1. How to Define the Program
2. Success Factors with New Technology
3. Culture is the Basis of Loyalty
4. Brand
5. Loyalty in Onboarding
6. Preparation – Before You Start
7. Lessons Learned

How to Define the Program

The first thing is to define what type of program you want. For example, is it a points program, a club program, fuel program or a combination of multiple features. Define what you want to deliver before you choose the platform. Further get buy-in starting at the top of the organization. Make sure they understand all of the keys to success for loyalty.

Success Factors for Loyalty

Real loyalty is about the customer experience in the stores. The technology multiplies and supports the experience. Without a great store experience, however, loyalty will not succeed. It must be a genuine relationship. Cerra recommends implementing with the store managers but working with all aspects from the company – marketing, IT, HR – all parts. Integration of the technology and the culture are necessary. The benefit, however, is that the sales and profits grow dramatically, with a genuinely loyal customer base.

Culture 

Culture is all about the people. When we take care of our people, they take care of our customers. I am not focused on the loyalty. I am focused on the culture. We foster the mindset of the customer experience. Each time we clean the bathroom, as we train our staff on our purpose, even with upselling, we must make sure we teach and live the importance of taking care of the bathroom. We believe our work is to serve our customers. We cannot just drive the numbers, we must live the ‘new way of thinking’ to serve. 

Brand

People want to do business with companies they feel good about. They want to know we are giving back to the community, we are consistent, safe and a place that customers want to enjoy. Driving the consistency is critical to our growth. We cannot market around a bad experience. We must make our brand promise match what really happens in the store. It is the way people feel about your brand that is truly your brand.

Loyalty in Onboarding 

When acquire stores we must keep the staff and the community connection. At the same time we must make sure our culture is onboarded. Change is so hard for people so we must be careful to share our culture and respect the community and team relationships that are in place. The new staff must be comfortable with how we serve our customers or they will not buy-in to our culture. The reality is that our loyalty is in the store. Our loyalty program and technology enhances the customer relationship. It only happens when it is real in the stores.

Preparation – Before You Start

After building a few programs, one of the most important things to share is what to avoid. The plan for should address all 7 key parts to c-store loyalty systems. Do not rush the start. Get the plan right. Build the program for long time success. It cannot only be about speed to market. Being absolutely ready is critical. Specifically, there are a few essentials: having buy-in, not forgetting the other departments impact on the loyalty and the loyalty impact on them. It is worth the extra time to share, train and set the picture so everyone knows their role. These programs need to last five to ten years. Taking things away from customers can hurt the loyalty.

Lessons Learned – Keys to Success for Loyalty

Start and test in a small way before you roll it out. The cost and pain of not having the program fully prepared is high. Always test it first. Addressing these keys to success for loyalty gets results and makes keeps the program viable into the future.

Watch the entire video with Abigail

Blogs Related to the Keys to success for Loyalty

Building a System to Develop C-Store Management to Drive Culture, Live the Brand and Create Growth

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Introduction to CX

Most of us believe great customer service makes for great CX but customer service is only one aspect available in the CX journey. The first point of contact our customers make with our company’s is usually when they interact with an employee inside our store. How our employee treats them is customer service. That is just one step in the ladder of the entire customer journey.

Customer Experience Versus Service

Great customer service requires your store team to have skills like a parent. Patience, knowledge, and tenacity so they can provide help and answers to customers is no different than a great mother does for their child. However, we do not draw a hard line between service and experience. Customers consider the whole picture when thinking about your offering to the community and so should we. Customer service is reactive, CX is proactive. Service is an event, experience is an emotional feeling. Customer service is like going to Walmart, CX is like going to Target and buying the same products you would have at Walmart. However, the emotional feelings (i.e.CX) you get at Target are far superior to the ones you experience at Walmart.

Customer Experience Drives Loyalty

In a recent survey by PwC, 73% of people polled responded that CX is an important factor in their buying decision, but currently only 49% of those customers say that today’s retailers provide good CX. Forty nine percent. Let that sink in. And why should we care? Profits.

As the management experts at Bain and Company point out – a 5% boost in customer retention increases overall profits by 25%. How do we retain customers so they can boost our profits by 5x? By delivering amazing CX throughout the entire customer journey.

More to Come

You may have a lot of questions about what CX is, just like this article had a lot of self-answering questions, but Part I of this series was to lay the foundation for the future articles. Understanding the difference between c-store customer service and customer experience is important. In Part II, we will start to dive into how you can deliver great CX and why our store managers are one of the most important cogs in the customer journey wheel.

Nick Triantafellou is the Director of Marketing & Merchandising at Weigel’s in Powell, Tennessee. He is a frequent speaker at c-store and retail events.  Nick loves sharing and creating  great experiences for customers in the convenience industry.

Video Resources for Customer Experience

Watch a related video regarding the importance of store managers to customer loyalty and experience.

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