How to Build Customer Loyalty During the Holidays
For many small businesses, the holiday season brings spikes in sales along with joy and cheer. According to the National Retail Federation, the average American spent $874.67 on winter holiday gifts and celebrations in 2023, making it one of the top three shopping events of the year (back-to-school and back-to-college splurging also make a major impact).
But how can small business owners convince seasonal first-time customers to keep coming back year-round? This article provides tips and tricks for building customer loyalty over the holiday season, turning that festive fling into a lasting relationship.
Implement a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
A successful CRM system can provide a firm foundation for customer loyalty. Collecting data from customers helps you understand their spending habits, allowing you to adjust your business strategies accordingly.
Once you have a first-time customer’s contact details, you can target them directly with marketing campaigns or loyalty programs. For example, restaurant owners or managers can use their restaurant POS system to collect a customer’s details and let them know about new menu items or daily offers.
Make “Punch Cards” Digital
The humble paper punch card has been a symbol of customer loyalty for decades. The promise of a coffee, manicure, or other freebie encourages customers to commit to a specific business over time.
Punch cards are great, but they’re easy to lose and limited in scope. By digitizing your loyalty card system and integrating customer data into the program, you can offer a range of incentives and even appeal to different types of customers, differentiating between first-time shoppers, regulars, and ex-regulars whose interest might be waning.
Bubble tea company Gong cha, which used to have 10,000 members using paper loyalty cards, recently integrated SumUp Connect into its in-house POS system with impressive results: membership increased tenfold, and customers who received loyalty messages spent $100 more over six months than those who did not.
Connect the Digital and Real Worlds
People spend a lot of money over the holidays, but they might also want to dash straight out the door after paying to cross off their next errand. So how do you make the most out of a shortened face-to-face encounter?
Providing an easy route to your website or social media helps you and your customers stay connected once they leave. Put a QR code at the checkout linking to your most active social media page, and encourage customers to tag your business in posts and Stories. You could even offer small rewards in exchange for the exposure.
SumUp Connect features tools like AutoPilot that sends automated messages to customers to keep them coming back to your retail business. Customers easily earn points for shopping and can redeem them during their next visit.
Offer Personalized Promotions
Using your POS system to carry out Customer Relationship Management lets you build customer loyalty by sending out personalized promotions and rewards. A tried-and-tested strategy is to send discount codes on a customer’s birthday, but there are many ways to make a customer feel special.
Tools like AutoPilot, as a part of SumUp Connect, mean you don’t have to manually sift through customer data to decide what would most appeal to them. Automatic offers and promotions are sent out at the best times to maximize engagement and get customers back through the door.
Get Customers Hooked with a Subscription Model
More and more businesses are turning to subscription models to secure regular revenue, enticing customers with discounts, early access to products and services, free delivery, and other VIP perks.
Retail, restaurant, salon… virtually any enterprise can offer a subscription-style package to secure long-term patronage. Examples of contemporary subscription services include monthly “mystery box” cosmetics packages, unlimited coffee plans à la Panera Bread, and recurring facial appointments.
Setting up a subscription service will require some form of contract and a recurring invoicing system, but the benefits of long-term loyalty make it worth the effort. You could even offer gift-able subscriptions over the holiday season.
How to Build Brand Loyalty Beyond the Holidays
The winter holidays come around once a year, but your customers don’t have to be so fleeting. By collecting data through your SumUp POS system, it’s easy to maintain a long-term relationship with customers, offering them personalized offers and loyalty benefits that will keep them coming back throughout the year.
