Building Member Loyalty
Strategies to keep your best customers…the ones you already have.
Loyalty programs are an overlooked way to encourage the continued patronage of your members. They allow credit unions to gather data on member behavior in order to decipher trends, appropriately reward member loyalty, and bolster your relationship with your best customers…the ones you already have.
In a very basic form loyalty programs have been around for a long time. Consider the farmer who threw in an extra ear of corn for his best customers or the iconic S&H Green Stamps program from the 1900’s. Modern-day loyalty programs follow the same principle, albeit with contemporary technology. Social media and online member portals have replaced old school bank statements and face-to-face branch interactions, the tools typically used to connect with customers. So the question becomes: what is your strategy to build member loyalty in the face of changing member expectations? Here are a few tactics to consider.
Leverage the data you already have
Technology enables success in modern member rewards programs. In the digital era, business, banks and credit unions have myriad ways to collect, store, and slice-and-dice customer data and that information can be used to drive highly effective programs. Indeed, the more information you can get and the better you can deal with it, the better you can become at providing incentives that keep members loyal to your organization.
Engage your members
Another important component to any loyalty program is customer engagement. The trouble is that many customers see loyalty programs as a way of being sucked in to what is clearly a marketing initiative. Instead, credit unions should work to first engage their members, the follow up with relevant and meaningful incentives. As yourself: “How do we create a relationship with members?” Not “how can we sell them something?”
Be relevant
Using the data you already have is a cost-effective key to crafting meaningful and relevant member incentives. After all, it won’t do much good to offer a special mortgage rate to a 20-something college student so why not use the information you have to your advantage? Best of all, loyalty offers don’t have to be extravagant, just relevant. Try sending a birthday message to each member on their birthday. How about a Starbucks coupon to say “thank you” in their online statement? Why not send a certificate for free Ghirardelli chocolate during the holidays? Make it relevant, make it meaningful and make your members remember you.
Moving forward
A well-run customer loyalty program can benefit all types of businesses, but especially credit unions where building community relationships and maintaining in-touch member service are paramount. The good news is that member communication management technologies like OMI’s TransXaction allow credit unions to have two-way, back-and-forth interactions with members and leverage account and activity information to craft well-tough loyalty programs. The key to success is for credit union marketers to be the catalysts to create, manage and drive member loyalty across key channels where members engage like social media, online and via electronic member statements.
Brad Banyas is CEO of OMI, a leading Managed Communication Service Provider that assists organizations in transitioning print communications to the paperless world. OMI products, Statement2web® and TransXAction, ™ provide a single point for creating, managing, and measuring customer communications of all kinds. OMI enables business-changing strategies that utilize daily, weekly and monthly customer communications as focal points to reduce cost, increase revenue, improve brand loyalty and boost customer satisfaction. Visit www.omi.co.
