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Retailers Rely on Loyalty Cards to Understand Customers

Gaining deeper customer insight is the key to gaining a competitive edge in the retail industry, according to “Understanding the Customer,” the first of three parts from a new Economist Intelligence Unit report titled “Intelligent Merchandising: Creating a Unique Shopping Experience,” writes MarketingCharts.

To identify and understand their best customers, companies most frequently track purchasing records through loyalty cards (40 percent), according to the study.

Other popular methods are surveys (26 percent) and incentive contests (15 percent). Only 9 percent of respondents examine complaints and returns as a way to improve their performance.

Other key findings of the report include the following:

• Retailers opt mostly for traditional methods to keep customers loyal. Over half of the executives surveyed use new products (63 percent), local store activities (56 percent) and discounts for special customers (52 percent) to enhance customer loyalty.

• Customer satisfaction and retention are key measures of the success of promotional efforts. The success of promotions is tracked through customer satisfaction (55 percent), customer retention (52 percent) and sales per square meter of retail space per week (40 percent).
• Executives rely heavily on sales staff to monitor the “customer experience.” The lowest-paid member in the retail industry is considered the most reliable observer of customer behavior. In-store traffic (31 percent) and customer opinions (31 percent) are seen as important indicators of customer satisfaction.