and model your business accordingly. If you operate in the premium sector of your industry, be classy. If your product or service is about putting a smile of people’s faces, be fun: everyone wants their car to be well-made, but there’s a reason Vorsprung Durch Technik helped sell Audis not Minis.

Be congruent, and be consistent. Consumers know what they like, and they like what they know. Be in control of what they know.

4. Listen to Customers

Brand equity resides in the minds of your customers. Listen to them.

Remember this?

Coca-Cola: Here’s New Coke.

Consumers: Meh!

Coca-Cola: Sorry about that. Anyone for Classic Coke?

Well done for listening and remedying that faux pas, but that could have been avoided by asking consumers of the world’s most popular soda if they actually wanted it to taste different.

Ensure that your consumers are given channels to give their feedback. This will help you understand strengths and weaknesses of your brand as well as the opportunities for growth (and changes to avoid).

Understanding brand equity, and how to develop it, is important, whatever stage your business is at. You must be able to create a positive image in your consumers’ minds if they are to become repeat customers, or become a part of your referral strategy. Achieve this, and your brand will strengthen and you’ll see real growth.

Oh, and try not to be impeached.

Written by Steve Powell, Director of Sales – EMEA at PCMS

No matter which (or how many) channels consumers shop through, a smooth end-to-end experience is now their expectation. They care little for how difficult retailers find it to serve them consistently and effectively; they simply want what they want, whenever and wherever they want it.

The good news for consumers is that most retailers now have a firm grasp on delivering to this expectation. However, for even the more mature omnichannel organisations, there is often a sticking point: payments.

When it comes to customer service, payments are the ‘last mile’ in conversion, and abandonment rates due to poor performance are still higher than most retailers would like. Online, for example, figures compiled by the Baymard Institute show that 74% of ecommerce carts were abandoned in 2016. This is even more concerning when you consider that the average abandonment rate was 69% five years previous.

Payment pain points are not solely an issue for the web, either. Research conducted by telecoms operator EE revealed that 73% of shoppers will abandon their purchases in stores if forced to queue for more than five minutes. A slow or unreliable payment experience can be a major contributor to waiting times.

Prioritising payments

 Many retailers are investing heavily in the checkout experience both on and offline to enhance the customer experience, and it’s vital that payments are prioritised as part of this initiative.

For example, online, retailers that are choosing to work with a payment gateway provider need to ensure that it integrates seamlessly with the rest of their site. Suddenly redirecting shoppers to an inconsistently branded – or even unbranded – payment page can be jarring, and make them start to question its authenticity, which in turn may cause basket abandonment.

Equally, the ecommerce payment experience needs to work around local customer needs. This means creating a secure experience without making authentication overly burdensome, while also giving shoppers the option to pay in their local currency, through their preferred payment method.

In the store, meanwhile, many organisations are rolling out mobile Point of Sale (mPOS) technology to provide a richer, more personalised customer service in their stores. However, many are focussed on getting shoppers to convert – access to stock availability, product information, product demonstrations and reviews – than what happens when the customer is ready to buy.

The most effective in-store technology solutions embrace the complete customer journey right through to the checkout, and that means integrating payments into device capabilities.

By making payments a key feature, store associates are empowered to enhance customer service in other ways. One example of this is queue busting during peak periods, as mPOS liberates front-line staff from fixed checkouts and allows them to take payments anywhere in the store.

Checking in – not out – with customers

 As I’ve already touched on, mobile store technologies enrich customer experiences by drawing on digital information. Many retailers are already looking at how operational data and knowledge of shoppers’ online behaviours can enhance the shopping experience, but some solutions have the power to take this even further.

For instance, retailers such as Marks & Spencer are exploring ‘mixed basket’ capabilities at the store checkout. When a shopper comes to pay or pick-up their click & collect order, they can also be given the option to pay for items that have been placed in their online shopping basket when they’ve been browsing the web.

This is an effective example of how activities in multiple channels can come together at the point of transaction. A well-integrated payment capability can enable the customer to kill two birds with one stone, and the retailer to increase the value of that customer interaction with relative ease.

Making shopping and transactions indivisible

Undoubtedly, improvements have been made over the past few years in the omnichannel capabilities retailer can offer customers. The next aspect to smooth out the payment experience.

As I said at the start of this article, payments are the last mile in customer service, and therefore one of the biggest influences on customers’ lasting impressions of a retailer. Therefore, the quality of the payment experience is not just about winning or losing a sale; it can have a powerful effect on how shoppers perceive a retail brand.

With this in mind, when it comes to customer retention and loyalty, the most successful retailers will be those who prioritise making shopping and transactions indivisible. Wherever they are, whatever they are buying, the customer should barely notice they are checking out.