September 2023
New Feature
Imposing launch delays to fit your business
For Integration and API Users
Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash
If you use one of the LoyaltyLoop Integrations, or your organization uses our API to send us your survey launch data, this post describes a new capability that allows you to impose a delay when your contacts get surveyed, to fit your specific business needs.
First, let’s define the various survey launch attributes that relate to every customer’s survey launch plan.
Launch Attributes
Launch Data Feed
The method by which LoyaltyLoop receives your transaction contacts to-be surveyed:
- API or Integrations
- Emailed to your Launch File Email Address
- Manual upload to your Launch Pad
Launch Frequency
How often your survey is sent. There are 4 typical options:
- Daily
- Weekly
- Bi-Weekly
- Monthly
- Bi-Monthly
Launch Window
Sets when your survey is sent, and is based on your chosen Launch Frequency. Options include:
- Any Tues-Thurs (Default)
- Any Mon-Fri
- Specified Day of the Week (Mon-Fri)
Launch Day Delay
An imposed delay in days for when a contact should be surveyed. The delay is based on when LoyaltyLoop receives your data.
Note: Surveys do not launch on US Holidays, regardless of the specified schedule, delay or other rules.
Launch Data via Integrations & API
Our Integrations allow your transaction contacts to flow to your LoyaltyLoop account automatically each day, based on the triggering event for your specific Integration. Each integration uses a different triggering event based on the source software, and it is important to understand how your specific integration will work.
In all cases, LoyaltyLoop receives the transaction data when the transaction is "finished", as defined by each software system. This could be a trigger like a "posting date", a "ship date", or something else specific to the source software. This puts your LoyaltyLoop service in position to survey contacts as soon as the next day.
Launch Day Delay Explained
However, your specific business may want to impose a standard delay before asking customers for feedback. For example, if you ship goods or provide services that your customers should experience before asking them to give you feedback, you may wish to impose a Day Delay, to ensure your survey is not sent to a contact until after the delay has passed. To illustrate how this works, let’s look at a few examples.
Example 1
Let’s take the example of an Integration that sends data to LoyaltyLoop daily, triggered when you enter a Ship Date into your source software. Let’s also assume your survey Launch Frequency is set for surveys to be sent (launched) weekly, with a Launch Window of Tuesdays only. If you instruct us to impose a 3-day delay, here’s how the system will behave.
When LoyaltyLoop launches your survey on a Tuesday, contacts with a Ship Date of Monday, Sunday or Saturday will be excluded. Meaning, if the contact has not experienced the specified 3-day delay, the contacts will be skipped on this launch, and held until the next scheduled launch, in this example, the next Tuesday.
Example 2
Let’s look at another example. Again, let’s assume your Integration sends data to LoyaltyLoop daily, triggered when you enter a Ship Date into your source software. But now, let’s assume your survey Launch Frequency is set for surveys to be sent (launched) daily, with a Launch Window of any Tuesday through Thursday. If you instruct us to impose a 3-day delay, here’s how the system will behave.
When your survey launches on a Tuesday, contacts with Ship Date of Monday, Sunday or Saturday will be excluded. Your Wednesday launch will exclude contacts with a Ship Date of Tuesday, Monday and Sunday. And your Thursday launch will exclude contacts with a Ship Date of Wedsnesday, Tuesday and Monday. Contacts that are skipped will be held until the next available launch day.
How to set your Launch Day Delay
This feature is available to any customer using our Integrations or API to transmit their survey launch data. To impose a launch day delay, simply email support@loyaltyloop.com, or give us a call at 888-552-5667 (or 401-560-0311) option 3, and specify the day delay you wish to our support team.
Learn
Good way to handle a bad customer experience
a lesson by Delta Airlines
Photo by Sven Piper on Unsplash
If you’ve traveled by air in the last few years, you undoubtedly know how much “fun” and it can be. Like many things, it seems the pandemic has had a lasting impact on the airlines’ ability to deliver consistent, quality service. Earlier this month, I experienced and an issue that demonstrated the problems facing the industry, while also producing a good example of how to handle a difficult situation.
The Bad Experience
My wife and I decided to take a brief end of summer vacation. We picked our destination, and our airline. We've had great prior experiences with Delta Airlines, and we booked our flights without hesitation. The flights to our destination were perfect, but the return, not so much.
The problems started with delays from our destination for over an hour. We eventually arrived in Atlanta (ATL) to catch our connecting flight to Providence (PVD), scheduled to arrive just after midnight. This flight was also delayed, but this time the gate agent announced that the delay was due to the flight crew had yet to arrive in ATL. We were told they were "near by" and expected soon, and soon thereafter, they started the boarding process. We board the plane with no flight crew.
Fully boarded, we wait some 30 to 40 minutes, and finally the flight attendant informs us that the flight crew has arrived but have “fatigued out” and are no longer able to fly this evening. We are instructed to deplane and return to the same gate in the morning for an 8am departure. They inform us that Delta will provide vouchers for food and hotel, and we should go to the service desk for assistance, or watch for a text message with details. If you’ve ever been in this situation, you know this is the moment when the real “fun” begins.
The line at the service desk is long, as it turns out our flight was not the only one that was cancelled (shocking!). As we wait, a text arrives from Delta with a link to book a hotel using a voucher. In seconds, we book a room at a Radisson 2 miles from ATL. We Uber to the hotel, to find dozens of other travellers waiting to check in by the 2 overwhelmed front desk employees. It’s now around 12:40am. Then, one of the Radisson employees announces that they have only 8 rooms left! Everyone starts hollering “we have vouchers and a confirmation”. They tell the tired crowd that they can accept any paid reservation, but only 8 more "voucher" rooms. They suggest we try the Holiday Inn Express down the road.
A few of us deep in line head for the Holiday Inn, walking down an unlit street at 12:45am. We eventually find it, check in without issue, confirm the airport shuttle runs on the half-hour in the morning, and head to bed. I double-check the Delta app to confirm the 8am departure as per the flight attendant, and it now shows a 7:30am departure. The head hits the pillow at 1am.
The 5am alarm goes off, and we head down to the shuttle, where we find dozens of other weary travellers waiting. Everyone is asking each other if the shuttle has been here yet, and if it will hold all of us. Someone says that it has, it is small, and we're not all going to fit. Someone else says 2 women already missed it twice as other travellers got on before they could, and we should let them on next regardless. I decide another Uber is the right option, which arrives in only 5 minutes. We tell the crowd we’re Ubering to the airport and have room for the 2 women (and another person), who are very appreciative of the lift. We get to the airport, and make our flight home.
Owning the Problem
My experience is not uncommon, and most of us have likely experienced something similar. What is uncommon in my experience, is Delta's handling of the problem.
There is no way to recover the lost hours experienced, the loss of half our Saturday on a gorgeous summer day spent in the air instead of the beach, or undo the frustration of a situation like that. However, the next morning I received an email from Delta. Importantly, their email was not in response to any survey or feedback I gave them. They knew they caused a problem, and they proactively took ownership of it. I believe their email speaks for itself.
Being in the business of helping companies learn how to deliver great customer experiences, Delta, yet again, demonstrated to at least this traveller that they ‘get it’. They handled a bad customer experience as well as they could, and their quick follow-through made us feel a little better about the situation, and reinforced our positive view about flying with Delta Airlines.
In the end, we all know unexpected problems do arise, and situations like this do occur. But, as Delta demonstrated, treating people with dignity, empathy, and honesty is always the winning formula both in life and in business.
Scoring the Experience
The Good
- They kept customers informed during all the delays
- Easy and quick process to book a hotel at no cost
- Voucher being accepted by a different partner hotel than the one booked
- Owning the issue and engaging customers quickly
- Expense reimbursement so easy and fast (received funds the next day. Amazing!)
The Bad
- Multiple delays and changes to flight
- Boarding the aircraft without a flight crew
- Strange messaging by gate agents regarding no flight crew yet
- Being told flight will depart at 8am, when in fact it was 7:30am
and, The Ugly
- Not anticipating the inbound flight crew would "fatigue out"
- Issuing confirmation for hotel rooms that were not available
- Walking to try another partner hotel in the middle of the night
Delta wing photo by Luka Souza on Unsplash
Learn
Debunking The Top 5 Myths About Customer Loyalty
It's not that complicated!
Photo by UX Indonesia on Unsplash
There are a lot of strategies out there for increasing customer loyalty. Do they all work? Unfortunately, no they do not. But how can you separate fact from fiction? Here are the Top 5 Myths about Customer Loyalty from Forbes – distilled down for you!
Myth #1: Satisfied customers are loyal customers.
Just because your customers are happy with your service once doesn’t mean they will keep returning. Simply put, satisfaction does not equate to loyalty. You need to continually impress and engage customers to keep earning their trust and business. This is a process of listening to your customers and improving your business to keep them satisfied. Only by continuing to give your customers great experiences that enrich their lives, will you create truly loyal customers.
Myth #2: Customer expectations are higher than ever.
There is high competition in almost every industry and customers have a lot of choices to choose from. They do expect a lot, but they also have been burned over and over by long customer service wait times and roadblocks at every turn. The result? Today, customers actually expect a poor experience when engaging businesses, which creates the opportunity to actually thrill them with easy, convenient customer service!
Myth #3: Great customer service is the key to building customer loyalty.
Even better than providing excellent customer service is not needing to provide it at all! The need for a customer to get help usually means that something has gone wrong in the customer cycle. Even if the customer service is excellent, the better your product offering and processes, the less they will need to engage with customer service and the happier they will be.
Myth #4: A great, loyalty-building customer experience costs more to deliver.
Perfecting your process doesn’t need to be more expensive. When you focus on great end-to-end customer experiences it reduces the need for downstread customer services. In doing so, you’ll gain efficiencies, reduce support costs, and eliminate unnecessary customer touchpoints.
Myth #5: There’s little proof that being good to customers is good for business.
Your customers are your business (cheesy as it is to say) so treat them well! “Companies that offer a great customer experience outperform their less customer-centric competitors by an average 3-to-1 ratio in shareholder return,” according to this Watermark Consulting’s widely-cited Customer Experience ROI Study.
Discover the full article from Forbes - “Debunking The Top 5 Myths About Customer Loyalty.”
Tip
Did you know you can set alerts and notifications?
It’s easy to stay on top of your customer feedback so you can be in position to learn, and take appropriate actions to improve. Go to Settings and Alerts & Notifications. Click the icon under the column labeled Example to remind yourself what the email notice looks like, then flip the Active switch to the ON position. Going forward, you’ll receive that email notice. To stop receiving a notice, flip the Active switch to the OFF position.
Admin Users have a extra section on the right, which allows them to send notices to any contact. Simply modify the notice in question, add the person’s email address (and Save Changes), then flip the Active switch to ON.
Press
Join us at Printing United (booth #C1362), and International Print Day
If you're planning to attend Printing United next month in Atlanta, please swing by to say hi. We'll be in booth C1362. See you there!
Click the "Join Us" graphic below to get complimentary passes on us!
Looking to get more insight on the print industry? Join us at International Print Day 2023!
LoyaltyLoop will be presenting at 11:30! Click the graphic below for the full schedule and registration details.
