LOYALTY MORE AND MORE DIFFUSED PROGRAMS
by Vincenzo Caccioppoli
That of customer loyalty programs is a market that is worth almost 2 billion dollars, a figure that by 2023 could triple by growing at least 20% more each year.
74% of Italians are enrolled in a loyalty program with at least one retailer that offers this type of initiative (EU and World media 66%). 44% adhere to a number of programs between 2 and 5, one consumer out of 6 (17%) is enrolled in more than six programs. The figures emerge from Nielsen's Global Survey "Retailer Loyalty: Card-carrying consumer perspectives on retail loyalty program participation and perks" drawn up on a sample of over 30,000 individuals in 63 countries.
"The personalization of the offer" said the a.d. by Nielsen Italia Giovanni Fantasia, “constitutes the future of loyalty programs especially in Italy, where the margins of growth in this sense are still very wide. It is necessary to build a personal relationship to interact directly with the client, for example through Social Media. On the other hand, acquiring a customer is much more expensive than keeping it. It is estimated that the cost for companies in this sense is 7 times greater. In some sectors such as telecommunications, a saturated market, for example, we have been witnessing for years a real war between operators to try to "steal" customers from the competition, with increasingly advantageous offers that inevitably impact on the accounts. After the arrival of new low-cost operators, retaining their customers is becoming an increasingly necessary operation. This is why it becomes mandatory to rely on loyalty programs, gamification and win loyalty to try to retain more and more customers. Not to mention the large retail chains that are investing figures and technologies to improve their loyalty programs, making them much more attractive to customers. Or to stay with the things of our house, think of the battle between Alitalia and Ethiad for the millemiglia program. For the loyalty program of the Italian company, in fact, it has arrived at the legal dispute, to testify how important it is to have control of the database of the program. According to some, the entire alliance project had the sole objective of the Emirates company to get their hands on Alitalia's loyalty program.
Not to mention the success of Prime by Amazon, a match for the most trusted customers of the econmerce giants, which guarantees advantages and rewards for members. One of the reasons why Jeff Bezos became the richest man in the world, in fact, consists precisely in his almost insane habit of analyzing every aspect of consumer behavior. Amazon has implemented, over its long history, several improvements to satisfy customers and to retain them, with a consequent increase in sales. More and more people are enrolled in his loyalty program, precisely because Bezos immediately thought of how to retain his customers and make them increasingly loyal, giving privileges to those who agreed to join his loyalty program. Also according to Nielsen study data, it can be seen that more than six out of ten consumers (62%) declared to buy preferably, on equal terms, at stores offering loyalty cards. 60% of the loyalty program is the reason for continuing to attend the store that offers it. 55% spend more money and increase the frequency of purchases in the presence of these initiatives. In this context it is certainly positive as not to mention the possibilities that the new technology like the blockchain can offer to this type of program. In fact, even for the suppliers of loyalty bonus programs, as a recent Deloitte report says, “the blockchain could have the potential to simplify the execution and administration of their programs with almost real-time transparency, and with savings on costs that can be achieved in the medium term ”. According to the authors of the Deloitte report, the blockchain will allow an instant and secure creation, redemption and exchange of loyalty points between programs, suppliers and industries through an environment without trust using cryptographic tests instead of trusted third parties and administrators. Through a rigorous online protocol, made up of well-programmed default blocks and thanks to the use of smart contracts, the blockchain has the ability to operate without intermediaries. This is an aspect that will help speed up all the bureaucratic delays associated with the registration and distribution of loyalty points and the related prizes or discounts, allowing even greater certainty that the entire process will be carried out without the possibility of complaints. This would also limit the costs associated with the entire process behind loyalty programs. And on this it seems to point the new Italian company, the first ecommerce platform for cashback on blockchain, Coinshare.
The company recently presented in Rome, which already has its Cj token listed on the exchange The token, pursues in fact the objective of creating through the blockchain a customer loyalty and business loyalty-based program based on the sharing economy. The project is ambitious but has already achieved exciting results in a very short time, already having thousands of users and companies operating through their coinshare.market platform. "It will be the evolution of cashback systems and / or old collection points and will allow companies and shops that will enter our platform - on blockchain - says Luigi Maisto the co-founder and president of the company - will be able to share in a secure, decentralized and transparent way their customers. The goal is to be able to increase revenues and reduce costs by creating a "community of customers" that can, through the blockchain, have the possibility of using tokens that can be spent in the circuit in complete safety and / or transformable into other cryptocurrencies or even in "fiat".
