Loyalty programs are everywhere these days, in many different forms. From getting airline miles on your credit cards, to that ring of discount cards on your keychain, it seems that every type of company is trying to roll out a plan to ensure customary loyalty. That includes hosted contact center providers, such as SoundBite Communications (News - Alert), which recently co-hosted a webinar on this very topic.

SoundBite’s senior vice president of mobile sales and services, Mike Romano, took part in a webinar entitled “Mobilizing Your Loyalty Program.” The focus of the presentation was on using mobile marketing to increase customer loyalty, which Romano sees as the future of customer engagement. He believes that mobile marketing can help with the acquisition of new customers as well as the transition of casual shoppers into loyal devotees.

The webinar was a cooperative effort between Loyalty 360 (News - Alert), a company that specializes in loyalty programs, and SoundBite Communications, which, in addition to its focus on mobile marketing, also serves the global hosted contact center space. Between them, the two companies identified several critical success factors for mobilizing loyalty programs. Among these factors are: building a mobile marketing database, designing and implementing a cardless loyalty program, determining user preferences and using that information to maximize the marketing impact, and more. In addition, the webinar went over best practices in the space and discussed the state of loyalty programs in general.

“The most successful and profitable loyalty programs reach consumers with targeted, personalized and relevant offers. Thanks to the proliferation of smartphones and the adoption of mobile by consumers, retailers can increase the reach and profitability of their loyalty programs,” Romano said. “While all channels of communications are important, the ability to utilize a mobile device as the unique customer identifier allows for unprecedented convenience, scale and adoption.”