How do you effectively engage and communicate with customers in the face of Covid-19? Here is a playbook for how to use your loyalty program to help keep the doors open.
Social distancing, isolation, and even quarantine have been the common denominator in the last couple of months. Mandatory closing of businesses has increased across the world and foot traffic is all but extinct. So how can you engage with your loyalty customers to keep them shopping with you?
As a leading provider of loyalty program and rewards experiences, here are some of the steps we're seeing brands take:
- Direct your efforts to incentivize online ordering, delivery, & take-out. Make sure your loyalty program campaigns to offer rewards that can be easily redeemed every time an online order is placed. Spendgo’s integration with leading online ordering platforms like ToGo and Olo, allows shoppers to easily earn and redeem rewards as they place their orders. Don’t forget to outlay clear and easy-to-understand instructions on how to order online, earn points, and redeem rewards.
- Email and text customers to let them know you are open. Also, share with them safety measures you have taken, like contactless delivery or offering paid sick leave to employees so that they don’t work while sick.
- If you currently have an ongoing loyalty program, let your customers know that their points, rewards, benefits and offers will not expire and that they’ll have extra time to use them. It is important that your customers understand that their hard-earned rewards are still available, and that those that apply to in-store visits, will be redeemable once your business resumes its normal operation.
- Turn off automated campaigns that no longer make sense in the scope of current operations. Ex. campaigns and contests designed to have customers dine-in at your restaurant should be disabled.
- You should be aggressive with bonus points so that loyalty customers can earn points more quickly and use them once you re-open. If you don’t have an integration between your loyalty program and online ordering system you can just take down customer information manually and upload it later.
- Use Social Media to share up-to-date and interesting content with your customers. A great number of your customers might be already working from home, and likely staying indoors; this means that they are likely to find themselves with more free time thus spending more time online. This is a great opportunity to create and share content of interest, like talking about your industry trends, indoor activities, keeping healthy, or even do-it-yourself tips. For example, if you are a restaurant, you can think of sharing tasty and easy-to-make recipes that are related to the ingredients/products your business offers. Share your content through blog posts, newsletters and social media posts. Also, be sure to share updated information on the COVID-19 safety recommendations, and the specific approach your business is taking to keep employees and customers safe. Show that you care for your community.
- If it makes sense with your business, think about finding partnerships with other businesses, in which you can offer joint-rewards to incentivize more spending. Not only will this encourage more of your customers to shop with you, but also drive new customers originating from your neighbors. For example, offer to sell growlers from your local brewery with food orders from your restaurant.
By taking advantage of these recommendations we hope your business can weather the storm by leveraging customer loyalty as one of your available tools.