Loyalty Programmes in South Africa
Creating a customer relationship is pivotal in the business community to boost customer membership and enhance business profit and revenue. Loyalty programmes is a beneficial marketing strategy allowing loyal customers to earn points and taking up special offers to enjoy consumer benefits simultaneously the business itself develops a great relationship with the customer for future repeated behaviour.
Currently, loyalty programmes are very prevalent in South Africa, enabling customers to save and business to enhance customer relationship. Recent findings suggest there are currently over 100 loyalty programmes in South Africa and within the programmes there are two distinctive types of schemes, which are the reward programmes and club programmes. A reward programme usually aims to ensure and duplicate customer behaviour whereas the club programmes aim to offer a widespread range of offers to registered loyal members to maintain a long term relationship, the fundamental aim of this type of marketing strategy is to boost overall customer revenue and gain a deeper insight of customers repeated behaviour and buying habits.
Findings
Statistics show a significant growth over the past 10 years which accelerated to its highest peak within 3-5 years, Results depicted the economy of South Africa holds up to an average 4.6 loyalty programmes in regards to each individual consumer. In regards to gender and its relationship with reward programmes, findings suggest that overall women tend to gain more benefits from these reward programs and appreciate the points they gain. However in regards to statistics, 70% female preferred cash back rewards as this has proven to be more widespread in the retail industry, concluding it is a better value and that it motivates further engagement. Another interesting fact is that men show a keen interest towards loyalty programmes if the programme provides status and high levels of rewards which are noticeable to others. However, women prefer to stay reserved in regards to portraying high levels of statuses and desire a more tailored experience.
South Africa loves loyalty Programmes!
The most popular reward programme currently in South Africa is the Pick n Pay Smart Shopper card which involves of over 9 million customer members. The concept of this card entails customers earning points every time they purchase something which is then rewarded by providing customers with spending vouchers and special offers. According to Brandmapp survey 2015 Another similar reward programme in regards to Pick n Pay is the reward programme Thank u where evidence suggest an astronomical figure of over 12 million customers are registered to this reward programme additionally Thank u the was the most-used reward programme back in 2015, proving that a good population of South Africans love to use loyalty programmes and benefit from them and this trend is not only on-going but increasing. In terms of businesses, restaurants hold the youngest member base, consisting of customers on an average age of 30 in comparison to retail business which hold an average of age 38. Interestingly, Family households are registered up to 10 loyalty programmes per house in South Africa in contrast to American families whom are signed up to an average 18 reward Programmes. This may be the result of a demographic factor, for example occupation or sex that could be correlated with reward programmes.
References:
http://afkinsider.com/103289/12-interesting-facts-about-loyalty-programmes-in-south-africa/
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/284835
http://www.whyfive.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Truth-2016-Loyalty-Whitepaper-WEB_FINAL1.pdf
Brandmapp survey 2015
