Rethinking Loyalty: Lending as a Loyalty Lever

Customer acquisition and retention are the two key metrics for any brand in the market. Brands across the globe compete for customers' attention to grab a part of their spending. While in an ideal scenario, once you've acquired the customer, you only need to keep the customer engaged, this is not what generally happens. According to Dominique Crie from the University of Sciences and Technologies Lille, almost a third of the acquired customers become dormant just after the first engagement with the brand.

It is here when loyalty/loyalty programs come into the picture. The general perception in the market for Loyalty Programs is that there's an earning and burning of points and in this process you get customer information which can be utilised for future engagements. While the understanding is partly correct, there are numerous objectives that can be achieved through a Loyalty Program. Infact as a marketer it is our duty to first probe the brand to understand why they intend to build such programs. Some of the objectives can be customer acquisition, customer stickiness / retention, referral, customer engagement, cross sell, upsell, creating a brand recall, brand repositioning or even engage the customers in the brand's social initiatives.…