For years, c-stores were seen as data-poor, but that has changed drastically in the last decade. In the coming years, more industries will take notice of the breadth of consumer behavior and preferences that c-stores now capture. Electrum Loyalty believes personalization is the key to success in today’s market and is essential to the future of the c-store industry. The retailers poised for the future will be those armed with the data-driven customer engagement.
How to Fix Low Customer Engagement in a Loyalty Program
It’s an exciting time in the industry. Innovations in food service are shaping new customer expectations, with premium coffee and fresh grab-and-go meal options quickly becoming the norm. At the same time, operational costs are rising, pushing retailers to find new ways to engage their customers, increase loyalty, and offset these expenses.
Loyalty programs are the backbone of modern convenience retail, offering a way to reward customers while leveraging valuable data to drive future growth. However, not all loyalty programs are effective. Some may be stuck offering generic discounts without meaningful engagement. In fact, Electrum recently conducted a focus group with customers of a retailer who switched loyalty providers. One long-time customer voiced a common frustration: “I’ve been a customer for a few years. But when I open the app, the offers aren’t relevant to me. All this data I’ve given you and it doesn’t feel like you know me.”
The future of c-store retail lies in data-driven personalization. To fix common loyalty program challenges, the key is understanding customer behavior and offering rewards that feel tailored to their individual needs, ensuring the program works for both the retailer and the customer.
1. Low Customer Engagement
Limited enrollment options lead to less participation and engagement with the program. Whether a customer enrolls via the mobile app, PWA link, POS or pump enrollment, scanning a QR code on signage, social media, or a simple text opt-in, they are more likely to enroll when they have flexibility to engage on their own terms. Offering multiple enrollment channels ensures you don’t lose potential members by restricting them to one specific method. Yes, and!
Likewise, one of the main reasons for low engagement is the absence of clear, attractive offers for signing up. To spark immediate interest, retailers can introduce two-tier pricing and exclusive rewards for new loyalty members. Once they’re on board, gamifying the loyalty experience—through challenges, point systems, and tiered rewards—keeps them excited and coming back.
Once customers become loyalty members, their data and purchase history can drive long-term retention through personalization. Today’s most innovative c-store retailers use loyalty data to create rewards that resonate with their customers.
2. Lapsed Customers and Lack of Retention
Retention is critical to a loyalty program’s success. Even with a loyal customer base, disengagement is always a risk. Data-driven insights are essential for understanding why customers stop engaging and for developing strategies to win them back.
Loyalty data must be actionable. Retailers can track customer behavior, identify patterns, and send targeted promotions to reignite interest. Our loyalty analytics portal, for example, allows retailers to quickly identify inactive cardholders and, with just a few clicks, schedule personalized offers based on purchase history to be sent the next day via email, SMS, or the app. This seamless integration of analytics and marketing automation ensures timely, targeted outreach that drives customer engagement.
Personalization is key. Generic offers won’t cut it. Tailoring promotions based on customer preferences—whether it's their favorite coffee, snack, or meal—keeps your loyalty program relevant and gives customers a reason to stay connected with your brand.
3. Inefficient Use of Marketing Dollars
With rising operational costs, retailers are getting creative about how they spend their marketing dollars. The worst-case scenario is offering a generic discount that goes unnoticed by the customer—wasting money and failing to drive loyalty.
A data-driven loyalty program helps avoid this by enabling you to target promotions to specific customer segments, ensuring the right offer reaches the right customer at the right time. For instance, rather than running a general coffee promotion, you could target your top coffee buyers with a personalized offer, encouraging more frequent visits. This increases engagement and sales while ensuring you’re spending your marketing budget effectively.
Additionally, using loyalty data to partner with vendors on promotions can help reduce marketing costs while offering valuable rewards. Many brands are eager to collaborate with c-stores on loyalty-driven offers, which subsidize promotions and stretch your marketing budget further. With deeper vendor discounts, redemption rates rise, and basket size grows.
4. Complicated Redemption Process
One of the most frustrating aspects of loyalty programs for customers is a complicated redemption process. Whether they’re trying to redeem points, access discounts, or claim rewards, the experience should be seamless. If it’s too difficult, customers may simply give up, undermining the value of your loyalty program.
The best programs make rewards redemption automatic. Skip mobile app coupons and instead allow customers to input their phone number at checkout or the pump to receive rewards instantly. This process is easier for both the customer and the store clerk, simplifying the entire transaction experience.
As c-store retailers continue to innovate—especially in food service—it’s clear that data-driven personalization is the future of loyalty. By understanding your customers’ preferences, behaviors, and needs, you can create a loyalty program that drives engagement, rewards loyalty, and keeps customers coming back again and again.
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