The Software Affinity

With more software and solutions in play than ever before, the importance of a seamless user experience (UX) across all platforms is vital. The customer expects to see an affinity between the different offerings and the core brand and its personality.

The introduction of a loyalty programme provides a number of additional channels of engagement and communication, and customers expect their experience to remain the same across the different channels. A loyalty programme often takes on a identity of its own, and the importance of the UX flow between the programme and the brand’s other channels is ever prevalent to ensuring that consistency and company values are represented and, importantly, united.

The UI (user interface design) plays a vital role in the UX (user experience); it leaves the lasting impression of the product or programme but the UX design should go far deeper below the surface of the visual design to consider the function too.

At Stream Loyalty, we help take the stress out of the programme design. To get a programme UX right, you must first understand the people: the users’ needs, their wants, their behaviours (current and desired) and the context in which they are interacting with the programme. Through our ‘Inside Out Model’ and customer journey mapping workshops, you are able to gain a snapshot of where you are currently and the desired customer journey, understanding the value of data and the triggers for internal stakeholders.

From a UI perspective, Stream Loyalty can assist you, either working with your existing creative partner or utilising our inhouse design team, to easily deploy your programme’s visual design onto the front-end platform, through our easy-to-use site configuration wizards. These allow you to retain consistent visuals and UI elements throughout the site, whilst threading the continuity of your brand through to your programme.

The standard front-end page structures have been designed to take complexity away, ensuring that only the most relevant information is displayed to the member. Drawing on years of experience of designing programmes across business sectors, the functionality ensures that there is always a clear call to action which is designed to focus the member on the right behaviour change. Designed in a structured format that anyone within your team can configure, and importantly without any technical knowledge(!), it allows the flexibility to personalise the content, design and look and feel to meet the business needs.

Customising Your Design

For more complex design requirements, our inhouse design and development teams can work with you and your partners (if applicable) to build out custom page designs as demonstrated with The Dukes Club (above). Following initial wireframe concepts from Stream Loyalty, Gendall Design provided a 9 page design document that built upon the Dukes Education brand, but provided The Dukes Club with its own district brand and identity. Following the customised implementation, Stream Loyalty continued to develop other areas of the platform in line with the brand identity supplied by Gendall Design, such as the Inbox area and Networking page. The Dukes Education team are in full control of the content and distribution of communications via the administration site, providing the flexibility to adapt the messaging and content to the needs and requirements of their members.

Top tips for carrying your brand personality through to your loyalty solution

Identify the programme’s unique identifier

What element of your loyalty brand identifies to the user that they are within your loyalty world whilst still emersed in your brand experience? Is this a programme specific logo? Is it a slight deviation in colour palette change? Is it a complimentary font family alongside your corporate font? The above image shows you a great example of a programme’s unique identifier, where the specific characters are instantly recognisable to the brand’s loyalty programme.

Ensure consistency in imagery

A picture speaks a thousand words and can spark an instant emotional connection. The imagery that is used throughout your programme is the visual representation of your brand and its values. It is likely that within your Brand Guidelines there is a wealth of information on what photography, icons and creative should and should not be used. When considering the imagery for your loyalty programme, review your existing collateral. What is it that makes it stand out? What gives it the ‘oh that’s from so-and-so company’ without having to see the logo or brand name?

Consistency in language messaging

Your customers have an existing understanding of the phrases, terminology and language that your brand uses and that should flow through to your loyalty programme to help you to deliver a more effective message. Your choice of language will influence your members’ perception of your brand and the programme.

This is equally relevant for the consistency across your loyalty programme campaigns and promotions and your wider marketing activity. If you are offering a member 50 points for purchasing your new-to-market product, you could use the terms: 50 bonus points, 50 add-on points, 50 free points, special offer of 50 points; they all mean the same thing and have the same result. Having consistency in your terminology helps your members to identify and understand the value in the offering.

Consider the consistency throughout your communications as well. Ensuring that the call to action is phrased the same way each time allows members to understand the instruction quickly and be able to spot the ‘call to action’ easily across multiple channels. For example, you could have ‘Get Help’, ‘Contact Us’, ‘Find Help Here’, ‘Click for Help’ and so on; the list could be fairly endless. Irregularity in language can lead to mistrust and a feeling of unreliability and frustration.

Consistency not only helps the member to understand your offering and makes it easy to engage with the programme, it can also save them time and frustration and eliminate unnecessary learning.

Remove the jargon!

Following on from the consistency in language, make sure that you are not using too much jargon in your content. As marketeers, we are surrounded by jargon and acronyms constantly – it just becomes part of your working life. A great example of this is the term alphanumeric – to a tech-savvy person you know what this means – it’s a field that takes numbers and letters and in some cases special characters. Instead of using ‘use alphanumeric characters to create your password’ use more member-friendly phrasing such as ‘use letters, numbers and special characters to create your password’. If, within your campaign, you do need to use terminology specific to the programme or brand, then support the member by giving them an explanation of what it means, even if that is within your Help and Support section.

The takeaway... consistency is key!

The content, UI elements and visual components such as font and colour should be consistent and all work in harmony at every touch point that your members have, in order for them to have a seamless experience.

It’s Simples!

Did you get Simples! – yes, of course it’s Alesdandr Orlov and Sergei from Compare the Meerkat (aka Compare the Market). They have a full profile area dedicated to them within the Compare the Market site and are the front line representatives for Compare the Market Rewards. (This comes with a warning: you are about to visit www.comparethemeerkat.com and read all about Aleksandr, Sergei, Oleg, Maiya, Bogdan. Vassily and Yakov – best grab yourself a cup of coffee and write off the next 15 minutes).

About The Author

Laura’s goal is to develop partnerships with clients, seeking to understand their challenges in order to provide creative, value add solutions. Laura always seeks to provide a ‘no challenge is too big, no problem is too small’ attitude and aims to always exceed expectations.

Connect with Laura on LinkedIn