Managing mental health in work and in private time

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You’d have to be living on the moon not to know we are in the midst of a cost of living crisis.

Mass media have been transformational in so many ways. However, during periods when the news appears consistently bad, being always ‘in the know’ can feel like a curse rather than a blessing.

We had the financial crash, austerity, Brexit and then COVID-19. Then just as we emerge blinking from the pandemic, life throws us another curveball in the shape of rising energy, fuel and food prices.

People have a tendency to aggregate their worries and then project them forward. You may say, “I might be doing okay financially right now, but what will the situation be in six months’ time?”

This is what psychologists call ‘anticipatory anxiety’ – the fear of something before it even happens. It is a common phenomenon for many people on Sunday evenings. Our relaxed weekend feeling melts away as the working week appears on the horizon.

Mary Spillane, psychologist and mental health expert for the Headspace app, calls this the ‘Sunday scaries’. She explained: “Your brain can become conditioned to worry on a Sunday night, even if you don’t have a particularly stressful week.”

The annual cost of stress-related absence to UK business is £30bn

A general rise in anticipatory anxiety has been noted as people have returned to the office post-pandemic. Worries about rising costs are now adding to this. We might like nice surprises but we generally have a fear and anxiety about the unknown and what lies ahead.

For the most forward-thinking businesses, focusing on mental health in the workplace is no longer optional. They know that looking after the wellbeing of their people isn’t just the right thing to do, it makes sense from a business and productivity point of view.

Poor mental health among the workforce is a cost burden to business. It leads to more absence and poor performance. A happier and motivated team is a more productive one. The annual cost of stress-related absence to UK employers is approaching £30bn. Why would any employer not want to fix that?

No magic wands but there are solutions

Of course, business owners and managers do not possess magic wands. We all lead complex lives with multiple challenges. If one of your employees has financial worries, and another is dealing with a relationship break-up, or a family illness, you cannot magic away those problems.

Right now, the cost of living is rising. People are worried about paying their rent or mortgage, heating their home as winter approaches, filling up their car and putting food on the table. And they will be experiencing anticipatory anxiety about the months ahead.

Money worries are strongly associated with mental health issues. Data from the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute reveals that in England alone, more than 1.5m people are experiencing both debt and mental health problems.

Its research found that almost half the people with problem debt are significantly more likely to experience mental health problems.

Those worries don’t disappear when people walk through the office door each morning. They can’t just put them on the coat hanger and forget about them. Mental health isn’t binary. People’s moods, anxieties and stress will ebb and flow. It is about how we manage them both collectively and individually.

Creating a positive culture and letting them know ‘you know’

Creating a working environment that feels welcoming, friendly, encouraging and positive creates a place where people feel valued and rewarded. You can also make a practical difference to people’s financial circumstances. Love2shop works with clients across multiple sectors to enable them to offer rewards and incentives.

There are all sorts of ways to help people plan for the future and alleviate some of that anticipatory anxiety. We’ve covered some immediate, easily accessible and affordable ones. People often feel less anxious when feeling like they have some measure of control and that’s only ever going to be a positive variable to influence when it comes to employee retention, attraction and productivity.

If you would like to discuss how Love2shop’s reward and recognition can work for your business, please email [email protected].

Read our previous blogs…

What is customer acquisition

What is Customer Acquisition?

50 Employee Perks

50 Employee Perks to Offer Staff

What is customer acquisition

Customer Acquisition Strategy

Cost of living crisis hits consumer and business

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Cost of living crisis hits consumer and businesses 

We live and work in an integrated global economy. We enjoy the good times together and we all take a hit when the storm clouds gather. 

COVID-19, Brexit and conflict in Ukraine combined to create a perfect storm for both businesses and consumers. UK inflation stands at 9.4%, a 40-year high, and a cost of living crisis is upon us. 

This is often framed in the context of individuals. People struggling to heat their homes, pay rent and mortgages, buy food, fill their car with petrol and afford childcare. 

And this is also a crisis for business. This was summed up in June by Martin McTague, chair of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), who said: “The cost of living crisis starts with a cost of doing business crisis”. 

SMEs drive our economy  

Around 99% of businesses in the UK are SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) and there are 5.6m of them. They employ more than 16m people, 61% of the workforce. Their contribution to the national economy exceeds £200bn. 

According to the FSB, more than 400,000 SMEs disappeared during COVID lockdowns. Those that survived were just starting to put their heads above the parapet. Now they face fresh challenges. 

So-called producer price inflation, which includes input prices for firms, is up 22.1% over 12 months. Energy prices are soaring as are prices of raw materials. Supply chain constraints, made worse by Brexit, mean goods and raw materials are harder to get. 

A fifth of firms say input costs are their main concern, reports the FSB. It adds that many employers are struggling with labour and skills shortages. This was backed up by the Bank of England in July. It revealed two-thirds of companies were finding it “much harder” to recruit the right people. This further sends costs rising. 

Passing on the costs 

Higher costs, as well as hitting profits and investment, are eventually passed on to consumers. This pushes up inflation. Families face higher prices for essential and non-essential goods. Petrol prices and energy costs are soaring. 

And while people working from home may be able to reduce the cost of travelling to and from work, spending longer periods at home will push up their energy bills. 

The Bank of England will raise interest rates to combat rising inflation. This sparks a higher cost of borrowing for mortgage payers. It also means higher rents for those unable to get onto the housing ladder.  

However, people are finding they do have increasing leverage in the job market. And there is growing evidence they are prepared to use it. 

Workplace sees a seismic shift 

With labour demand outstripping supply, companies are offering higher salaries and more flexibility. COVID prompted a massive shift in the way we work. Post-COVID people are returning to their workplaces. However, millions still work from home either full or part-time. 

One recruitment consultant said earlier this year: “Prospective employees are looking more carefully at the culture of an organisation. More and more are looking for flexible/hybrid working… In the medium to long-term businesses need to change.” 

This is characterised as the so-called ‘Great Resignation’. It is a phenomenon that saw millions of workers quit their jobs during the pandemic. They left in search of a better quality of life. This exodus hit sectors such as hospitality particularly hard. 

Even before the pandemic, businesses were dealing with growing mental health issues. Stress-related absence costs UK employers £26bn every year, according to one estimate in 2019. 

COVID-19 worsened the problem. Data from Public Health England reveals the proportion of adults aged 18 and above reporting a clinically significant level of psychological distress stood at 20.8% in 2019. By April 2020 this had rocketed to 29.5%. Fewer people are now prepared to suffer stressful environments. 

Some employers respond by throwing money at the problem. They offer higher salaries and other financial incentives. However, smarter organisations recognise this paradigm shift demands a more sophisticated response. 

People want financial rewards but they also want to be valued in their work spaces. And they don’t want their jobs to take over their lives. They want more time with family and friends. Note the number of businesses now experimenting with four-day weeks. 

Value of incentives 

Love2shop reward products are available digitally or as a physical card and appeal to a wide audience. Recipients of the reward products can use them in multiple big-name UK retailers, including Sainsbury’s, Iceland, Heron Foods, ASDA, Primark, Boots, River Island and Argos. Consequently, recipients can use their reward gift for essential items or little luxuries. 

Building and timber supplier, Buildbase, is successfully rolling out a customer loyalty programme with the support of Love2shop. The programme incentivises those in the building and construction sector to spend more with Buildbase and in turn rewards its customers with Love2shop products. 

In hospitality, Love2shop provides an award-winning customer engagement platform. Food and drink supplier, Brakes, generated more than 60% of its revenues from their ‘Help for Hospitality’ programme during the period of the promotion. 

Additionally, in the finance industry, leading insurer, SunLife, uses Love2shop rewards to attract new customers and retain current ones. And in the healthcare sector, Love2shop reward products were used to recognise and reward care home staff during COVID-19. The full case study can be read here.  

Employers are increasingly taking the wellbeing of their people seriously, including financial wellbeing. Discount card schemes are just one way to help employees by alleviating some financial stress, which in turn, assists in overall wellbeing. Love2shop provides its employees with an ‘Everyday Benefits’ discount card, which helps cardholders to save money on day-to-day household expenses. It is also a product that’s proved popular with business too and many clients of Love2shop have implemented the Everyday Benefits card for their own employees.  

We are in the midst of economic turmoil and tough times are ahead. However, when the economic and cultural tectonic plates shift we discover new ways of living and working. Change is unsettling and also liberating. 

‘Our people are our greatest asset’ has been a mantra in the corporate world for two decades. Too often it’s an empty platitude. As we move into a new era, the companies that thrive will be those which make those words a reality. 

If you would like to discuss how Love2shop’s reward and recognition can work for your business, please get in contact.

Read our previous blogs…

What is customer acquisition

What is Customer Acquisition?

50 Employee Perks

50 Employee Perks to Offer Staff

What is customer acquisition

Customer Acquisition Strategy

Turning The ‘Great Resignation’ Into The ‘Great Retention’

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The ‘Great Resignation UK’ isn’t a new term that’s emerged in the last few weeks, it’s the worrying, new term that deftly describes the global response of workers to the Covid pandemic, company culture, wage stagnation and ongoing cost of living crisis. It is the précis for: a mass resignation, change of jobs, search for a new way of life, desire for hybrid working, better pay and improved job satisfaction. Welcome to the challenges of 2022…

In the US, it’s called ‘The Big Quit’, with Microsoft Work Trend Index (2021) saying, “With over 40 per cent of the global workforce considering leaving their employer this year, a thoughtful approach to hybrid working will be critical for attracting and retaining diverse talent.” In Germany last summer, over one-third of the country’s companies reported a staff shortage, while the UK reported more than 1 million vacancies were available. So what does this summer look like for the UK’s staff retention?

HR Professionals Are Feeling The Burn

Most professionals working in HR, recruitment, talent acquisition or in sectors affected by the ‘Great Resignation’ will feel the new pressure to understand how to improve their company’s chances to retain and recruit staff.

Love2shop has one of the UK’s best-selling reward and recognition platforms. In the last year, Love2shop has increasingly been approached by a raft of sectors to discuss how their gifting rewards can be used to galvanise remuneration packages to attract new talent (and retain it), or more recently, help recognise the cost of living challenges being faced.

Love2shop Retailers - Iceland John Lewis Argos Heron Foods

Through the enormous choice of retailers and brands on the Love2shop gift products – stretching from luxury ones like John Lewis for a ‘treat’ or essential shopping brands such as Iceland, Argos or Heron Foods – Love2shop can provide ‘something for everyone’. This allows companies to buy in volume but not limit anyone from finding something to suit their needs.

It also reflects well on a company when it allows its employees to choose. When companies reward with an actual product, (think bottles of bubbly or bunch of flowers), it means an essential food shop is out of the question – and that might serve employees better right now. Equally, you never need to know so they can do it with dignity – and gratitude.

Four Million US Workers Have Quit Jobs Since 2021

The gravity of the job situation can’t be over-emphasised; many companies, large and small, face very real challenges to business growth as a direct result of being under-resourced and unable to attract into their industry the right sort of people. In the US, for instance, over four million workers quit their jobs since the post pandemic reset began in 2021. And in some global sectors, the average pay has been forced to sharply rise making smaller companies less able to compete in the recruitment face-off.

Boost Packages And Attract Staff With Reward and Recognition

How do you compete in the smaller pools of talent? Or engage and support your employees? Are there internal conversations exploring how to help them during this cost of living challenge? Now is a good time to make some decisions about quick but meaningful fixes that will retain and engage loyal employees or galvanise monthly income as its value dwindles in the face of our economic situation. And if you do want ‘something for everyone’, please contact our business team – everyone’s a good egg and happy to walk you through ideas.

Read our previous blogs…

What is customer acquisition

What is Customer Acquisition?

50 Employee Perks

50 Employee Perks to Offer Staff

What is customer acquisition

Customer Acquisition Strategy

2022 – the year that customers stop switching?

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This year, the emerging loyalty and acquisition challenge could lie with an unprecedented trend:  a marketplace where customers simply do not want to move.

Insurance customers will likely get better deals for staying with their current insurer. Similarly, despite the threat of higher energy prices, utilities customers are staying put too.

Recent research carried out by Love2shop explored whether customers are considering switching their broadband packages and it confirms that consumers aren’t looking for cheaper deals there, either.

The picture poses a problem for the teams managing customer recruitment targets this year, so how do you persuade people to switch if they don’t want to?

What do 1,500 people say about switching broadband?

When Love2shop asked 1,500 recipients of a Love2shop e-Gift Card if they were planning to swap to a cheaper broadband deal 81% said they were not looking for a cheaper deal. Only 1.3% said they were looking for a better broadband deal.

The results indicate that you could save budget and still enjoy better results in your loyalty and acquisition promotions by switching from rewards like cash and merchandise to non-cash rewards like gift cards.

There may be a glimmer of hope in the data: 18% of respondents indicated that they had switched to a new broadband deal recently, (at time of asking). However, paired with the prospect of low switching from other sectors, it is likely a difficult start to 2022 for sales, marketing, and acquisition teams.

The situation begs the question, what can we do to get closer to those targets?

How can we improve the offer for new customers?

When Love2shop asked the public what they prefer to receive as a loyalty reward, or as a reward for becoming a new customer, they picked gift cards on both counts. So sweetening the deal for the consumer doesn’t have to just involve slashing prices to attract attention from new customers when gift cards are easily accessible.

“Most teams will consider sweetening the deal with a reward, like a gift card or e-gift card before dropping prices to attract new customers,” said Alex Speed, Head of New Business at Love2shop.

“Non-cash prizes like gift cards costs less than an overall scale of price drops and still excites and attracts new customers. Over the lifetime value of a customer, the prize up-front is a cost-effective strategy to stand out to consumers.”

Or, double down on loyalty?

When we’re starting to see diminishing returns on marketing spend it’s prudent to consider switching attention to building loyalty, developing brand engagement, and, eventually, creating brand advocates.

“It might seem counter-intuitive to focus on loyalty when customers are already likely to stay, but it’s a huge opportunity to build long-term engagement that can help acquisition in the future.

“A sturdy engagement plan secures customers for another year and done well, retains them to help stabilise revenue. If this supports the conversion of the loyal, engaged customers into brand advocates and recruiters that adds even more to the ROI in an incentives strategy.”

One small change for big results

Regardless of how your business decides to tackle a changing market in 2022, it’s worth reconsidering how new customers and loyal customers are rewarded.

When Love2shop asked the public what they prefer to receive as a loyalty reward, or as a reward for becoming a new customer, they picked gift cards on both counts.

Read the survey results here.

Over to you

We’re always happy to hear more about your customer acquisition plans, and if we can help you reach your objectives this year, please do get in touch.

Revealed: What UK consumers want from their company this Christmas

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We asked more than 3,000 UK consumers what kind of gift they wanted from their company this Christmas. It turns out they love gift cards!

The big winner, again, was a gift card to spend in a retailer of their choice, and second place went to time off. Takeaways, Christmas parties, hampers, and a team lunch made up the rest of the pack.

The full results are below:

Christmas rewards poll results:

Which would you most like to receive from your company for Christmas?

Staff Christmas party 7.9%
Christmas hamper 14.8%
Time off work 23.6%
A takeaway 2.3%
Team Christmas lunch 5.5%
A gift card for your choice of retailer 45.8%

Total responses: 3,429*

Reading into the numbers

While gift cards have won the day on the poll, we can’t ignore how well the offer of time off did as well.

A day off work is fundamentally a day where you get to choose what to do. A multi-retailer gift card, or a gift card for a retailer of your choice, is also driven by handing employees the opportunity to make their own choices.

This poll reflects a trend we’ve seen in our other recent surveys, where consumers have told us they want to make their own decisions about what they do. Not just about the gifts they receive from brands, but about their time and their money.

As we’ll point out below, this trend towards gift cards and personal choice is reflected in our other polls around what kind of rewards the public like.

Other recent poll results

The company Christmas gift poll isn’t the only one we conducted recently. We also asked more than 13,000 consumers what their preferred gifts are for staying loyal to a company, and which new customer gifts would prompt them to switch to a new supplier.

On both counts, a gift card was once again the clear winner. You can read more about the results here, but a gift card (with the consumer’s choice of retailer) comfortably came first for both loyalty and acquisition, with a discount on their next bill or purchase bringing up second place.

And even then, the discount comes back to choice. A customer is choosing where their money goes, rather than giving it to their utility supplier or insurance company. They’re empowered to make their own choice about where and when they spend their rewards.

Over to you

If you haven’t set your Christmas staff gifts in stone yet, it’s worth taking a second to reassess your plans.

With Love2shop’s help, you might be able to simplify your Christmas gifts to staff, and maybe even save yourself some money, by switching to a physical or digital gift card.

If you want to talk about it, feel free to get in touch. We’ll be here to talk about Christmas right up until the 24th of December.

*Poll data was gathered from recipients of a Love2shop e-Gift Card in September and October 2021.

2021 is a huge opportunity for effective re-engagement campaigns – here’s what to do next

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Great re-engagement campaigns energise lapsed customers to come back and spend with you again. And in 2021 they’re as vital as ever.

The need for dedicated re-engagement campaigns

It can be difficult to restart a conversation after a break. We’re often not quite sure how to rebuild a connection after a customer hasn’t made a purchase for a while.

While we hear phrases like “if they wanted to, they would have” a lot in our personal lives, the reality is in business we have to be proactive about staying in touch with our customer base.

That means running re-engagement campaigns to rekindle contact with customers that lose touch or don’t do businesses with us for a long time.

Effective re-engagement brings customers back into the fold using data and information you already have, making it easier than prospecting or attracting brand new customers.

Re-engagement in 2021

Re-engagement in 2021 has more weight than ever for businesses affected by national restrictions. We’re seeing a period of mass-trial in sectors that have re-opened, but re-opened with limited availability.

Consumers have been trying new things, going to new places, and experimenting with new brands while their usual favourites are over-subscribed with limited space, or limited supply.

The quiz for these businesses is how to bring those back once the fizz of lockdown easing bubbles down and things get back to normal.

The good news is, in a world of advance bookings and online purchases, there’s a good chance you have these customers’ contact details and have their permission to contact them.

That presents you with a fantastic opportunity. Albeit an opportunity that needs to be handled with care and caution.

Make sure you have permission first

Know your audience, and use what you know to guide your decision making. You don’t want to be perceived to have crossed a boundary.

For some audiences, an email or an SMS isn’t a significant invasion, but a mailer might be seen as too far. For others, even SMS might seem invasive.

Try the more modest approach first, and see if nets you the results you’re looking for before burning a potential lead by starting too strong, too fast.

Also be sure to check whether your audience gave you permission to contact them with promotions when they initially shared their information with you.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about re-engaging your post-lockdown opportunists.

Where to re-engage your audience

There are plenty of effective avenues to get in touch with your audience.

1. Email

Most commercial database/CRM software will have a field that lets you filter your audience by when they first appeared in your database.

Dig through your contacts and create an audience of all the new contacts that appeared during last summer’s relaxation of lockdown rules, and the most recent easing of restrictions.

From there, you can assemble a database of new customers to target with your re-engagement messaging.

This data might also give you the opportunity to try other avenues to reach them, as we’ll talk about below:

2. SMS

Text messages are a powerful but under-utilised string to the marketing bow.

If customers have shared their phone numbers while making purchases, consider using your email marketing software to send them a text.

3. App alerts

If your company has an app, then you can use the alerts in that app to grab your customers’ attention.

What you might also consider is location-based alerts, to let customers know you’re open and have a deal or sale on when they’re near one of your locations.

4. Direct mailer

If your audience is unlikely to be reached, or hard to reach through new media, don’t rule out a direct mailer.

While it’s a little old-fashioned, it has its own unique advantages. You have more room for creativity with a mailer over a digital message, and you can include more information.

You can also include a promotional item, like a discount card, that the customer can bring with them when they next come in.

5. Social media

With a substantial enough email database, you can create an audience on social media. You can then push messages to a super-focused audience, knowing exactly which group your message is going to.

Once you know where your audience is, it’s just a question of what gets their attention.

6. A phone call

Depending on how your business operates, and what kind of relationship model you have with your customers, a phone call might be appropriate.

In fact, a high-value customer with a large spend might even expect you to be the party that reaches out to talk to them about their account. Being proactive puts you in pole position to bring their spend back to your business.

What to say to your audience

There are a few great options available to you when reaching out with a re-engagement message.

Engage them emotionally

Play on their memories of the good times they had enjoying their new-found freedoms after a difficult winter. Or the purchases they made to keep their spirits up during the national restriction period.

Invite them back to make some memories in the future.

Re-target them based on purchase history

If you have any insight on what your customers bought, re-engage them with that knowledge. Tell them what’s new, what’s changed, and what you think they’ll enjoy when they come back in again.

Offer to answer questions or give them more information when they get in touch.

Ask questions

Ask your customers whether they’re thinking about coming back, with a binary question tree. If the answer is “yes”, invite them in. If the answer is “no”, ask why. You might be able to counter their objections with a follow-up message and bring them back in.

Offer promotions and deals

Sometimes it’s best to keep it simple. Get back in touch with your audience and offer them discounts, priority access to a loyalty scheme, or a digital gift-card when they make their next purchase.

It’s not reinventing the wheel, but it’s a simple approach that works for a broad variety of audiences.

Over to you

If you have any questions about re-engaging your audience, get in touch. We’d be happy to hear about your audience and help you get a motivating re-engagement message in front of them.

We’re available on phone and web chat during business hours, and you can email us any time.

Double-up on lockdown loyalty with the power of exclusives

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Turn the customers who stuck with you in lockdown into super-loyal customers and advocates

Despite any claims that customer loyalty is over, many consumers were exceptionally loyal to the brands they wanted to support during 2020.

This was explicitly stated by many consumers. They went out of their way to make sure they spent money on their favourite brands while they knew times were tough.

At the same time, those consumers told us they want to be acknowledged and valued by the brands they go out of their way to show loyalty to.

If your business was able to trade during national restrictions in 2020-2021, this presents you with a great opportunity. Build on that loyalty and turn it into a real love for your brand.

Exclusives are the key to your customers’ hearts

Customers want exclusives, they want to be treated like VIPs, and they want their loyalty to be recognised and rewarded.

The next time you have something in the pipeline, whether it’s a promotion, a sale, or a new product, ask yourself a question. Could be peeled off as an exclusive for your lockdown loyalists?

Because that’s exactly what customers are asking for.

Exclusives in practice

Have a dig through your data and see who placed orders during the lockdown period.

If you’re in a high-volume business, you may need to set a cap, such as the top 20% by order volume, or your top 100 customers. The particulars are yours to hammer out, these are just guidelines.

With this data in mind, look at what you’ve got coming up in the business diary, and figure out what you can offer this database as an exclusive.

That might be items like:

  • First dibs on booking tickets for special events.
  • Early access to new products when they come into stock, or pre-sale.
  • First chance to use discount codes on your site, or first chance to access sales.
  • Priority bookings when re-opening, or re-starting certain arms of your business.

What you choose to do depends on what works best for your company.

But the main point is to treat the customers who spent with you during the lockdown periods as real VIPs and offer them something no one else can get.

It doesn’t have to be a discount, or even a special offer, but it does have to be exclusive to that group.

Then, communicate what you’re offering to the audience you set aside earlier. The most common and convenient way of reaching customers is going to be email. But in-store adverts, social media, direct mailers or text messages could work as well.

It might seem silly to advertise a promotion focused on rewarding loyalty customers to new customers, but you’re doing more than that.

You’re also showing those new customers that loyalty is valued, recognised and rewarded in your business.

If you don’t keep data

Not every business keeps data on when customers make purchases, and for some businesses it’s not practical.

If you’re in a trade like a café or a takeaway, many customers will spend without parting with any data.

However, you can still use whatever information is available to you. While a customer may have made purchases without giving you their data, they may have kept their receipt. Or the purchase may be in their banking history if they pay by card.

Perhaps they accumulated stamps on a 2020 loyalty card, or even used a membership or loyalty card during lockdown that you can pull data from.

If you’re at a data disadvantage, don’t fret – just think a little creatively and use what’s available to work around the roadblock.

You’re turning loyalty into love

By making an effort to recognise and reward your most loyal customers, you’re mirroring what research on loyalty tells us they’re most interested in.

This will make those customers extra-loyal to your brand in the future, and more likely to recommend them their friends and family. This increases their value to your business in the long term.

Crucially, you don’t necessarily have to set aside special promotions or discounts for those customers. Rewards would be helpful, and they have an important role to play in loyalty, but it’s more than the rewards.

It’s about offering those customers something that celebrates them, and truly separates them as customers from someone that just walked in the door.

Over to you

Making an effort to treat your loyal lockdown customers as VIPs will make it clear that they’re noticed and valued by your business.

This will bring them closer to your company and satisfy their expectations and desires around customer loyalty, bringing you benefits down the line.

If you have any questions, or want to talk about loyalty in your business, just get in touch. We’re available on the phone or web chat during business hours, and we’re available on email at all hours.

 

What the data tells us about how to approach loyalty in 2021

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We recently asked thousands of people around the UK what they’re most excited to spend money on, and the answers were great news for some businesses, and difficult reading for others.

The public told us that they overwhelmingly want to spend their money on experiences.

Travel, indoor dining, leisure, seeing friends and family were all at the top of the list by a big margin. By contrast, interest in spending on tech, cars, and other areas was surprisingly low.

You can read more about what’s in our data here, but we want to focus here on what the data means for how you might approach customer loyalty in 2021.

What it means for your business

In a crucial period for every business, no one can ignore the public when they make their priorities so abundantly clear.

And our data shows us there’s two camps. Those in the sun, with demand pouring in from the public, and those in the shade, where the interest is a bit cooler.

In the sun

While things will be busy now, it never hurts to focus on the future.

At some point, there will be a re-balancing of the wants and needs of the public. Currently, the public are desperate to make up for all the lost time over the last year, but that kind of over-the-top enthusiasm just won’t last forever.

Eventually, the familiar troubles of the hospitality, travel, and leisure industry will return. It pays to think about how to make sure the customers coming in now stick with you in the future.

We have much more information here about what you can do to keep customers coming back over time, but if we had to pick one thing to focus on here, it’s exclusivity.

As we discussed in one of our articles recently, research shows that exclusivity is one of the main things customers want in exchange for their loyalty to brands.

Prioritising your existing customers, and the customers who have stuck with you through lockdown, is how you best place yourself to keep them when the buzz of fewer restrictions fades away.

In the shade

No one can argue with what the public wants, not when the stats show overwhelmingly what they’re interested in.

But as we pointed out earlier, at some point balance has to be restored. You can keep engagement in your business high with communication and help for your existing customers.

Stay in touch with your customers and keep a constant level of engagement with timely, helpful content. You’ll know better than us, sight-unseen, what your customers respond to – but you want to make sure you keep your brand alive in their minds when they turn their interest back to your industry.

If possible, also gather feedback on what your customers are looking for and interested in from you, and be prepared to offer it.

Over to you

Whichever camp you’re in, there’s a way to make the most of the rest of 2021. You can check out our advice in the links in this article.

If you need any help, or just want to bounce some ideas around, we’re always here for a chat. Use the live chat or call us during working hours, or shoot us an email any time.

How to attract new customers on the road out of lockdown

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The mid-April period is going to be an exciting time for the public, and a time of opportunity for business.

With shops opening, we’re expecting a lot of competition for the UK’s disposable income, and for the public to be excited to go out and do the things they’ve missed out on since 2020. Whether you’re a brick-and-mortar location re-opening, or an online retailer, you have a dog in the fight.

Physical locations will be looking to make a strong comeback and online retailers, whether they were digital-first before lockdown or not, will be looking to protect their gains over the last 12 months. It’s a challenge, but it’s one very few companies in the UK can afford to shirk away from.

Lots of experts in the loyalty and acquisition world will tell you that you’re better off looking for long-term changes. And to an extent they’re right, but long-term changes take time to kick in.

If you’re just focused on making the most of the next few weeks and months, here’s what you can do.

Run a promotion

You can offer discounts, 2-for-1 deals, or attach a reward like a digital or plastic gift card to certain purchases – whatever works for your business. It’s simple, but as our clients will tell you, it works.

Hundreds of our customers use Love2shop rewards to promote their products and services, and we often recommend that they focus not on the gift card itself, but all the possibilities the gift card opens up.

With the one multi-retailer gift card, you can offer your customers gifts from Argos, Currys PC World, and even holidays. Focusing on the outcome, and the experience that your customers will have with their reward, does more to motivate individuals than focusing on the gift or its monetary value.

Even better, a promotion is also the starting point of launching into a loyalty scheme to keep your customers once you’ve won them. We’ll talk more about that in another blog soon.

Be shareable

Aside from their fitness goals updates and park walks, it’s been months since anyone had anything decent to share on social media. Across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, the content well has been pumped dry. That gives your company an opportunity – be shareable.

What looks good on social media affects consumer behaviour, to the extent that almost one in ten people surveyed have admitted to making purchases with their social media presence in mind.

Not only will offering something shareable get customers to think about coming to your company over your competitors, they’ll do a bit of your marketing work for you by putting your products in front of their friends. And as we’ll point out below, word of mouth matters.

Team up with your peers

As restrictions ease one at a time there will, temporarily, be a slightly unequal situation. Depending on what kind of physical space is available, and which restrictions are affecting their business, some companies will have an advantage over others.

For instance, a pub with a beer garden is at an advantage over a pub without one, in the near term. Working with your peers could be a short-term solution to this imbalance.

Take stock of what’s around you, whether that’s digitally or physically, assess who could complement your business (and vice versa), and reach out to talk about some cross-promotions for the next few weeks and months.

Get a grip on your reputation

We talked recently about how important online reputation is. Consumers are in the habit of checking sites before spending their cash, and they trust what they see on review sites as if it came from their friends.

That means the state of your Trustpilot page, or another review site of your choice, will have a direct impact on whether customers spend money with you while we’re easing restrictions around the country.

You can use our guide here to clean up your Trustpilot page for any recent negative reviews, but it’s also worth asking any current customers for their reviews to make sure there’s recent, positive feedback for your next customer.

Over to you

Attracting customers is about more than just making the most of the next few weeks and months. There are long-term improvements that every company needs to invest in to find new business, but right now we’re focused on how the maximise the benefits of the immediate future.

Redesigning your website, renovating your shopfront, working on your SEO presence, upgrading your services and products – if you haven’t done them by now, there’s no time to get them up and running by mid-April. That doesn’t mean you can’t maximise what’s possible to do now, though.

If you have any questions about setting up a sales promotion to bring some more customers into your business, just get in touch. We’re always up for a chat.

How we turn 1-star Trustpilot reviews into 5-star reviews

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Trustpilot, or the review site you rely on, is now an essential part of your company’s reputation management. And the stats say you don’t have the luxury of disagreeing:

  • 93% of customers check review sites before they buy from a company[1]
  • 91% of consumers trust review sites as much as they trust word of mouth[2]
  • Consumers read an average of 10 reviews before they trust a business[3]

Having a review site isn’t enough, though. It has to be manned, managed, and curated. Like any other digital outlet, consumers expect that you’ll be there for them when they talk to you, and what they see (or don’t see) on your Trustpilot page is a reflection of your business.

It’s is a chance for you to demonstrate a proactive, empathetic approach to customer service, giving your customers faith in your business before they even talk to you.

That includes knowing what to do when a 1-star review comes down the pipe. And no matter how good you are, the bad review will come.

In this article we’ll outline how to turn a 1-star review into a 5-star review, and how to make the most of the good reviews as well.

We wrote this article about Trustpilot, but the advice here is still relevant whether you’re using Google Reviews, Feefo, Birdeye and more.

How we turn 1-star reviews into 5-star reviews

Because we treat our Trustpilot page as a loyalty and acquisition tool, we have an internal process for dealing with all reviews that come in, including bad ones. Actually, especially the bad ones.

We start by making sure the user is in the right place.

Is the review legit?

The first thing we do with a bad review is assess whether the complaint is legitimate. This sounds simple, but it’s important – is the reviewer actually talking about your business?

For instance, you might manufacture tyres. And you may get a Trustpilot review talking about the quality of service they received in an independent fitter selling your tyres.

While their complaint is legitimate, the complaint’s place on your page isn’t. On Trustpilot, you may apply to have the negative review removed on the grounds that it’s not about your company. It might seem harsh, but we’re talking about your company’s reputation.

If it’s a legitimate review, you can move to the next step of the plan.

Dealing with a legitimate bad review

First, check if the user has left their name, or their business’ name.

If they have, connect the name to information in your database, or customer relationship management (CRM) software like Salesforce. If you don’t have a CRM system in place, you can go to your sales or account management team and ask about the customer.

Find more information on the complaint, bug, or delivery issue the customer is experiencing. Armed with this information, you can make an attempt to resolve the issue.

While you’re doing this, be sure to leave a sympathetic reply offering the unhappy customer a chance to get in touch and resolve the issue. Whether they initiate contact in reply, or you get in touch later, it’s important to be seen to engage with bad reviews. We’ll explain more about that later.

You know better than we do on how to talk to individual clients, but in our experience a negative review is often an act of frustration. And it often comes from a sense of not being heard. Opening dialogue is the first step to alleviating that frustration and finding a happy outcome.

With your internal team, and your client, you can find out what the issue is and implement a solution.

Approach the reviewer

Once the issue is resolved, and the customer is happy again, you can talk about their review. Ask the client if they’re otherwise happy with your service, and if they are, ask if they would consider changing (or removing) their negative review.

Precisely when you do this depends on the scale of the problem resolved, and the quality of your relationship with the client – you and your team will know best on this front.

But if our experience tells us anything, a happy client will often be amenable to changing their review. Especially when asked directly – they’re no longer talking to the faceless review site, they’re talking to a human being who has gone out of their way to resolve a problem for them.

When you don’t have the details

Your reviewer might have taken pains to stay anonymous, or you might not be able to match them up to a contact in your CRM system. It happens from time to time.

You should still leave a reply and invite the customer to talk about the problem they’re having. With a bit of luck, they will get in touch and you can resolve the problem with the same process we outlined earlier.

But even if they choose not to get in touch, leaving a reply is better than letting it fester unchallenged. As we pointed out earlier, it’s there for benefit of the next customer that comes along to the page too.

Being engaged and energetic about your review page shows readers that your customer service is proactive and interested. Combined with a high review score, it helps you build confidence in existing and prospective customers that you’re a quality provider.

Tips on leaving a good reply to a bad review:

  1. Be courteous. Not quite formal, but polite.
  2. Be human, using their name if it’s supplied, and using straightforward language.
  3. Express that you’re sorry the customer is having a problem, but don’t apologise or admit blame in your reply.
  4. Offer to help, and leave them with a direct way to get in touch.
  5. Sign off with your own name and title, not the company’s name.

What to do when someone leaves a good review

It’s not all rainy days!

You’re good at what you do, your customers know that, and they’ll express that in reviews. There’s no shame in shamelessly making the most of the good news when you get it.

Here’s how to get the most out of a 5-star review.

Reply to the review

Just as you would for a negative review, get back in touch to thank the user for taking the time to leave positive comments. For all the reasons we’ve already discussed, this is important.

Keep track of them

It pays to start keeping a document of your positive reviews as soon as possible. When you want to draw on them later, it’s much easier to search through an Excel sheet than use Trustpilot’s user interface.

Getting into the habit of logging them pays off down the line when you need information in a hurry. Especially when you want to find one quickly by client, sector, time, or content.

Use them externally

As a review left on a website is in the public domain, you’re free to use a good one to promote your business. That said, we would recommend asking clients for their permission if you want to alter the review.

That would include using it as part of a brochure, adding them to a testimonials section of your website, or using them for your marketing material. And you will want to use them.

A good review from a major client makes for excellent social media content, something to drop into your newsletter to clients, and something you can include on promotional material when prospecting new customers.

Don’t be shy about tooting your own horn when your clients are raving about your company.

Share them internally

If a customer names a specific employee in the review, be sure to pass the review on to that person in recognition of their work.

Or, if the review highlights a particular product or service, let your internal teams know how the end-users appreciate their work.

While doing this, it’s worth CC’ing leadership figures in, so that managers can chip-in with their own recognition, and to make these success stories as visible as possible.

Over to you

Regardless of the review site you use, these simple steps help you turn a Trustpilot page into a legitimate part of your loyalty and acquisition strategy.

If you want to talk about anything else your company can do to bring more customers in, and keep the ones you have for longer, just get in touch!