Customer retention is the most important thing for any organization. It is found that increasing customer retention by just 5% could result in profits that are between 25% and 95% higher, depending on the industry. Loyalty programs make customers happy. But, many organizations cannot integrate CRM with loyalty programs. To know more about the benefits of brand loyalty, read: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/customer-retention-whats-loyalty-got-to-do-with-it-74689

Every business needs a set of loyal customers. The loyal customer varies from one to the other in the field of business. There are customers who are satisfied but are not loyal and can be termed as dangerous customer. They don't really love or hate you. There are customers who are loyal to your loyal program. There are customers who are loyal to your procedure, but not to your products. There are customers who enjoy convenience of our business for some definite reasons. The customers may not like you sometime but they are loyal to whatever they do. A bunch of customer gets attracted only when there is a low price of the products or the process involved. And lastly there are some wise customers who all are loyal to whatever you do. The process or the product process doesn't even matter to them and hence they will stick to the process whatsoever. Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/customer-experience/six-types-of-loyal-customers-01294343

A loyalty program is less about points and rewards and while these perks might attract consumers, they don’t suggest a sense of loyalty. In this age of data, the focus of these programs should be collection of useful data to help maintain good relations which benefit both consumers and the brand. However a business that trusts consumer-provided data is a business making decisions based on what is untrustworthy, random information. From observation of customer activities and external data sources, advanced analytics can create a profile of the customer for precise segmentation of the customer base. Business analysts and data scientists agree that expanding the data for any given model will typically produce dramatic improvements in analysis. That’s why many organizations have turned to a Big Data solution. Read more at: http://www.smartdatacollective.com/davemendle/323701/redefining-loyalty-programs-big-data-hadoop

Loyalty programs are important nowadays as there is stiff competition among companies to win customers. According to a research by Gartner, it was found that 50 per cent of customers cited loyalty programs as the key differentiator between brands. It also shows that these schemes play a key part in the decision process, and therefore right type of engagement is vital in building long-term relationships with customers. Brands also need to consider consistency of message with consumers now using a number of different ways to communicate with providers. In this article by Adam Goran (Divisional Director for Customer Engagement at Grass Roots Group), writes about some key rules of engagement that brands should follow to revive their customer loyalty programs. To know more, follow:  http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/customer-experience/how-not-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-people-key-rules-of-customer-engagement/1206