Fifty cents could have been really special

One of the trickiest parts of building loyalty is making sure that your front-line employees are empowered to make customers feel special. After all, you can have the most forward-thinking rewards program or a strong enterprise focus on building customer loyalty, but if the employees dealing with customers on a day-to-day basis don’t have the power to build customer loyalty on the fly, you could be missing out on some great opportunities.

Take, for example, my experience in a popular mall specialty retailer this past weekend: When I walked in the store, I noticed a sign that said if I spent $100, I would get a $25 gift card. Nice offer, but I didn’t think much of it since I was just looking for one specific item.

When I reached the counter to pay, it turned out that my purchase totaled $99.50. The salesperson said: “If you spent $100, you get a $25 gift card. Do you want to pick something else up?”

Well, no, I didn’t want to pick anything else up — particularly since there was nothing in the store that would cost even close to just 50 cents. What would have been nice would have been to round up my total to $100 and just give me the gift card. The truth is, I might not even have used the $25 — I often don’t remember to bring such things with me when I shop — but I would have been so pleasantly surprised that I might have kept them top-of-mind when I shopped again.

It was just a little difference — 50 cents — that could have meant a lot when it comes to my loyalty to their brand.