Powering customer loyalty with Amazon technology
Solutions for shaping and driving perpetual loyalty between brands and their customers
By Jamie Vann and Dawn Scata
Loyalty is not dead. But transactional loyalty is not enough; achieving customer loyalty as an outcome requires emphasis on co-creation and giving customers more reasons to connect beyond points and discounts. In retail, the pressure to step up in loyalty-generating engagements is felt more urgently as usage of programs has been steadily declining with participation down 4% and growing while more brands are investing in launching loyalty programs.
Enter the opportunity to build toward Loyalty 4.0, or perpetual loyalty, where brands and their customers connect as co-patrons and the brand becomes a natural part of the customer’s day-to-day. One critical success driver for perpetual loyalty is the use of data insights and technological innovations across the customer’s retail journey.
How Amazon data and technology can enable perpetual loyalty for brands
Undeniably, Amazon has set the benchmark for transforming the retail landscape, forever changing customer expectations and, consequently, brands’ loyalty strategies.
The good news is that Amazon is now offering its retail and advertising technology and services directly to brands so they can offer their customers the same experiences and insights that Amazon is famous for, like personalized experiences, one-click checkout, fast and free shipping, and hassle-free returns. These solutions play a key part in shaping and driving perpetual loyalty between a customer and the brand.
Brands can now leverage these Amazon technologies to build perpetual loyalty experiences across the entire customer journey. Keep reading to learn how brands can gain deep, actionable insights about customers to build relevant loyalty opportunities with Amazon Marketing Cloud and provide easy, seamless, convenient direct-to-consumer (D2C) experiences with Buy with Prime and Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment.
Gain deep customer insights with Amazon Marketing Cloud
Customer data unlocks a brand’s ability to deliver on perpetual loyalty by enabling brands to learn more about their customers to create personalized, hyper-relevant, and exceptional experiences for customers.
Amazon has arguably the most comprehensive consumer database in the world with insights spanning the entire customer journey. Historically this data has been exclusively only for Amazon’s own benefit; but with Amazon Marketing Cloud, brands have access inside Amazon’s walled garden — not just its marketplace but also across all of Amazon’s owned channels including Prime Video, Thursday Night Football, Audible, Amazon Music, and more, connecting a customer’s journey from their content consumptions (favorite shows, movies, podcasts) to the products they are considering and buying.
Access to this data in Amazon’s walled garden helps to build a fuller picture of customers not only as they shop but now also as they stream, read, listen, and go about their day-to-day lives. Every touchpoint is a chance to gain new information about the customer and, in turn, a chance for brands to provide personalized experiences that build perpetual loyalty. Slalom has helped brands use Amazon Marketing Cloud to unlock full-funnel customer insights to optimize and personalize advertising to individual customers, build models to engage customers better, and identify high-value customers among their audiences.
A brand’s first-party data is critical to enabling loyalty because of the high-quality, rich, and reliable customer information this data contains. Enriching a brand’s understanding of what it knows about its customer with what Amazon knows about them supercharges insights in an anonymous, privacy-compliant way, enabling brands to obtain a 360-degree, omnichannel view of their customer.
Build seamless, relevant D2C experiences with Amazon commerce solutions
Attracting and engaging customers is the first step to delighting them through exceptional experiences that should span the entire customer journey. Customers want seamless, informative, and relevant experiences and will abandon a brand if they don’t get them. However, brands tend to focus disproportionately on building strong brand experiences upstream in the customer journey (e.g., building awareness) and fall short in delivering customer expectations when it comes to downstream activities (e.g., payments, shipping, delivery). However, the whole experience matters to the customer and it’s hard for brands to keep up with the experiences customers expect. Friction points in the downstream experience today like inefficient payment processes, long shipping times, and subpar return policies where customers are often on the hook for return shipping fees affect abandonment rates, customer satisfaction and brand advocacy and championship.
Amazon is enabling brands with the ability to provide the same seamless, convenient experiences that it’s known for with direct-to-consumer (D2C) experiences. Buy with Prime is a commerce solution that enables brands to provide Amazon Prime benefits on their own D2C ecommerce platforms including Amazon customer reviews, streamlined payment experiences, Prime shipping speeds, easy and seamless returns, and customer service for Buy with Prime orders.
These experiences provide familiar and reliable experiences that make it easy for customers to engage with brands over and over again through preferred experiences that drive brand loyalty and positive customer sentiment.
Recap: Building Amazon-powered loyalty in retail
Developing a winning loyalty strategy and executing it (and maintaining it) flawlessly can be done, and Amazon technology can enable it by providing deep consumer insights and seamless experiences.
- Amazon has a full suite of technology, solutions, and services that can plug in to your ecosystem and work together to enable the entire journey. Brands can deploy a holistic connected experience leveraging Amazon technology for every phase of the customer journey or deploy bespoke solutions to fit specific needs and outcomes.
- Amazon Marketing Cloud provides access to Amazon’s walled garden and helps you develop a fuller picture of your customers. Amazon Marketing Cloud can help enable the analytics engine that powers every interaction, touchpoint, and next action through rich, high-quality data from one of the largest first-party customer databases in the world.
- Elevate D2C experiences with Amazon commerce solutions and provide Amazon Prime experiences directly to your customers on your turf. Enable Buy with Prime and Multi-Channel Fulfillment for your business. These solutions provide both better customer experiences (e.g., one-click check-out, fast and free shipping, and easy returns) and retailer benefits by tapping into Amazon’s vast fulfillment and delivery solutions to streamline your supply chain.
Slalom is a next-generation professional services company creating value at the intersection of business, technology, and humanity. Learn more about our partnership with AWS and reach out today.
