The loyalty program is a tried-and-true strategy to drive repeat purchases and promote upselling opportunities. In the business-to-consumer world, everything from cash-back rewards to rebates can be an opportunity to turn a new shopper into a long-lasting buyer.
Loyalty initiatives aren’t reserved for the individual consumer, though. B2B organizations are increasingly exploring their own opportunities to drive loyalty and boost sales with corporate and small business customers. But in today’s market of growing corporate customer expectations, a B2B loyalty program may not provide a return on investment business sellers are seeking with the cardboard and plastic loyalty cards seen in the B2C retail space.
Rather, driving corporate customer loyalty through card programs and incentives needs a digitization boost, according to Paynetics Head of Business Development Amanda Harrison and Benamic CEO Ann-Marie Smee. Speaking with PYMNTS, Harrison and Smee discussed their organizations’ collaboration to create a digital corporate card reward program for B2B brands across Europe and why virtual cards and mobile wallets are valuable tools that create a more flexible way for businesses to incentivize and reward their business customers.
Virtualizing Loyalty
In an announcement earlier this month, payment service provider Paynetics and promotional campaign firm Benamic revealed their collaboration to create a digital rewards program across Europe that targets businesses with a card program. An in-app tool, the offering enables brands to offer their own customers a mobile-friendly card with support for Google Pay and Apple Pay as well as the ability to issue either virtual cards or physical cards to clients.
The first adopters of the joint offering are B2B firms, including one business that will be applying to the program to incentivize its small business clients to purchase power tools through a cash-back incentive.
According to Smee, the program allows B2B companies to introduce a new way to remain competitive. “The objective is to engage with the company’s trade network, to actively and proactively show support for those trade partners,” she said, adding the brand is reinforcing their commitment to those partners, which is really important, particularly in a saturated and competitive market.
Loyalty and rewards programs are an increasingly vital tool for brands as they help their retail customers navigate ongoing market uncertainty. The digitization of such programs also widens their potential scope, offering greater flexibility for end-customers — especially as more businesses turn to digital and online channels to procure goods rather than visit in-store.
According to Harrison, technologies like virtual cards are more convenient for brands to issue to their business clients and support enhanced security of funds and data.
Flexible Use Cases
The variety of ways that brands can drive loyalty with their customers is vast. Whether it’s connecting a consumer to a hole-punch card with an opportunity to earn a free product, developing a rewards point program, or offering rebates, the strategies that firms can use to convince a customer to buy again or add more to the shopping cart are numerous.
The digitization of those strategies not only means connecting a business customer to a program more quickly and efficiently but, as Harrison noted, can also enable brands access to troves of valuable data to understand which programs work best based on location, timing, and other factors.
“They can understand much more about the behaviors of their end-users and really target the promotions,” she said. “There are lots of great data sets that can be pulled to get to know users more personally.”
Loyalty program digitization also means that as brands understand these insights, they can more easily adjust their strategies and apply a loyalty program solution in new ways.
Smee highlighted the opportunity for companies to reward or incentivize their sales teams, for example, or introduce a voucher opportunity that can scale across geographic borders. Historically, she noted, businesses have been forced to work with a patchwork of various vendors to roll out voucher programs in different markets and currencies. Other potential applications include ways to reward staff members or fast-track a rebate payout.
As B2B businesses explore these possibilities, they will be looking for digital and flexible solutions to support their loyalty program initiatives. Indeed, said Harrison, corporate reward card adoption is on the rise, with plenty of opportunity to build out a program's attractiveness through add-on features like credit or banking tools.
It can be a valuable way to strengthen B2B relationships at a time when driving sales and keeping customers loyal remains critical to the survival of many firms.
“Corporates want to invest in technology and innovation when they think about customer success,” said Harrison. “There is a real opportunity to grow and develop. It’s big business for the corporate market.”
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