Can corporate social media engagement replace customer loyalty cards?

We all have our purse full of plastic cards for customer loyaly programs. These won’t make us rich. They make us save money, or get kickbacks from companies and brands if we want. And the philosophy of these programs is clever. Companies have the feeling of being in touch with their clients on a regular basis, making sure customers stay informed about their product offerings.

The customers bottleneck is, well yes, we have to carry multiple plastic cards in a credit card format with us. So, why not leaving these cards behind after 20 years and just make customers fans on Facebook and/or followers on Twitter of brands?

Imagine you go into a store and you’ll see a “Follow us on Facebook or Twitter or on our iPhone app” sign taped to the cash mashine instead of receiving print and plastic to carry home?! – Why not save the trees and oil resources!?

Companies install reward program cards to make us buy more of their products, or more frequently. And companies get more feedback on our buying habits. So, for companies these cards are an essential part of their customer loyalty strategy.

And customers with a big purse are happy. Others don’t want to have all these cards. Thus, these customers are not lsitening to what’s the latest promotion. Now, who of the male world is happy with all these plastic cards making our trouser pockets look like fat kangaroo pouches?

In most cases, these loyalty cards are addressing and being used by an old-economy’s vanity (IMHO), or women. “Look how much companies are interested in having me as their customer”, I heard a woman say the other day.

A recent study by the CMO Council “The Leaders in Loyalty: Feeling the Love from the Loyalty Club” shows the trouble of loyalty programs. 54% of consumers mention that irrelevant messages, low value rewards, and impersonal engagements may decrease their loyalty for brands and their services, and with that their loyalty programs.

And yes, we can understand this fact when our online and offline mailboxes are full of non-personalized, unexhiting and unintersting promotions from company’s so called loyalty programs. Talking of me, these loyalty programs get one chance and I cut those cards into pieces straight away when the company loyalty program fails.

Now, what does this means for loyalty programs when we match these results with the latest survey by MarketingSherpa. The new web generation and prosumers love following brands as they expect savings, learning about specials and sales as the top motivation to friend and/or follow a brand online. If companies are aware of this fact and learn from it, why not replacing the old loyalty card concept then?

The benefit of the fan and follower systemtic is quite obvious…
- You become a fan and/or follower when a brand becomes of interest for YOU as a customer
- You become a fan and/or follower of your favorite brand when YOU are in a purchase process
- You can check status updates on sales, discounts and promotions when YOU need them (not when the company wants to sell more products)

OK, thinking of business intelligence and data mining sales cycle topics, it might become difficult for companies to track purchase processes as good as now. But, isn’t the customer king with the rise of social media? And companies could save money for print mailings and their plastic card production, right?

Spot On!
Some weeks ago, I have thought about Twitter as a sales tool and with this post, I am trying to take this idea a bit further. It shall illustrate how much a company’s sales and customer service strategy gets influenced by a new social web strategy where the customer holds the power of interest in promotions.

So, let us know what you think about the idea that Facebook fan pages, Twitter company accounts or corporate LinkedIn groups could replace loyalty programs in the future? A dream, a vision or a stupid idea?

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