Emails emerge as best way to interact with customers in UAE

Fast-changing technology, harsh economic realities and, above all, the emergence of new customer engagement channels are transforming how consumers interact with brands. These shifts in consumer behavior are also dramatically changing the ways in which brands can create and achieve loyalty.

To better evaluate the changes across the loyalty landscape, ICLP commissioned an in-depth online consumer research across 10 countries to compare the similarities and differences in the channel preferences of consumers and the ways they want to engage and interact with brands they are loyal to.

Email is an important channel in all regions; particularly in Saudi Arabia consumers prefer email to in-store interaction. In the Middle East, across UAE and Saudi Arabia email usage was comparable however when comparisons in behavior were made across generations, this is being driven by Generation X (35-54 age group) in both markets.

Whilst on average approximately 20 per cent of consumers across both the regions had communicated using a brand’s social networking page or used  a smartphone app or responded to a direct mail, it could be anticipated that this behavior is being driven by younger audiences. Interestingly this is specifically not the case for KSA where 24 per cent of Generation X consumers had socially interacted with a brand as opposed to 17 per cent of Generation Y (under 35).

Looking at the landscape of customer loyalty this is continuing to expand and increase in complexity because many factors are driving change simultaneously. With the emergence and adoption of new channels, loyalty initiatives have had to change and adapt.  Consumers want to control the communication channel that they share with brands. In return brands need to deliver a consistent customer experience, irrespective of the channel used.

Being able to connect behavior in social channels to transactional behavior via a loyalty initiative provides immense value in creating a more integrated view of customer behavior and in identifying the overlap in customers with high commercial value and high social influence. Together this insight will support the creation of more sophisticated segmentation and tailored communication strategies across multiple channels and touch points to further brand advocacy and loyalty.

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