My lovely mother on countless occasions has taught me lessons – both knowingly and unknowingly. An example of the latter nature happened when I bought my car five years back and although my immediate reaction was to wish I could disappear without a trace, it was a lesson well learned.
As I was about to collect my keys after checking the condition of the car, I heard my mother’s voice from the other side of the room loudly asking the sales rep, “Aren’t you giving us anything free? We’ve paid so much for the car! Don’t tell me you have nothing to give us at all!”.
Before I could chide my mum, a steering wheel lock and a 50% discount voucher for tint services were materialised before me. Apart from being thoroughly impressed I couldn’t help but wonder if the sales rep would have given me this product had my well-intentioned mother not asked for it.
Would it have made a difference if the sales rep himself made an effort to provide the freebies without being prompted? Of course. When a business gives more value for money to its customer, the latter would automatically be in favour of the business more than its competitors. And a recent story that Lava’s Corporate Sales Manager, Nicole told me further proved this point.
Nicole has been a Kiehl’s customer for almost 2 years and in that period the service she’s received told her one thing – the brand really knows how to keep its customers up-to-date and happy. How so, you ask? Well simply put, Kiehl’s has a customer loyalty programme that goes an extra mile.
Most loyalty programmes are designed to send out monthly emails to notify how much points you’ve acquired to date and how much is about to get dumped into the trashcan if you don’t use it within a certain period.
What Kiehl’s did, according to Nicole, was prompt her via SMS on the status of her points. She received an initial text about her loyalty points which were about to expire very soon. The SMS came with an accompanying URL that she could visit to convert the points into a voucher. Due to work, Nicole was a little swamped and forgot to redeem her points and naturally regretted on not acting on it sooner
Two days later when her points expired, she received another text notifying that Kiehl’s has already redeemed her expired loyalty points into a voucher for her and that she just needs to present the reference number attached in the SMS to use it.
In her own words, Kiehl’s went beyond the usual customer loyalty management process which was obviously very impressive. Companies that take extra effort always leave an impression on customers which translates into a long-lasting business relationship.
At a time where your wallet or purse is filled with more member cards than cash, loyalty management can be a real tedious process for customers. But if more and more companies implemented a well-thought customer loyalty programme such as Kiehl’s, not only will customers be more inclined to stay loyal but will also be more prone to market it to their circle of friends.
If you’re having thoughts about creating or reworking on your customer loyalty programme, your solution lies within Lava Labs’ Custella that has a pre-built loyalty management module which can be customised to suit both your needs and your customer’s.
By: Ruba Nackeeran, Corporate Communication & Legal Manager
Lava Labs specialises in helping enterprises redefine their business with the use of cloud, big data, web & mobile technology by leveraging on world class technology. We bring together innovation and technology, combined with expertise and deep understanding of industries.