Personalization & Emotional Loyalty Are the Future of Customer Engagement, According to Antavo’s 2022 Regional Customer Loyalty Reports
April 28, 2022
Antavo has published its new North American, European and Asia-Pacific customer loyalty reports, shedding light on some of the similarities and differences in trends and challenges in each region. In Europe, companies are leading the way by implementing personalization into their loyalty programs and engaging customers outside of the buying cycle. In APAC, businesses have expressed a strong interest in emotional loyalty and sophisticated, no-code loyalty technologies. And in North America, program owners are the most satisfied with their program’s performance, and have big plans for the future.
Antavo has released three Regional Customer Loyalty Reports for 2022, exploring the current state of loyalty programs in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.
Each report examines major loyalty program trends, features and technologies in the corresponding region through the eyes of both current and future loyalty program owners. The data for the regional reports was pulled from a global survey with over 320 corporate respondents from all over the world, as well as from behavioral data sourced from over 25.8 million member actions tracked via Antavo’s Loyalty Management system.
“Following the success of our Global Customer Loyalty Report 2022, we wanted to go one step further and take a look at how loyalty programs are perceived in these regions.” said Attila Kecsmar, CEO & Co-founder of Antavo. “We discovered that, instead of their being a clear ranking of the three regions, North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific each have distinct strong suits and areas where they stand apart.”
Europe is a Trailblazer in Personalization
According to the Europe Customer Loyalty Report 2022, the region scores far above the global average regarding loyalty programs that offer personalization (53.6%) and engage customers outside of the buying cycle (40.6%). This indicates that European loyalty programs are trendsetters in using new forms of engagement.
Companies in this region generally view loyalty programs as an ongoing project, with 7 out of 10 respondents claiming that they wish to revamp their loyalty programs in the next few years. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of current program owners (84%) plan to increase or significantly increase their investments in customer loyalty over the next three years. This is 2.5% more than the global average.
Program Owners Are the Most Satisfied in North America
A major finding of the North America Customer Loyalty Report 2022 is that program owners in the region are the most satisfied with their loyalty programs (63%). Still, 8 out of 10 loyalty program owners plan to revamp their loyalty programs, most likely because even satisfied businesses wish to capitalize on the untapped potential of the market. For instance, 87.5% of existing program owners in North America are planning to engage with customers in a non-transactional manner in the next three years
Companies in this region also score highest when it comes to choosing third-party loyalty program technology providers (60%) over in-house technology (40%). And due to voting confidence for best-in-class third-party vendors, North American companies aren’t impacted by common issues while managing the platform, such as requesting help from the IT team or tech support to modify the reward campaigns.
APAC Has Set Its Sight on Emotional Loyalty
Among the three analyzed regions, Asia-Pacific loyalty is in the lead when it comes to emotional loyalty, as 30% of respondents classified their program as more emotional than rational, scoring 9.6% above the global average. However, fewer APAC companies are satisfied with their loyalty program (42%), suggesting that ambitions and standards are very high in the region. Despite being less satisfied, the desire to revamp the program is still below the global score, though two-thirds of loyalty program owners are still planning to update their programs.
APAC loyalty programs also stand out in their willingness to adopt personalization and new tech solutions. According to the survey results, 57% of respondents stated that they plan to offer personalized rewards and offers in the next three years — scoring 9.3% above the global score. As for technology, 85% of respondents plan to equip their marketing teams with the right tools and processes to reduce dependency on the IT team. In addition, 85% of respondents said that a no-code platform would be an asset for the company.
“We believe that by identifying key loyalty opportunities in these regions, companies will be better equipped to create unique concepts for their loyalty programs,” stated Attila Kecsmar. “Highlighting important loyalty program trends also helps current and future loyalty program owners engage with their customers in more meaningful ways.”
Going forward, Antavo plans to release both a global and a series of regional customer loyalty reports annually, with the goal of shaping the broader industry’s understanding of next-gen customer loyalty and rewards programs.
- All three Regional Global Customer Loyalty Reports are now available for download:
About Antavo
Antavo is an enterprise loyalty technology provider that builds comprehensive loyalty programs to foster brand love and change customer behavior for brands, retailers, and shopping malls. With a scalable and holistic loyalty logic, Antavo supercharges the marketing strategy of omnichannel and e-commerce companies and delivers a next-level shopping experience with best-in-class in-store capabilities. Antavo was listed as a Representative Vendor in Gartner’s 2020 Market Guide for Loyalty Management and was included in Forrester’s Now Tech: Loyalty Marketing Q4 2020 and Now Tech: Promotions And Offer Management Providers, Q3 2021 reports. As a global company, Antavo empowers clients like KFC, BMW, Lagardère, Kathmandu, BrewDog, LuisaViaRoma, League, and more. For more information, visit antavo.com.
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