Loyalty programmes must deliver on the benefits for consumers

The growing loyalty market in SA is a fundamental part of the consumer experience and no longer a “nice-to-have” for a business, says Brandon de Kock, director of consumer insights consultancy WhyFive, which owns the Brand Mapp data set responsible for producing the annual SA Loyalty Landscape White Paper.

Loyalty programmes were introduced by businesses to give their customers a reason to shop with them rather than at their competitors. Retail programmes typically reward customer spend — the more the customer spends, the more they are rewarded, often with cashback. Consumers have become more sophisticated and understand which programmes are working for them and which are not.

As programmes too have become more sophisticated they’re also being used to collect customer data, which is incredibly valuable to businesses. 

The challenge for programmes in the retail space is cross-over, with most consumers signed up to multiple programmes, says De Kock. “The simple truism is that people use loyalty programmes to save money. They want real and obvious value for supporting your brand. Effective programmes understand their customers well enough to know not to send them a discount voucher for a product they don’t want.”

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