Unleashing customer loyalty with instant gratification and rewards

In the past few years, it has become clear that users place instant gratification above everything else.

According to a Salesforce report, a company that doesn't anticipate consumers' needs will lose at least 45% of their customers.

A loyalty program that promotes instant customer gratification and offers compelling benefits can improve customer acquisition and retention.

But what are some of the benefits of using customer gratification? What’s the key to customer gratification psychology? And what are some great customer gratification examples you can use in a loyalty program?

Keep reading if you want to find the answers to these questions.

What’s the importance of customer gratification in today’s market?

Instant customer gratification refers to the immediate fulfilment of customer desires, needs, or expectations in their interactions with a product, service, or brand.

Customer gratification in marketing signifies a customer's ability to obtain their desired product or service promptly and effortlessly.

Streamlining processes, providing quick access to information, and offering instant rewards can help achieve this.

By prioritising instant gratification, businesses create positive and satisfying experiences that enhance customer loyalty, drive repeat purchases, and foster brand advocacy.

What are the benefits of customer gratification?

Companies and brands all over the world seek emotional loyalty from their best customers.

The lifetime value of customers with emotional relationships with brands is 306% higher, and they are 71% more likely to recommend the company to their friends and family.

It’s clear that while emotional loyalty can be a difficult feat to achieve, it can reap significant benefits.

When diving into customer gratification psychology, one key thing to notice is that instant gratification fuels emotional loyalty. 

Instant discounts, usable whenever customers shop, serve as motivation for them to engage in loyalty programs.

Companies can use instant gratification marketing to spark emotional loyalty within their user base, but what are some of the other benefits?

But how can a brand use customer gratification and instant gratification marketing to achieve all of these benefits?

Seamless redemption

In the past, using points to redeem a reward meant a notoriously difficult 1:1 integration between each rewards program and accepting merchants, but loyalty programs are now looking at new ways to make rewards easier and more flexible to redeem.

Making the whole redeeming process seamless has the benefit of creating an enjoyable customer experience, which could also lead to customers leaving positive feedback and referring friends to your loyalty program.

A clear example of seamless reward redemption and customer gratification comes from Tickit, Dubai Holding’s reward program, which is also the first program in the Middle East to debut an effortless redemption.

The redemption happens via a virtual payment card that users can add to their mobile wallet, providing a seamless omnichannel experience.

Members effortlessly earn and redeem points by connecting a payment card to the app and then shopping as normal in over 1000 participating outlets across the UAE.

Points are automatically earned without having to present the app or scan receipts, and they can then be redeemed via a virtual card in the app.

This process allows for a seamless redemption of rewards and it’s an overall great example of instant gratification marketing.

Cashback

Cashback reward programs got really popular in the past few years because of their simplicity: with every purchase a customer makes, they earn a small amount of money back.

The key behind this particular piece of customer gratification psychology is the fact that they provide instant gratification, reinforcing the customer’s decision to shop.

The concept of these reward programs is definitely not new, but it has been reinvented time and time again as technology has changed, making it easier to use for instant gratification marketing.

Good cashback programs include personalised offers based on the customer’s location and purchase history, availability on apps, and instant application thanks to card-linking technology.

“We just surveyed 19,000 of our users about their shopping behaviour, and 82% said they prioritize special promotions, discounts or cash back when choosing where they’ll shop. That’s a powerful loyalty stat,” Ryan Wuerch, CEO & founder of Dosh, says.

Gamification

A great way to lean into customer gratification psychology with your loyalty program is to combine instant rewards and gamification elements.

Gamification involves applying elements of games to non-gaming activities, such as points, competitions, challenges, and leaderboards.

When gamification and instant gratification marketing are combined, the effect on people's emotional loyalty can be even stronger. With gamification, we gain a sense of accomplishment, progress, and competition, all of which are closely related to our natural desire for rewards.

But how do you link gamification and customer gratification? A great example of this is Nectar, the largest UK loyalty card scheme.

Nectar used its mobile app to generate higher user engagement by offering a more engaging way to earn points. In addition to collecting points for every purchase made at a partner venue, Nectar users are also prompted via push notifications to “Scratch and win”.

This customer gratification strategy digitally simulates the excitement of a physical scratch and is a way for users to simply win extra points for their purchases.

It replicates the familiar joy of innocent small-scale gambling, but it also offers additional value by having customers get more bang for their buck and giving them a “winner” feeling at the same time.

Activations

Another great way to achieve high customer gratification is using brand or shopper activation campaigns, which can ultimately help you grow customer understanding through data.

White Label Loyalty has an end-to-end turnkey solution for data-driven activation campaigns that will help you run seamless campaigns faster, in a matter of days, not weeks or months.

This gives you the ability to run more activations faster and more cost-effectively whether you want to run a scan to win, on-pack promotion or use social media.

Our receipt scanning solution allowed PepsiCo to deliver 22 campaigns so far, whilst tracking customer purchases and collecting valuable first-party data. Our technology also allowed PepsiCo to increase customer engagement and reward customers for purchasing their products.

Using activation campaigns as a part of customer gratification in marketing enables you to create something intriguing and relevant to your company that generates interest even from those who are unfamiliar with your brand.