How to Work Your Loyalty Program During Covid-19?

We are in times of uncertainty like we have never experienced before. The Covid-19 pandemic and the “new normal” as we tend to call it, have brought about challenges for everyone. It has not only affected our lives as individuals but also businesses as well. B2B brands are trying to adapt to this huge change. Finding new ways to engage with customers has never been this challenging, as well as crucial, during the times our priorities have altered drastically. Therefore, your B2B loyalty program during Covid-19 gained higher importance when it comes to sustaining your engagement channels.

Sustaining the Bond through Rough Times

The world population probably have had no similar experience recently, where they had no time to adjust, but were “forced” to get used to so many changes all at once. Imagine the chaos that would grow in any business, which is directly affected by human behaviors.

Let’s look at things in the most basic way: the first thing for people worldwide to cut down on was spending. We can even say spending activities are at an all-time low now. In times when we cannot predict anything related to the future, we tend to prepare for the worst. This is our primary instinct and so very understandable.

But this should not prevent you as a brand from investing in B2B engagement activities. If we need to establish consistent engagement within our channel for ensured success at “normal” times, don’t you think these hard times require it more? Can you think of a more crucial time as the pandemic for tighter bonds, where people feel the most vulnerable?

People need the most basic and primary things in life nowadays. For the business context, focusing on the same basics while responding to the emotional aspect is even more important now.

Addressing the “New Normal” Needs through Your Loyalty Program During Covid-19

The new normal involves how businesses will operate in the post-pandemic world. Businesses that have completed their digital transformation might have a swift adaptation. Marketing automation as part of this transformation, if utilized properly, will open up domains for finding new ways to engage with the customer base without falling outside the context. In the end, our lives and basic needs have altered greatly, and maybe even irreversibly.

The extremely challenging and overwhelming first months of quarantine were concrete proof for that.

Stick with What Matters

During times like these, people become extra sensitive to how brands, especially the ones they feel an emotional connection with, will respond. Your tone and offerings become marks of your mindset and attitude. Even if the world falls apart, your channel will look for consistency.

Make the concept “survival” your anchor and when you find yourself get carried away amidst all the anxiety of uncertainty, and think what would be compatible with it. What would a person think of in order to survive? What would your business thrive on, very basically, in order to survive?

Adjust your offerings accordingly, finding a balance with your needs and what your channel really needs. Leave the other minor issues for later.

Define real purposes that actually address the needs of your channel, on the basis of context and relevance.

Establish these values through proper leadership and empathy, using technology.

Staying Present, Through Thick and Thin

Communication has become vital in 2002. Noticed how dramatically the number of webinars, online events, etc. have increased and we became too clingy with our smartphones? It’s no coincidence, the need for staying in touch has peaked.

For the B2B landscape, this has more significance. Properly treated customers will reach their own customer base, passing your message across their own channels, contributing to your omni-channel loyalty.

Investing in continuous communication through your B2B loyalty program will strengthen your place in your partners’ minds. Togetherness through hardship will flourish when better times arrive.

Apex Loyalty offers real-time interaction management tools to provide this very approach as well. You can get out of this period with stronger bonds with Apex Loyalty.

Get Creative with Ways of Doing Business

The world has taken a massive turn in “ways of doing things”. It’s also very likely that it will have a lasting impact on how brands will operate, even after the pandemic is taken under control.

The notion of remote work is far more widespread now. Even the companies that are less agile in embracing chance had their fixed mindset blown.

Covid-19, without a doubt, has turned our lives upside down. But if we were to find a single positive side to it, we could easily say some fixed mindset on certain things cannot exist anymore, and the biggest impact is in our workspaces. To sum up, the business world is transitioning from in-person activities to the remote.

Looking for ways to integrate this mindset into departments that are used to more conventional ways of “doing things” is never a bad idea. Since your B2B loyalty program is not only about engaging customers, but also your own employees, our offerings are worth a closer look.

Apex Loyalty as a Powerful Loyalty Program During Covid-19

The concept of “being interconnected” has never embodied more meaning ever. Apex Loyaly has a flexible foundation along with all your remote efforts will serve to stronger bonds.

You can read our previous post on https://www.apexloyalty.com/7-features-of-a-successful-reward-program-in-b2b-loyalty/