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News

How to personalise your customer service & why you need to

Image May 27, 2019 Hilary Leave a comment

Customers have more choice than ever before about where to spend their hard earned dollars. With so many competing retailers as well as a wide range of ways to purchase, working to personalise your customer service is becoming even more important. Many businesses would say that they already have personalised marketing in place, but do they really?

Research shows that customers have grown more sophisticated than the basic personalisation that many businesses offer. Strategies to personalise communication, like the annual birthday email for example, are not having the traction many would expect.

In a recent survey, only 7% of respondents said they would be likely to engage with a birthday email, and similarly only 8% would engage with a brand if addressed by their first name in marketing campaigns. This shows that the basic strategies being employed by many Australian businesses to personalise their communication are having little affect.

Why is personalising your customer service so important?

Personalising your customer service and shopping experience can result in higher conversions, and a better customer experience. It ensures that in a sea of emails or marketing communications received by your customers, your message is relevant and has cut through. It costs an average of 5 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing one coming back, and existing customers spend 67% more than new. So, it’s important to ensure that your customers want to come back and are receiving cross-sell opportunities that are likely to get them to buy.

If you’re still not convinced about the return that personalising your customer process could have for your business, check out these stats from a recent survey:

* Only 22% of shoppers are satisfied with the level of personalisation they receive.

* 31% of customers wish their shopping experience was more personalised than it is now.

* 57% of customers are willing to share personal information in exchange for personalised offers.

* 62% of customers expect customers to send tailored offers to them (not generic ones).

How can you personalise your customer service easily?

While personalising your communication & marketing to each customer takes time and effort, there are some simple, automated ways to help you stand out from the crowd. From ways to gather data to automated email platforms, tailoring your message to each customer is easier than you think.

Step 1: Gathering the data

The first step in creating personalised marketing campaigns tailored to your customers is to focus on how to gather the data required. Specific information about each customer’s shopping habits, product choice and the campaigns they are likely to engage with, will help you ensure you’re getting the biggest return for your efforts, translating into more sales and a better return on your cross-sell activities. Here are some simple ways you can capture this information easily:

Membership cards: Membership cards scanned at each new transaction will provide you with information on when, how and what customers purchase. They can also help your customers feel special to your business.

RFID event passes: RFID enabledevent passes scanned at each booth will allow you to track attendee habits, how they move around the event and what sessions and products they engaged with the most. This information can help you build better future events that result in increased customer interaction.

Online shopping data: Use information stored in your online store to send relevant new products and discounts to past customers. This will likely lead to higher conversions and happier customers.

Your tools to gather data could also benefit from some basic personalisation, such as custom printing each membership card, event pass or loyalty card with your customer’s name and details. This is achieved simply through variable data printing from Redegroup. Our team start with a base template for your cards, creating personalised fields for each new customer. These fields can include everything from text to barcodes, and we can even personalise the image to what the customer likes to purchase from you.

Step 2: Creating your marketing campaigns

Depending on your customers and the goals for your next marketing campaign, this step will look different for each business. However, there are some great easy ways to create and roll out your new personalised communication to your customers.

Automated email platforms: Automated email platforms like MailChimp are great, but you will have to extend your campaigns beyond the standard birthday email or generic monthly newsletter to really leverage the data you have gathered. Use your email campaigns to send custom emails triggered by a specific event or behaviour. For example, send a discount offer to customers off their next purchase from your Winter line shortly after they have made a similar purchase. This will help make sure the customer is coming back to your business for their next purchase, with a cross-sell opportunity that they’re likely to take up.

Automated SMS programs: There are a range of automatic SMS programs that you can sign up to that won’t break the bank. Send out relevant SMS messages to customer segments when the time is right. For example, your art gallery may want to send a reminder about an upcoming contemporary art show to any customer who has engaged with a contemporary art show in the past. The data you have gathered on attendees to previous events will allow you send this personalised invitation to a list of specific customers.

Automated Mailhouse services: If you would like to have your brand in your customer’s letterbox rather then their inbox, or you want to send physical gift cards and offers, our MailHouse service at Redegroup can help. We can personalise plastic gift cards and attach to a wide range of stationery, designed for your business & campaign! This allows you to get back to running and growing your business instead of messing around with databases and printing.

Redegroup can help!

Redegroup believe that your existing customers are vital to the strength and growth of your business in the future. Engaging with existing customers comes from personalising the shopping experience for your customers and members. We can help! From plastic membership cards to combo cards and everything in between, we can help you create a personalised customer program that will keep your customers coming back.

Click here to order a sample pack of our key tags & combo cards or click here to request a quote from our team.

News

Paper vs plastic loyalty cards

Image October 29, 2018 Hilary Leave a comment

The paper loyalty card, with a hole punch or stamp to indicate a purchase, is still surprisingly popular in the cafe & hospitality world. So, we wanted to outline the reasons we just love a plastic loyalty card – and you should too! Read through our reasons to swap your paper loyalty cards for plastic & get ready to throw out your good ol’ hole punch.

Why are the benefits of plastic loyalty cards?

#1. They last longer

One of the best things about plastic loyalty card being used by customers, is that they have a much longer life than their cardboard counterparts. Your customers don’t have to be continually picking up a new card – they can keep the same one forever accumulating points and earning them rewards. And being plastic, they’ll last even longer in your customer’s wallet.

And as the plastic environmental debate rages around us, we feel we have to stick up for the humble plastic loyalty card. Don’t get us wrong – we’re all for eradicating single use plastic products – such as straws and disposable cutlery. Plastic loyalty cards are far from a single use item, and should outweigh the energy it takes to create 10 or more paper cards.

#2. They create less work for your staff

We all know how busy it can get in a cafe at lunchtime or the morning coffee rush. Anything you can do to make the line go quicker is worth it, right? While paper loyalty cards have to be hold punched, stamped or signed (which often results in the staff member looking for the closest pen / stamp), plastic voucher can be scanned, instantly tallying the purchase points for their next reward.

#3. They can give you extra information

As plastic loyalty card can be kept forever by your customer, it can accumulate a lot of extra information about your customer that you wouldn’t have had with the cardboard or paper version. What coffee do they like? When’s their birthday? What rewards do they prefer? are all examples of information you can store about your customer on their very own plastic scan-able loyalty card. It gives you more ability to tailor the buying experience to the individual customer – making their purchase more enjoyable.

Redegroup can help you swap your cardboard for plastic

Our expert team at Redegroup can help custom design your very own loyalty cards for your business, and set them up in your POS system. Find out more about our loyalty cards here.

And we don’t just print your order and leave you to deal with the coding. We generate the data and choose the right coding to work with your system. We can even provide a live sample for you to test before the printing of your order is complete.

Click here to order a sample pack of our key tags & combo cards or click here to request a quote from our team.

News

The resurgence of the key tag: why it’s your best branding opportunity in a digital world

Image August 13, 2018 Hilary Leave a comment

You might look at the humble plastic key tag and be sceptical of its relevance in the market today. But the key tag has some hidden marketing power. In a world of contactless payments and loyalty card apps, it means fewer people are carrying bags and wallets.

While these advances in technology have seen more people leaving their wallets at home, everyone still needs to carry their keys, giving businesses a powerful branding opportunity.

They have some pretty potent branding power, but they’re not all fluff. They can also provide some valuable insights for businesses into consumer spending habits and help shape your promotions in the future.

Why are key tags becoming so popular?

#1. Everyone carries their keys

While wallets are becoming less of a requirement when leaving the house, most people still require their house or car keys. If you can get your customers to put your brand on their keys, you’ll be benefiting from a huge amount of free advertising. On the flip side, there’s not much space available on a key ring so you’ve got to come up with some valuable reason for customers to give that limited space to you.

#2. They’re low cost but high impact

It’s not often that a marketing opportunity comes up that’s as low cost and high impact as the key tag. They’re cheap and flexible enough to be personalised to your business with different shapes and colours. Want a key tag in the shape of a donut for your donut shop? Easy! Key tags can be laser cut into any shape and printed with your own images making them easily personalised to your campaign or business.

#3. They can double as a loyalty card

They don’t have to be all about branding either. Key tags can have a number of other uses for you and your customers. In fact, making them more useful to your customer could guarantee you the space on their key ring. They can be printed with barcodes or security chipped, allowing them to double as entry passes into VIP sections or lockers, or used as a customer loyalty card.

#4. They can give you valuable insights into your customer

Printing them with a unique identifier means that every time they’re scanned, your business is gaining valuable insight about your customer. If you’re using it as a loyalty card, you can get some fantastic insight into the purchase habits of your customers, what they like to buy and which promotions might get them more engaged with your business.

#5. They can help customers engage easily with your business

If you’ve ever been stuck at a register digging through your wallet trying to find the right loyalty card for the store you’re in, you’ll appreciate the ease of having a loyalty card or access pass on your key ring. Are you a retail business? Your customers likely have dozens of loyalty cards in their wallet. Make yours easily accessible and high visible by giving them a key tag instead. Are you a gym or members association? Your members could swipe their key tag for easy access to the members-only section or locker.

Redegroup can help you with your key tags or combo cards

Our expert team at Redegroup can help you custom design your key tags with your brand, personalised barcodes or other unique tracking identifiers to help your customers engage with your business and promote your brand easily. Key tags usually live in pockets and handbags and need to be very hard wearing – there’s nothing worse than trying to scan a key tag when the code has worn off! Our high quality tags also include under-laminate printing at no extra cost, making your key tags last longer.

Click here to order a sample pack of our key tags & combo cards or click here to request a quote from our team.

Check out our Combo cards

Our combo cards are made up of a plastic loyalty card with the option of 1 or 2 key tags attached, giving you the opportunity to have your brand in the customer’s wallet, on their keys or lanyard. Find out more about our combo cards here.

News

Why you should build a customer loyalty program

July 18, 2018 Hilary Leave a comment

Retailers in the current low-growth environment usually reach for ‘cost cutting’ as their time tested strategy when looking for more sales. Lower prices should get more people through the door – right? But cost cutting won’t create the thriving base of loyal customers that you’re really hoping for – the kind that keep coming back.

So, how do you create loyal customers? It starts with a great product and a great experience time and time again. If you’ve got all of that and still aren’t seeing the brand loyal customers you know you should, it’s time to focus on building them through a customer loyalty program. You need those valuable customers coming back to your business regularly.

While many retailers recognise the value of a customer loyalty program, not many are doing much to build them. And those who have loyalty programs in place are finding that they’re tired and worn out – and aren’t providing the value they should be. So, does the customer loyalty program still have a place in the modern retail market?

Try these benefits on for size:

#1. You can use the data

This is an often overlooked benefit of retail customer loyalty programs. Not only can you collect shopping habits and data about specific customers, but you can use the overall information to help you make stock and buying decisions. You can get valuable insight into purchase times, sizes, product types and much more. For example, when do your customers react most to a sale? What kind of sales do they love? If they receive a gift card for your store, do they spend more than the gift cards value? Using real data can help you shape your business and marketing to appeal even more to your target market.

#2. Repeat customers are cheaper and more valuable

Everyone seems to know this, but it warrants another mention. Repeat customers are cheaper than new ones and much more valuable. In fact, attracting a new customer costs five times as much as keeping an existing one (Lee Resources 2010). Not only that, the probability of selling to an existing customer is sitting between 60 and 70%, while the probability of selling to a new one is between 5 and 20% (Marketing Metrics).

If you provide them with a great experience and get them coming back you’ve created someone who will spend more money with your business and could perhaps be an advocate to their friends and family. How do you get them coming back though? That’s where the customer loyalty program comes in. Giving them incentives that speak to your particular customer base will get them thinking of you first when they need whatever it is you sell.

#3. Cost cutting won’t cut it

Likely, your range of products are not the first of their kind. And that means there are always going to be competitors in your market. Many of us would reach first to cost cutting and sales events to bring more people through the door, but this isn’t going to cut it forever. There is nothing more powerful than a loyal customer advocate, and a thriving database of loyal customers will be the ticket to growing your business.

Building your customer loyalty program

Now that we’ve established some of the reasons why a customer loyalty program might be what your business needs to grow, let’s have a look at some ways to build an effective program:

What do your customers want?

This is the first question you need to ask yourself when building a customer loyalty program – what do my customers want? Once you know what they want you’ll be able to give them a loyalty program that they’ll put effort in for. Do your customers come to you for coffee & breakfast and would love a free coffee? Or do your customers want free delivery for their online shopping purchases? Figuring out what they want will keep your customers coming back to your business rather than going somewhere else.

How will you offer it?

There are so many different loyalty programs out there – because there are lots of different customers out there. The customer loyalty program you build should be tailored to your customers. You could offer dollars for future purchases, collecting points for free gifts, exclusive offers just to members or event invitations.

With just over 5 million members, Myer One is known to be one of the best loyalty programs in Australia and it’s not hard to see why. Members earn Shopping Credits on purchases at Myer, with these credits converting into a Reward Card on a quarterly basis. For every $1,000 spent at Myer, Members receive a $20 Reward Card. The more you spend, the more benefits available to you. Top tiered members get faster delivery of online purchases, a gift card on their birthday and invitations to exclusive shopping events.

There’s no way the customers who are realising the benefits of the Myer One program are going to David Jones when they’re shopping.

How will you use the database?

Once you’ve got some customers on your loyalty program it’s important to use the data to further drive brand loyalty and tailor your business around your best customers. Find valuable answers from the data you’ve collected like: who your customers are, what do they like to buy and how they like to be communicated with?

These are all important insights when making buying decisions or shaping marketing campaigns.

We’ve got you covered for customer loyalty

Redegroup are one of the biggest loyalty card manufacturers in Australia, and have a range of customised loyalty card printing to help create brand loyalty with your customers. We can even help you test your loyalty cards with your existing POS system to make sure it all works well.

Find out more about Redegroup’s gift card printing