As the digital landscape is accelerating, customers’ expectations are rapidly increasing. They expect a personalized experience across multiple touchpoints. A recent report by Marketing Charts states that 80% of the customers have a favorite brand that delivers a consistent customer experience. Providing a seamless experience to customers that meet their expectations is a big challenge. Brands constantly need to innovate and adopt the latest technology to address this challenging problem.
“Headless commerce” has become a topic of discussion amongst brands as a solution technology to meet the rapidly changing customer demands. Headless is evolving as a major solution in the fast-changing business environment. Headless customer loyalty softwares are emerging offering brands the flexibility to build scalable loyalty programs.
What is a headless loyalty platform?
Loyalty platforms generally consist of two layers –
1. Back-end layer (Administrator) : This layer is only visible to the administrators. All the tools, communications, and processes are configured in this layer. The back-end layer consists of multiple administrator panels like CMS, CRM, and reporting.
2. Front-end layer (User Interaction) : This layer is visible to the users of a loyalty program. All the communications and direct interaction with the user are carried out through this layer. It is the visual interface for all the content of a loyalty program.
Headless loyalty software offers an API first loyalty program in which the back end and front end are decoupled. It decouples the front-end, customer-facing environments that process loyalty transactions from the back end.
All the essential data for loyalty programs, like customer and product data, will be used from the back end, while the API will carry the logic, reward, redemption, and tracking. The relevant customer data and program will be visible to the user on the front-end applications like mobile apps and websites.
The freedom to decouple the front-end’s consumer-facing functionalities enables developers to build the desired customer experience at the front end.
The shortcomings of traditional loyalty platforms
Traditionally the loyalty program operates on tightly integrated legacy technology. Running loyalty programs on this technology is slow and expensive. It could take up to six months or more to make a few alterations at the front end. Brands cannot afford such a long wait in the fast-changing market.
The user interface (UI) is overwhelming; even a tiny change of functionality in the UI could take a very long time, impacting the agility of the business. You cannot act slowly in a competitive business environment to make swift changes to the UI of the loyalty program. The upgrade of the legacy loyalty program is expensive and time-consuming.
To sum up, here are the fundamental problems with traditional loyalty platforms –
- Lack of omnichannel experience.
- Expensive and time-consuming.
- Low agility and freedom.
What makes a great customer experience?
When choosing a loyalty platform, the most significant factor to keep in mind is customer experience. Moving to headless loyalty platforms can enhance the customer experience. But what improves the customer experience? What can be the probable factors if there could be a secret recipe?
- Speed
- Personalized experience
- Convenience
Let’s dive into headless platforms to determine how they deliver what a customer wants.
How headless loyalty platforms help you improve customer experience
- Fast & Flexible
It is faster to change the interface as the front end is decoupled in headless loyalty platforms. Brands can quickly change the front end based on the customer’s requests and needs, to provide a better experience.
Customers love brands that are quick to adapt to their demands. As changes are quick to deploy, the customers get a fast and convenient buying experience.
- Additional rewards & functionalities
Usually, it takes 3-4 months just to build the basic point banks and loyalty rules to support 7-8 engines. However, the real cost jumps in when you have to support 10-50 use cases and expand the back end.
In headless loyalty platforms, the functionalities are not built from scratch. The required features can be integrated easily via API. Since the features can be integrated within minutes, users can enjoy multiple functionalities.
Headless loyalty systems cut down the cost and time for the brands tremendously. Since the cost to the brand is heavily reduced, customers get indirect benefits.
- Personalized Marketing
The headless loyalty software can collect a lot of customer data as it is connected to multiple touchpoints. All the data is stored at the single back-end of the system. The rich data helps brands to run personalized campaigns loved by their customers.
The data-rich user profiles help brands to create targeted campaigns throughout the customer’s journey. More personalization delivers better performance of these campaigns.
- Omnichannel experience
Headless loyalty platforms have a decoupled front-end and back-end allowing for more flexibility. Brands can build the front-end of their choice to deliver a supreme experience to the customer. Since headless loyalty softwares are compatible, multiple front ends can be designed for a single back-end. It helps brands to deliver a seamless omnichannel experience.
The flexibility of the headless loyalty programs gives a supreme buying experience to customers. Removing the design constraints ensures an unforgettable experience for customers.
- Faster time to market
The market requirements keep on changing every now and then. Headless loyalty platforms add functionalities to the system, it helps the reward program connect with the various marketplaces.
Since the functionalities can be added using the API, your loyalty program need not be built separately for each marketplace. Instead, integrating APIs with marketplace platforms does the job.
Brands can migrate and ship their loyalty programs within minutes without any problem. It helps them time the market and adapt to the changing business environment. Brands can leverage the time to target new customer segments and beat the competition.
Headless technology is revolutionizing the loyalty industry
Headless architecture is revolutionizing the loyalty industry for the betterment of customers and brands. It’s a win-win situation at both ends. On one hand, it provides agility, cost reductions, and faster adaptability to businesses; it offers a personalized & omnichannel experience to the customers.
Interestingly as per Google trends, the term “headless commerce” touched its highest number of searches globally in the summer of 2021. This highlights how quickly headless is becoming the choice for businesses.
The loyalty industry is witnessing a revolution, with headless software being the catalyst.
For any loyalty program to be successful a robust technology platform coupled with rich data analytics and strategic consultations can be a real game changer to build customer loyalty towards your brand. Zinrelo is committed to empower brands strengthen customer loyalty and boost customer retention with its highly rated loyalty platform.ty platform.
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