Revolutionising Loyalty Programs: Integrating Loyalty with Marketing Automation Commerce, ERP, and Customer Data

In today's highly competitive business environment, customer loyalty holds more importance than ever.

Companies constantly strive to discover innovative ways to engage customers and reward their ongoing support. Implementing a robust marketing automation system with a comprehensive loyalty module is one of the most effective ways to achieve this.

In a recent project, DXC Practice for SAP Customer Experience tackled a unique challenge: integrating a Marketing Automation platform into Commerce and a company's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system while leveraging a customer data management solution to create a seamless, world-class loyalty program.

Our innovative approach facilitated a seamless flow of customer data between various platforms, leading to a unified and efficient customer management system. We employed Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) as a crucial component of our implementation. This platform centralises and synchronises customer data, generating a single view of the customer. 

Identity resolution allows organisations to merge customer identities from different channels and touchpoints into a unified customer profile. This comprehensive view of the customer enables more effective personalisation and targeting in marketing and loyalty initiatives, resulting in heightened customer engagement and satisfaction.

Other critical features included consent and preference management. This capability ensures that customers' privacy preferences are respected across all channels and interactions, helping companies maintain compliance with data protection regulations such as the Privacy Act 1988, which incorporates the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). By managing customer consent and preferences effectively, organisations can build trust and deliver more relevant, personalised customer experiences, driving brand loyalty.

The customer required unifying and enriching customer data from various sources in real-time. To achieve this, we implemented a Customer Data Platform (CDP). CDPs are a powerful, cloud-based data management solution designed to assist organisations in unifying and enriching customer data from various sources in real-time. It enables businesses to establish a comprehensive, 360-degree view of their customers and gain actionable insights to provide personalised customer experiences across marketing, sales, and service touchpoints. We integrated both data solutions, aggregating data and then federating into different target systems. This allowed loyalty across multiple brands, creating an interconnected ecosystem that enables companies to utilise their customer data more effectively.

A distinctive aspect of our implementation involved using points as currency within the loyalty system. To accomplish this, we leveraged a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that provided us with tools and services to create a microservice that enabled communication between the Commerce, Point of Sale, ERP and the loyalty component. This microservice fetched the points balance and performed on-the-fly conversion into a currency, streamlining and enhancing the user experience. 

DXC Practice for SAP CX has demonstrated its ability to deliver a top-notch loyalty system through seamless integration. The approach provided a connected ecosystem that promotes customer engagement and loyalty across multiple brands.

This solution has transformed the way the organisation manages their loyalty programs. By tapping into the full potential of their investment, we have developed a truly innovative and efficient loyalty program that elevates the customer experience and solidifies brand loyalty across multiple brands. Incorporating identity resolution and consent and preference management features enhance the program's effectiveness and ensures that customers' privacy preferences are respected throughout their interactions.

Blog written by Matt Varone, Managing Consultant, DXC Practice for SAP - CX