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A good loyalty program encourages shoppers to come back time and again. However, not all businesses operate on the same customer frequency — and sometimes different audiences can visit the same company for different reasons.
Lowe’s dual loyalty programs for homeowners and professional contractors are centered around driving more trips — based on how much those cohorts already shop with the home improvement retailer, according to Amanda Bailey, VP of customer marketing and loyalty at Lowe’s, who spoke during a session last week hosted by CX Dive for the Loyalty 2.0 webinar.
The retailer wants its pro loyalty customers to visit Lowe’s at least 10 to 20 times more than they might in a given year, according to Bailey. In contrast, many homeowners only ever use Lowe’s once or twice — so driving a couple more visits with its loyalty program could have a very large impact on the business.
“Loyalty is a long game, and so just be really focused on, ‘What is your core objective?’” Bailey said during the session. “And for us, that’s around frequency. It keeps us really centered and allows us to keep thinking about what’s going to keep them coming back, trip after trip, year over year.”
The key is to look at loyalty as more than a transactional set of rewards or a marketing program, according to Bailey. A loyalty program should be designed around the customer and take their needs into account from signup to any and all potential future shopping trips.
Confusion is one of the top reasons that people disengage from loyalty programs, according to Bailey. If it’s hard to earn rewards, it doesn’t feel worth the effort to try.
“I’m probably part of about 20 different loyalty programs, and we know the ones that we use the most,” Bailey said. “They’re the ones that are part of our everyday life. They’re easy to use. They give you value. And it doesn’t take a lot of energy and effort to make you feel engaged.”
For Lowe’s, that meant allowing customers to access all their loyalty benefits just by providing their phone number, according to Bailey.
The need for simplicity starts from enrollment, according to Bailey. This doesn’t just mean easy signup — it also means a tiered program can’t make customers work to earn their initial benefits.
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