We already know that loyal customers are the best customers. This is evidenced by an abundance of statistics including the following:

• If a consumer is loyal to your business, he or she will spend an average of 66% more than customers who aren’t loyal. [Accenture]
• 55% of loyal customers recommend your business to family and friends, and 12% will publicly defend your company on social media. [Accenture]
• A loyal customer who “adores” your brand is more than 11 times as likely to buy more, 17 times as likely to recommend the company, 9 times as likely to try new offerings, 6 times as likely to forgive the company if it makes a mistake, and 10 times as likely to trust the company. [Tempkin Group]

In general, loyal customers are definitely the most engaged customers and the customers that are contributing incremental revenue to your bottom line. But what if you could take it a step further? How much more valuable would that loyal customer be if you could incentivize them to visit your locations more frequently and at times they may not usually visit?

Thankfully, the power of data coupled with the automated customer engagement tools makes this a snap.

In this post, we’ll share how merchants can use data to timeshift customers, to increase revenue and ROI.

What can data tell you about your customers?

Before getting into the details of how you can get your customers to visit your locations at different times, it’s important to understand what data can tell you about your customers.

It’s easy to assume you know what your customers want, who they are, what motivates them, or even when they visit. However, with the help of data, you don’t have to assume. You can have this information at your fingertips. Then, you can use this information to make better business and marketing decisions.

Customer data can tell you the following:

• Real-time behavioral patterns. Your business operates in real-time and so should your reporting. Data will tell you exactly when your customers are visiting, how much they are spending, their lifetime value, how often they frequent your locations, and even what items they are purchasing. The Thanx automated customer engagement platform provides merchants data on over 40 customer attributes because data is power.
• Identify your VIPs. With the help of data, you can quickly identify your best customers who come in and spend the most.
• Customer satisfaction levels. With the help of NPS (Net Promoter Score), you can measure your customer satisfaction levels and collect specific feedback. Then, you can address any concerns personally and privately with the customer keeping anything negative off sites like Yelp. And, it pays off. Customers who provide feedback have a 1.4x higher lifetime value.
• Competitor information. When you have a baseline of what your customers are spending at your locations, it’s easy to compare it to competitor data. This gives you insight into what you are doing right, what you are doing wrong, what you can change, and how you can get your customers in your store more often. The best part is you get all this competitor data right in your customer engagement dashboard.

Data provides you with insights that can eliminate guesswork, make it possible to create positive customer journeys, and help you make wiser marketing decisions.

How to use data to timeshift customers

Now, let’s talk about how to put data into action to timeshift customers. In other words, how can you use this data to get loyal customers back into your store at slower times?

To figure this out, let’s look at some examples from the pros.

Starbucks

If there’s one thing Starbucks gets right, besides coffee, it’s using data to tune into customer needs, time shift customers, and make better business decisions.

One popular draw for many Starbucks customers is free wifi. Instead of just offering free wifi, however, Starbucks uses this pull to connect with active customers in a more meaningful way…for both parties.

More specifically, Starbucks doesn’t just offer free wifi. They offer free wifi with a catch—a catch that benefits both parties.

Starbucks uses free wifi as a way to collect basic customer data through a loyalty program sign-up. Starbucks also offers active wifi users an exclusive coupon code to return to the store later that day to redeem a discounted drink.

This smart approach boosts participation in the loyalty program, helps Starbucks collect more customer data, and time shifts customers for incremental purchasing opportunities.

Starbucks doesn’t stop there. They also offer this same promotion to loyalty app users. In return for using the app and yielding up basic data, customers can collect points to redeem for rewards as well as get exclusive access to promotions like happy hour.

Again, Starbucks benefits by collecting more accurate customer data through their loyalty app. This data help Starbucks refine their loyalty program and timeshift customers to get them to visit during happy hour driving more foot traffic to a slower time of day and generating more revenue.

Pickleman’s

Starbucks isn’t the only brand successfully using data from their customer loyalty program to timeshift customers.

Brands like Pickleman’s use Timeshift from Thanx to increase customer visits during slow periods.

As a quick overview, you can use Timeshift from Thanx to track customer behaviors including visiting patterns. Once you have identified slower periods, you can create your own “happy hour” type promotions. In other words, you can target your weekend guests to visit during the week, you can target morning visitors to visit during the afternoon, and you can create promotions that generate more foot traffic during your slow times.

For example, let’s say you notice some of your customers visit one of your locations every Monday at the same time and order the same special. You can use Timeshift to target those customers, offer them a promotion for a similar special, but change the redemption time to a slower time, like 6pm-10pm. This strategy helps to motivate customers to visit your locations more frequently. And, it works. Merchants that have used Timeshift have seen an 18% increase during previously “slow” times.

Pickleman’s is an excellent example of a company that successfully used Timeshift from Thanx to remarket to loyal customers. The results were astounding.

“We wanted to implement a loyalty program for a long time, but couldn’t find a solution that all our franchise owners would embrace. Thanx solved this problem by providing detailed and up-to-date reports that displayed revenue and ROI increases in clear terms. In just 6 months, we have already seen higher average check sizes and increased revenue. Plus—our most pleasant surprise—we successfully increased Wednesday traffic; something we had tried and failed to do many times before.” – Pickleman’s Marketing Director

By using data to identify customer preferences, visit frequency, and slow times, merchants can cater more effectively to loyal customers so that both parties win.

Wrap up

Capturing customer data is no longer an option. It’s a necessity. Smart data capture coupled with a solid customer engagement program helps merchants know their best customers, provide those customers more of what they want, and make smarter marketing decisions to increase revenue and ROI.