9 Must-have Loyalty Platform Capabilities Your Brand Shouldn’t Be Without

Loyalty technology has come a long way over the past decade. And, while most global companies still assume that only a custom loyalty solution will do because their needs are too different or complex, today’s SaaS loyalty platforms are remarkably robust, flexible and agile enough to overcome legacy limitations and satisfy most enterprise loyalty requirements.  

If you’re looking for more than a me-too loyalty solution, one that equips your brand to recognize, engage and reward members in personalized, value-based and profitable ways, here’s the non-negotiable functionality your loyalty solution should have.

Power your enterprise loyalty program with a platform that enables you to:

1. Collect & act on customer data      

Collecting customer data isn’t enough. You need to be able to quickly and effectively act on that data to create memorable and differentiated member experiences and drive growth. To turn member data into actions that deliver results, your loyalty platform should have:  

• Progressive profiling—to continually and gradually collect lifestyle, custom and brand-specific attributes that create a 360-degree view of members

• A robust engagement suite—to keep members connected and add value starting with program signup through social media, surveys, reviews, receipt scanning, gamification and more

• Advanced segmentation capabilities—including the ability to select and rank key customer segments to find your best customers, biggest spenders, newest customers and those ready to churn   

• An intelligent rules engine—to dynamically configure an infinite combination of controls for points, tiers, actions, rewards and campaigns 

• Enterprise-ready data management capabilities—including a secure global infrastructure that supports data privacy and compliance requirements

Annex Cloud’s Loyalty Experience Platform™ is designed for the enterprise, so it includes all the above capabilities—all in a secure global infrastructure that protects customer data and privacy.   

2. Scale without limits

Legacy and custom loyalty solutions can limit your brand’s ability to adapt, expand and grow. SaaS loyalty solutions are designed to accommodate growth. Look for a platform that lets you: 

• Add unlimited members

• Add unlimited custom attributes

• Easily expand your loyalty program across brands

• Easily expand your loyalty program across regions

Annex Cloud’s Loyalty Experience Platform allows you to add unlimited members, unlimited custom attributes and easily expand your loyalty program across brands and regions.   

3. Support multiple brands, currencies & languages

If your enterprise is global and has multiple brands, it can be challenging to expand your enterprise loyalty program across regions and brands while allowing for localization in currency, language, culture and brand-specific nuances. Look for a platform that allows you to: 

• Easily replicate a program, then customize for an individual brand

• Customize a program for the local region, language and currency

• View, analyze and act on data by individual brands and regions, as well as company-wide

Annex Cloud’s multi-template functionality makes it easy for organizations to copy, then customize, loyalty programs to align with specific regions and brands.  

4. Capture both DTC & full retail purchase data

If you only have a partial view of consumer purchases, and the rest are scattered across multiple retailers, your loyalty platform can help fill in the gaps. Look for a platform that includes receipt scanning to collect valuable data across retailers and reward members for submitting purchases no matter where they shop. 

Annex Cloud’s receipt scanning allows you to collect 100+ data fields, including full basket, line item and retailer details, plus you can incentivize members with virtually any reward. 

5. Push zero- and first-party data across your ecosystem

Chances are good that you have a complex tech stack that includes ecommerce, POS, CRM, ESP, CDP, SMS and more. This makes it difficult to deliver consistent omnichannel experiences because much of your customer data is still siloed. 

The ability to share customer data across your ecosystem is critical to your growth strategy and delivering personalized experiences but, according to Gartner, less than 10% of companies have a 360-degree view of their customers and only 5% can use it to systematically grow their businesses. And most brands are still unable to allow members to redeem rewards via any channel.  

Look for an enterprise omnichannel loyalty solution that: 

• Has a wide range of integrations across your tech stack to enable data sharing & personalization

• Has a robust set of RESTful APIs connecting across your tech stack

Annex Cloud’s 125-plus integrations seamlessly push robust zero- and first-party customer data across your organization to personalize every touchpoint. And it’s built using a robust set of RESTful APIs. 

6. Make engagement fun

Members will eagerly engage with your brand between purchases if you make it fun and exciting, and today’s loyalty solutions come with plenty of ways you can keep members interacting and connected to your brand. Look for a platform that includes: 

• Gamification

• Quizzes

• Contests

Annex Cloud’s gamification, contest and quiz capabilities give you plenty of ways to engage, excite and reward members using badges, leaderboards, interactivity, imagery, progression indicators and more. 

7. Drive advocacy

Your loyal customers are your best advocates and will gladly promote your brand on social media and refer others, especially if you make it easy and incentivize them. Look for a platform that allows you to recognize and reward members for: 

• Referring others (Refer a Friend)

• Promoting your brand on social media

• Writing Ratings & Reviews

Annex Cloud makes it easy to recognize and reward members for sharing about your brand on social media, boost trust and conversions by allowing customers to submit and read reviews no matter where or how they shop and create an advocacy network.    

8. Deliver a consistent omnichannel loyalty experience

Members can get frustrated when they can’t redeem rewards wherever they prefer to shop. Look for a loyalty platform that allows members to earn and redeem rewards through any channel.  

Annex Cloud’s omnichannel loyalty promo engine allows you to reward member actions with just about anything while allowing loyalty members to earn and redeem rewards no matter where they engage with your brand.  

9. Test, adapt and go to market quickly

Most legacy loyalty solutions were built for a single point in time—but the needs of your brand and customers are always evolving. Waiting for lengthy development every time you want to try something  new, adjust segments or create a new campaign is frustrating and costly.  

Today’s SaaS loyalty solutions give your brand the freedom to respond and adapt quickly to changing customer, market and business needs, so you can take advantage of opportunities in real time. The more mature and sophisticated your enterprise gets, the more sophisticated your loyalty platform needs to be—especially in terms of how granular and custom you can get within various segments. For example, you might need to vary how individual groups or segments earn points, or when those points expire.  

Look for a loyalty platform that allows you to: 

• Easily and quickly deploy and customize the program for your brand

• Quickly and easily create or modify segments, rules and more

• Test segments, benefits, promos and rewards to see what is and isn’t working and optimize campaign performance

Annex Cloud’s SaaS loyalty platform is easy to deploy, empowers marketers to reconfigure on the fly as well as easily test and modify segments, promos and more in minutes, giving your brand enormous adaptability in program rules and design.  

The right technology can make or break your loyalty program

Today’s SaaS-based loyalty solutions give you everything you need to recognize, engage and reward your best customers. But not all of them are created equal. Annex Cloud’s enterprise loyalty solution uses a shared code base, so every new feature we build for one client is instantly available to all clients. That way, your loyalty platform never becomes outdated and it grows with you. Contact us to explore how our technology-first loyalty solution can help you break through legacy limitations and put the power of a modern loyalty experience at your fingertips. Better yet, see it in action.

Equally important to your loyalty technology is your program strategy and structure. Read our latest guide to learn the 9 Traits of Top-performing Programs.