Resources

“Special Offer, limited time, receive a 2% reward for your personal data! Hurry, offer only good while funding lasts!” California’s Attorney General recently held a Data Privacy Day1 to draw more attention to the consumer data rights enshrined in the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). As you suppress a yawn, consider the mail that accompanied this event; State Government notices were sent to businesses that operate loyalty programs, reminding them of their responsibiliti

We collaborate with clients as they strive to solve customer loyalty challenges, and customers being customers, these challenges are complex, subtle, and fluid. And they occur in the context of an industry which is being disrupted. The rate of change is particularly high at the moment, a pause and review could help as we try to understand the consequences of the perfect storm; GDPR, cookies going, apple permission-based tracking, EU Civil Liberties actions, skepticism about t

Listen to my conversation with Mike Cadden MBA Transformation Program Director at The Wine Society and RTIH Top 100 Retail Tech influencer about the challenges he faced when changing loyalty program providers. Hear Mike’s views on the three biggest challenges currently facing the operators of loyalty programs The need for closer alignment to their Brand values Use of their customer loyalty data to create commercial outputs Combining loyalty program data with multiple other

(It would be a lot easier for the operators…) There has been a rise in the popularity of loyalty programs that offer cash as an instant reward for members who purchase through the program / with the program’s card. Cashrewards is a good Australian example, ASX-listed and attracting investment from ANZ bank who have launched a private label version1 of the program. Rakuten has a large scale equivalent in the USA2 and cashback is the favourite reward choice for credit card prog

Digital disruption and the pandemic both accelerated the need for digital transformation. As businesses become more digital, they quickly learn that CX is a necessary differentiator. In line with that, 88% said that delivering an outstanding CX is an important goal, but slightly more (90%) are challenged to deliver it, according to a report from Mendix. This article is copyright 2022 The Best Customer Guide. The two most common obstacles are cybersecurity (49%) and da

More than 40% of retail and e-commerce organisations have struggled to find the most efficient tools or tech stack for data acquisition over the past 12 months to help them rapidly analyse data in real-time resulting in actionable business insights, according to a study by Oxylabs. This article is copyright 2022 The Best Customer Guide. Some 39% of respondents said they are struggling to find reliable partners to outsource their web scraping activities to, and 40% finding it

Zendesk’s landmark annual research has highlighted the potential for businesses to drive success with a focus on customer experiences, as more than two thirds of consumers worldwide (70%) report making purchase decisions based on the quality of customer service they receive. This article is copyright 2022 The Best Customer Guide. The Customer ExperienceTrends Report 2022 showed that a majority of businesses surveyed agree there is a direct link between customer service

Millions of consumers around the world are increasingly using ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ (BNPL) services, rather than using traditional means such as credit cards, to help them manage the expense of their online and in-store purchases while maintaining their household cash flow, according to a report from RFI Global, examining trends and attitudes across Europe, Asia Pacific and the US. This article is copyright 2022 The Best Customer Guide. The report, entitled ”The Global

Traditional big box retailers and department store brands with brick-and-mortar locations dominate the list of top ten eCommerce websites with the biggest gains in Google.com search performance in 2021. This article is copyright 2022 The Best Customer Guide. While apple.com enjoyed the biggest absolute boost in search visibility during 2021, established retail brands walmart.com, nordstrom.com, bestbuy.com and target.com are in the top five in the analysis by Searchmetrics. N

Taking lessons from the pandemic, companies have an opportunity to reset and reimagine their event programs to better align them to marketing outcomes, according to a report from the CMO Council. This article is copyright 2022 The Best Customer Guide. Because of the extensive digital transformation across the meetings and events industry spurred by the pandemic, the NextGen events channel will span formats (e.g., virtual/webinar, in-person, hybrid) and types (e.g., c

The customer experience gap between this year’s winning and losing B2B brand has narrowed significantly, according to a global study from Merkle B2B which shows how the past 12 months have shaped B2B buyer preferences and brand experiences. This article is copyright 2022 The Best Customer Guide. “A year ago today, the world was in a very different place,” said Michael McLaren, Global CEO of Merkle B2B. “Recent events have accelerated the need for organizations to adapt and gr

Increasing data privacy regulations and changes from Apple and Android give consumers greater transparency and control over the personal information they share with brands, which predictably is resulting in the demise of third-party data. This article is copyright 2022 The Best Customer Guide. To help companies transition to direct customer relationships where first-party and zero-party data improve customer understanding and provide more opportunity to create greater

While the majority of Generation Z consumers are keen on credit card rewards (86% want cash back, 84% want rewards that don’t expire, and 83% want bonus rewards in certain spending categories) a surprising 78% also admitted they are afraid of assuming debt. This article is copyright 2021 The Best Customer Guide. Additional findings from the study included that many Gen Z shoppers also want: Credit, but they are shut out Nearly three in 10 (27%) Gen Zers claim they were turned

Research from delivery experience technology platform Sorted has found that 75% of consumers would stop using a retailer if they frequently messed up communication updates regarding their delivery. This article is copyright 2021 The Best Customer Guide. With customer expectations higher than ever, UK retailers have reached a critical point with the delivery experiences they offer to consumers. The research, consisting of 2,000 UK respondents aged 18-35, found that consumers h

Some two million malicious emails bypassed traditional email defences, such as secure email gateways, between July 2020 and July 2021, according to a report from Human Layer Security company Tessian. This article is copyright 2021 The Best Customer Guide. These emails were flagged by inbound email security tool Tessian Defender as malicious and analyzed by Tessian researchers to reveal the tactics cybercriminals use to carry out advanced spear phishing attacks that b

Sensibill, a customer data platform for the financial services industry, has published its Barcode Report on consumer spending related to panic-purchases (such as toilet paper and masks), using its customer spending data, and including SKU-level data and transactions, to help uncover new insights into changing consumer spending patterns. This article is copyright 2021 The Best Customer Guide. For the report, Sensibill amassed a database of receipts and transactions from 220,0

Marketers are challenged with striking the right balance between transactional engagement and tapping into deeper motivations to fuel long-term consumer loyalty. In a recent study of 14,000 consumers, Vesta identified five audience segments and the strategies that marketers can harness to spark action and build engagement. This article is copyright 2021 The Best Customer Guide. The study found that the majority of consumers are more motivated to engage with a brand th

Businesses are missing out on a significant opportunity to fix internal processes and address the root causes of customer experience issues in the wake of the pandemic, research from enterprise software specialist IFS has revealed. This article is copyright 2021 The Best Customer Guide. The global study, which surveyed 1,700+ executives and 12,000+ consumers, discovered that despite the majority of companies (66 percent) investing upwards of US$250,000 each year evaluating th

There is still incredible value to be found in activating, engaging, and retaining existing customers, rather than simply concentrating on customer acquisition, according to a two-year pilot study from technology firm Bumped. This article is copyright 2021 The Best Customer Guide. Telecomms (mobile phone carriers), Club Warehouses, and Restaurants were the focus of Bumped’s report, but the broader study looked at retention efforts across some 85 brands on the Bumped platform

Get our free weekly marketing briefings…“They’re always useful, and always brief” 🙂 Enter your email address to get started! Consumer expectations and behaviours have continued shifting as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the ‘2021 Data-Driven Insights Into Evolving Customer Experience Report’ from CX design company Tallwave. This article is copyright 2021 The Best Customer Guide. More than 1,000 individuals aged 24-65+ were asked about their perception