Your loyalty rewards catalog is central to the user experience and core to your loyalty strategy. Catalog-related failures break loyalty relationships rather than just strain them. Even though online shopping makes up a little more than 10% of all retail sales, the use of online ordering in loyalty programs is nearly 100%. A poor customer experience with ordering online can derail your efforts to keep participants loyal.

Step One: Make it Easy

The first and primary element contributing to pleasurable human experiences is ease of use. If you want to deliver a good experience, it must be easy. Our lazy brains simply won’t tolerate a difficult exchange when we perceive an easier one is (or should be) available.

Though most browsing is done on smartphones, the majority of orders are still placed on desktops. With that in mind, build your site to maximize browsing on smartphones (and tablets) and easy shopping cart resolution on the desktop.

Browsing should be easy with strong and flexible filters. Participants should be able to search for “What can I get with the points that I have” as well as general searches by point value, category, brand, color, size, popularity, delivery status, etc. Take a tip from Zappo’s when it comes to online filters: more is better. See Figure 1, to the left, for an example of far they take filtering.

Pricing should be all-inclusive. Take a tip from Apple with their pricing of iTunes songs: They don’t charge you $0.85 for the song plus $0.15 for royalties plus $0.20 for technology plus $0.05 for taxes. No – it’s one price: $1.25 for each song. Products should be priced inclusive of all relevant taxes and shipping costs. No one likes to be surprised at check out with additional charges for shipping and taxes.

Make the navigation functional and relevant to your catalog. Depending on how deep and wide the offering is, tailor the navigation for the shortest number of clicks between the landing page and the product. This includes using an auto-fill search function. Take a tip from Amazon on how to lay out a complex and diverse navigation tree, if your catalog is similarly diverse.

And, of course, make the checkout process easy. One click should be all that’s needed to confirm the account, shipping address, products and estimated delivery date.

Step Two: Make it Attractive

This starts with promotion outside of the catalog itself. Leverage seasonal messages to highlight changes and updates to the rewards offered. Promote new brands and new models that are hot in the consumer space as being available and ready to ship.

The best messaging is personalized and includes items that a participant can redeem for right away with their current balance. Personalization should highlight what products are relevant to the shopper – by value, by lifestyle, by location, by what others looked at, by popularity, etc.

Once inside the catalog, it should have a contemporary appearance. Lead with lifestyle imagery by category so that the landing page is not a matrix of thumbnails. The pages should also load quickly – a need that is too often overlooked in favor of high-quality images. Find a balance between image quality and speed of loading that makes sense for your catalog. See Figure 2 below.

Shoppers like details so having multiple, hi-res images for each product along with manufacturer’s specifications are always preferred. If there is anecdotal information such as, “this brand tends to run big,” is important to include as well. Anecdotes are key to the personalization story by revealing your brand by how you promote, layout and identify products while you’re personalizing the catalog for your participants.

Lastly, don’t forget to highlight areas such as discounted items, new, trendy, and seasonal specials to make the experience easy.

Step 3: Make it Social

Human beings are tribal animals. As much as each one likes to consider themselves unique, consider that 93 million Americans own Apple’s iPhones (out of an estimated 223 million smartphone users). Using an iPhone doesn’t separate you from the pack – it is the pack. But that’s okay, because we like, and need, to follow trends.

The social aspect of the catalog starts prior to actually logging in with communication that hypes the social elements of participation and how many people are earning points and redeeming them. Again: the more personal the better. An email that tells me that I’m one of 1,587 participants in the program with more than 1,000,000 points is better than simply promoting 1,000,000-point rewards.

Once inside the catalog, the social element comes first with messaging like “See what others frequent travelers are looking at.” This is a strong social tug that works best when it’s (a) authentic and (b) relevant to the recipient. LL Bean does a nice job of calling out relevant purchases made by other customers on their shopping cart page. See Figure 3 below.

A social engagement strategy from the catalog provider’s side might include some editorial such as, “Our in-house expert on 4K televisions recommends these brands for those with more than 1,000,000 points…” Again, this is a way of branding the catalog as your own and lets users know they’re part of a community. The message can appeal to exclusivity or simply be relevant to lifestyle – whatever is known about and relevant for participants.

In the checkout process, social can take on the role of sharing the purchase on social feeds using simple Facebook, Twitter or Instagram icons; or, it can be used to share the redemption of points for a specific item inside the loyalty community – depending on your brand’s objectives.

Following the check out, interactions (visits to the catalog, customer service inquiries, purchases) should be followed up with a simple one-question survey in an email: “How was your experience?” While there are many polar surveys being used (Good / Bad), research suggests that 3-point or 5-point scales provide better accuracy and are still not too difficult to complete.

Also, ask for a review. Review the experience, review the product, review the catalog…ask for input. Then be sure to respond. The best loyalty programs are well-staffed for providing quick responses to complaints as well as compliments.

Step 4: Make it Timely

Dan Pink’s new book When speaks to the importance of timing interactions and this is truer than ever with online shopping.

Again, enhancing loyalty by leveraging the catalog should be integrated with the holistic strategies for the program. Certainly, timely messaging begins with the anticipation that the participants will be logging into the catalog soon and setting expectations for what they should be excited once they log in.

Once inside, the hottest consumer products should be highlighted. If they’re not yet available, a promotion on the landing page should include the date of availability to make sure your participants understand you’re on it.

Products with inventories should include countdowns as products get close to being out of stock. And products that are out of stock should either be removed (temporarily) or grayed-out to clearly indicate that this product is normally available but is not at this time.

Real-time chat should be available with customer service people who know what’s going on. If there is a product that needs more subtle explanation than what’s seen in a photo or narrative, your customer service team should be trained on how to speak to those products. When the participant says they’ve never ordered shoes online before, the best response is not “Don’t worry, you can return them.” The better response is, “That brand runs a little large, so I’d go down a size.” Sweetwater Sound, an online-only music gear reseller, does a great job with knowledgeable online chat personnel. See Figure 4.

Following the order, the participants should receive regular updates on order processing and shipping the order, if it’s a physical product. Tracking links should be included and updated as new information is available – ideally a message stating that “Your new shoes should arrive tomorrow.”

Finally…

The offering should be closely aligned with the company’s brand and the branding of the loyalty program itself. For instance, a frequent-stay program could easily include a wine-of-the-month club offering in the catalog or spa treatments at participating resorts. However, if the program is hosted by a conservative organization, liquor and massages may not be appropriate. Make sure the catalog is curated to fit your company brand the brand of the program.

It’s important to offer variety and depth in the catalog. Even though only 25%-30% of the entire offering might be redeemed in any given month, the variety available is of psychological comfort (and brand image) to the participants. They need to see new merchandise to the consumer market, hot properties to travel to, simple ways of redeeming points for airlines and hotels, and have lots of experiences such as spa treatments, hot air balloon rides, race car driving lessons, etc. to choose from. Abundance of choice, while it works against our brains for actually making decisions, is preferred by catalog users.

Brand-relevant rewards that are Easy to access, Attractive to their tastes, Social in how they’re promoted, and Timely in their availability will serve up the best rewards experience. If done well, the inclusion of products, experiences and services will enhance the way the participants view the program itself.