Adapting Loyalty: The Rise of Omnichannel Shoppers

The rise of omnichannel shopping has forever changed the retail landscape. Shoppers today are channel-agnostic; they research products online, buy them in-store, and expect to seamlessly engage across a variety of touchpoints. Loyalty programs need to evolve to accommodate this new behavior or risk becoming irrelevant.

In this article, we explore what omnichannel shoppers expect from loyalty programs and how businesses can build an effective omnichannel loyalty architecture that provides a seamless, personalized experience for their customers.

What Omnichannel Shoppers Expect from Loyalty

Today’s consumers expect consistency, convenience, and value, no matter how they interact with a brand. If a customer earns loyalty points on an app but cannot redeem them in-store, or if their points balance doesn’t sync across devices, they’ll quickly feel frustrated and disengage.

Key Expectations:

1.  A Single, Consistent View of Points, Benefits, and Tiers
Omnichannel shoppers want to view their loyalty program information including points balance, benefits, and tier status, across all channels. Whether they’re browsing the website, shopping in-store, or using a mobile app, they expect to see the same real-time data.
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‍Sephora offers a seamless omnichannel loyalty experience. Their Beauty Insider program allows customers to view their points, tiers, and rewards both online and in-store, ensuring consistent tracking of their loyalty status. This has improved customer satisfaction and driven higher engagement across channels.
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2.  The Ability to Earn and Redeem Effortlessly Across App, Web, Store, and Partner Channels
Loyalty points should be earned and redeemed easily, whether customers are shopping online, in-store, or at partner locations. Customers do not want to be restricted to a specific channel for their earnings or redemptions.

Nike’s membership program, NikePlus, allows members to earn and redeem points through their mobile app, website, physical stores, and Nike partner locations. Whether in-store or online, customers can use their rewards instantly without friction, improving customer retention.

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3.  Recognition of Their Overall Relationship with the Brand, Not Just One Store or Device
Omnichannel shoppers expect their entire journey with a brand to be recognized  whether they make a purchase in-store or browse through the brand’s app. Their loyalty should not be siloed by a single interaction.

  
Starbucks Rewards tracks a customer’s entire relationship with the brand across in-store, mobile, and online interactions. This holistic view ensures that customers get the full benefits of their loyalty, no matter where or how they shop.

The Impact of Friction:

Any friction in the omnichannel loyalty experience is quickly noticed. According to a Salesforce study, 76% of customers expect consistent interactions across all channels. If their experience is disrupted  like when they cannot redeem online points in-store  they are more likely to switch brands.

The Systems Reality Behind the Scenes

For many organizations, creating a seamless omnichannel loyalty experience is a technological and operational challenge. Below are the key hurdles that businesses face:

1. Disconnected Systems

• POS systems are often disconnected from e-commerce and CRM systems, making it difficult to track and update loyalty information across multiple touchpoints in real time.
  
  
• Loyalty programs that do not integrate with in-store promotions or digital campaigns create an inconsistent experience, frustrating customers.
  
  

  
At Macy’s, disconnected systems led to issues with point accumulation during online orders, causing discrepancies when customers tried to redeem their rewards in-store. The solution? A full system integration that linked their POS, CRM, and e-commerce platforms, ensuring that points earned online could be redeemed in-store.

2. Unaligned Reward Catalogues

When your reward catalogue differs between digital and physical channels, it creates confusion and frustration for customers. Offering exclusive rewards for online shoppers but not for in-store customers leads to a disjointed experience.

  
Best Buy faced this challenge, offering different reward catalogs in-store and online. Once they integrated their reward catalogues across all channels, customers could easily redeem points regardless of where they interacted with the brand, leading to higher loyalty and customer satisfaction.

Building an Omnichannel Loyalty Architecture

To meet the demands of omnichannel shoppers, companies must invest in a unified loyalty architecture that integrates multiple touchpoints into a seamless, real-time experience.

Core Principles for Building an Omnichannel Loyalty Program:

1.  Single Customer View
Integrate customer data from all touchpoints (mobile, web, in-store, CRM) into a single view. This allows you to track their complete loyalty journey and offer personalized experiences based on their actions, preferences, and purchase history.
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‍L’Oréal implemented an omnichannel loyalty system where customers’ points, preferences, and history are tracked across websites, mobile apps, and physical stores. This centralized system allows them to personalize rewards and engage customers more effectively.

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2.  Aligned Earn and Burn Rules
Define consistent earn and burn rules across all channels, ensuring that customers earn points for purchases no matter where or how they shop, and that they can redeem their rewards seamlessly.

Nordstrom is known for its loyalty program that works consistently across in-store and online shopping. Customers earn points whether shopping online or in-store, and they can redeem rewards seamlessly in both environments, providing a uniform experience across channels.

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3. Centralized Reward Store
Use a centralized reward store that feeds multiple channels (mobile, web, call center, physical stores) to allow customers to redeem points seamlessly no matter how or where they engage with the brand. This minimizes friction and creates a cohesive loyalty experience.

Target’s loyalty program integrates a centralized reward store accessible through both mobile apps and in-store kiosks. This ensures that customers can redeem rewards in any channel without facing technical barriers.

Measuring Omnichannel Loyalty Success

To ensure that your omnichannel loyalty strategy is delivering the right results, it’s important to measure its effectiveness across several key metrics.

Useful Metrics Include:

Percentage of Customers Who Use Multiple Channels
Measure how many customers engage with your brand across multiple touchpoints. A high percentage indicates that customers see value in interacting with your brand in different ways.

Sephora reports that over 60% of their loyalty members engage with the brand across both physical stores and digital channels, indicating strong omnichannel engagement.

Incremental Revenue from Omnichannel Segments vs. Single-Channel Segments
Compare the incremental revenue generated by customers who engage through multiple channels to those who use only one channel. Omnichannel customers typically show higher spending.

  
Walgreens found that omnichannel customers spent an average of 15% more than those who engaged only in-store or online, showing the importance of offering a seamless loyalty experience across channels.

Cross-Channel Redemption Rates and Repeat Purchases After Redemption
Track how often customers redeem rewards across channels and the impact of these redemptions on repeat purchases. A high redemption rate often correlates with increased loyalty and higher repeat business.

  
Starbucks found that their mobile app integration for reward redemption led to a 30% increase in loyalty program usage, and customers who used the app redeemed rewards more frequently, leading to higher repeat purchase rates.

Moving Omnichannel Loyalty from Buzzword to Reality

Omnichannel loyalty is more than a marketing buzzword  it’s a necessary evolution of how customers expect to interact with brands. Companies that implement a unified omnichannel loyalty strategy see higher engagement, improved customer satisfaction, and increased revenue.

Key Steps to Building an Omnichannel Loyalty Program:

• Integrate customer data across all channels for a single view.
  
  
• Define consistent earn and burn rules for seamless interaction across devices and touchpoints.
  
  
• Implement a centralized reward store to offer rewards across mobile, web, and in-store.
  
  
• Measure success with real-time metrics like cross-channel engagement and incremental revenue.
  
  

By focusing on these principles, your loyalty program can provide customers with the seamless, personalized experience they expect, ensuring long-term success in an omnichannel world.

About The Reward Store

The Reward Store helps businesses create seamless omnichannel loyalty experiences by providing:

• Centralized reward stores that feed multiple channels (mobile, web, in-store).
  
  
• Data-driven insights for personalization and consistent reward management.
  
  
• Customizable loyalty programs tailored to your customer’s journey.
  
  

Visit The Reward Store to learn how we can help you implement a seamless omnichannel loyalty solution.

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