“Your loyalty programmes must drive incremental purchase rather than rewarding normal purchase. One must differentiate between frequency and profitability,” said Bijou Kurien, president, Reliance Retail, on the 2nd day of 15th CII Quality Summit, in Bangalore. The summit started with a discussion on topic Winning Customer Loyalty.
Kurien also emphasised the need to create a community, which will act as an extension of the brand. Retail stores must understand the power of personalisation that is in remembering customers and their preferences.
Focusing on customer loyalty, Andrew Levermore, CEO, Hypercity said, “Hypercity does not believe in loyalty programs. Instead it is important to understand certain business drivers and push the right buttons that will drive the entire system. Customer loyalty programs by itself do not create loyalty. All round focus on customers requirements, understanding the need and creating an attractive shopping environment will lead to repeat footfalls.”
Richard Barton, expert, Asian Productivity Organization spoke about the importance of focusing on both, process as well as people. He said, “To deliver value to the customer and improve productivity, one has to work on all elements that involve both people and process.”
At the summit, British Standards Institute (BSI), the world’s largest certification body and CII signed a memorandum of understanding for working together in areas of standards and best practice, which follows co-operation in several areas, including food safety standardisation, sustainability and information security management.
The Confederation of Indian Industry – Institute of Quality (CII-IQ), is the first of the four Centres of Excellence that were proposed to be set up in Bangalore, by the National Council in 1995. The principal objective of the CII IQ is to enhance the competitiveness of Indian industry and all key sectors of the economy.
