Over the last three years, retailers’ efforts to acquire and retain loyal (and hopefully high-spending) customers have been hampered by two major effects of COVID: out-of-stocks caused by slow and uncertain supply chains and labor shortages that have stretched in-store staffs thin. Like a persistent hangover, these pandemic-induced problems remain the top loyalty challenges for respondents to the 2023 Retail TouchPoints Customer Loyalty and Personalization Benchmark Report, at 43% each.
This year, inflation has intensified retailers’ headaches. Even though it’s retreated from the highs of 2022, the damage has been done: 37% of retailers cited losing customers due to product price increases as a significant customer loyalty challenge, while 25% identified higher customer charges for formerly free or low-cost services such as shipping and return fees.
Find out more about retailers’ acquisition and retention challenges as well as the tools they’re using to meet those challenges in this Benchmark Survey report.