SAP CX exec walks through loyalty management and engagement tools
If one of the keys to driving loyalty is delivering on what you promised, Balaji Balasubramanian and his team are putting it into practice this week at the inaugural SAP Connect event in Las Vegas.
Back in January SAP announced plans to develop a loyalty management solution aimed at retailers and consumer packaged goods companies. SAP Connect saw the formal launch of that solution, which brands can use to segment offers, personalize rewards and run “earn and burn” point-based programs.
Balasubramanian, president and chief product officer of SAP Customer Experience and Consumer Industries, likened the loyalty management solution to a wallet that its customers can use anywhere they want. This could include both first party and third-party channels, affiliates and programs in multiple regions.
“Even though it is a loyalty management application, it is not sitting on the side,” Balasubramanian explained in a briefing with 360 Magazine ahead of SAP Connect. “It’s not separate. It fits into supply chain, into ERP and into commerce.”
Integrating loyalty management with other pieces of the tech stack is essential for delivering on three areas SAP sees customers needing help, Balasubramanian said. The first is recency: in other words, how recently a customer engaged with a brand, made a purchase or reached out for help. SAP also wants to assist brands with enhancing the relevancy of their customer interactions. Loyalty management also needs to align with what customers value, whether that be lower prices or sustainable practices.
Improved loyalty management could allow more brands to create options for customers that go beyond the process of collecting and redeeming, Balasubramanian suggested.
“We all have seen how airlines, for example, have done this tremendously, where maybe you get premier boarding experiencees, or maybe you get lounge access, things that are not necessarily points,” he said.
Balasubramanian also announced the release of SAP Engagement Cloud, which uses business-critical context to personalize interactions across customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. Balasubramanian said Engagement Cloud offers many traditional marketing automation capabilities but creates a “connective tissue” between customers, employees, suppliers and partners. Bringing this data together allows for marketing automation as well as loyalty management to be more effective, he said.
“I need to know who you are, what have you done, your preference, data, your behavioral data and even consent data,” he said. “These two areas feed off each other. As a customer I want to know what my (loyalty program) usage is, where I stand in terms of rewards. For the brand, they need to see, is this program working? Am I getting ROI not? Now you can see that.”
From an AI standpoint, SAP continues to roll out Joule intelligent assistance. Balasubramanian said those released at SAP Connect will include one tailored to chief revenue officers to help understand areas such as pipeline health, customer health and churn risk.
