Building loyalty is just as important to a business as growing its customer/user base. Here's 500Friends' VP of customer success Kristine Jacobs on maximizing the measurable rewards of motivated devotees.
Loyalty. If there were any logic to the language of business, loyalty would be synonymous with profits. Unfortunately, plenty of companies struggle to find a balance between simply growing their customer base and cultivating devoted followers. It’s a challenge for businesses both large and small--even such juggernauts such as Facebook, which at 845 million members and counting, recognizes the need for a sustainable, long-term strategy that not only keeps those users coming back, but engages them on the site longer.
It’s especially true for retailers, says Kristine Jacobs, vice president of customer success at 500Friends. “What retail does really well is optimize for conversion,” she notes. In other words, management efforts are always focused on getting shoppers to the checkout with goods in hand. Getting them to talk about their purchases with friends, not so much.
Though making a sale is measurable outcome, Jacobs, a veteran of e-commerce and digital strategy at the likes of Rich Relevance and Digitas and self-professed analytical shopper, hit on an opportunity that was being overlooked. “How retailers can optimize a long-term relationship with that consumer and extract value from all the ways customers interact with their business,” she says.
That’s one of the reasons she’s excited about her work with 500Friends. The San Francisco-based startup founded by Justin Yoshimura provides a social solution for whipping shoppers into a loyal froth beyond their purchase. 500Friends' SaaS can be customized for the retailer’s site either on the web or mobile to let merchants go beyond the "buy X get one free" punch card and reward devotees with points every time they tweet, post to Facebook, write a review, or refer their friends.
Jacobs says it's then up to ...
[Source: Fast Company]
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