The inaugural report measures the overall sporting goods retailer customer satisfaction experience by examining five key factors: staff, cost, facility, merchandise and sales/promotions.

"Placing an emphasis on in-store interactions with customers will help create a successful experience and build brand loyalty—as well as helping to create advocates for the brand," said Sara Wong Hilton, senior director, strategy and product management. "With such a competitive landscape among sporting goods retailers, every interaction counts toward building a strong, loyalcustomer base."

The report also finds that while cost is important, a helpful and knowledgeable sales staff is the key driver of customer satisfaction with a sporting goods brand. Among the five study factors, staff has the highest importance weight in determining overall satisfaction (30%), followed by cost (23.5%) and facility (18%).

"Interestingly, merchandise and sales/promotions are rated by sporting goods customers as the least important among the five factors, which may suggest that customers see the industry as commoditized," said Wong Hilton. "What really differentiates one brand from the others is staff. Customers want to be helped by someone who is knowledgeable about the products and who can assist them in making informed decisions when it comes to selecting sporting goods."

The theme of customer-focused retention marketing carried into the second day of the conference when Ted Wham, VP of customer relations marketing at Orbitz, encouraged the audience to rethink the fundamentals of segmentation. He added that marketers should stop thinking about what content will go in this week's messages and should start thinking about sending automated but personalized messages. “Customers are individual people,” he said, pointing out that their emails should be individual too.

Wham said that marketers should be segmenting to create a more personalized experience and thinking about things like “recency, frequency and monetary value.” He said that more than half of customers are gone after six months in Orbitz's email program, but he pointed out that the company sees an increase in transactions from customers that remain. Orbitz, which has more than a 100 billion airline choices a day, sends triggered emails based on key events, such as the time since the most recent click, the time since a customer searched on the site, and the time since a customer has made a purchase.

The company uses email to cross-sell throughout the consideration window. “As we get better at this, we hope to identify individuals based on specific behaviors,” he said. “Are they procrastinators like me, or are they planners like my wife.

Shawn Meyers, product manager at Responsys, said that building a mobile experience would help build retention. “Mobile has the ability to build a relationship and deeper engagement,” he said.

Picking up the phone appears set to become a thing of the past, with 27% of Australians likely to switch to brands that are more customer-friendly on social media, according to a survey by Tick Yes and Nine Rewards.

The survey of 1000 Australians found that not only do consumers expect interesting, relevant and appropriately spaced updates from the brands they follow on social media, but they are beginning to expect a responsive customer-service presence also.

According to managing director of Tick Yes, Peter Applebaum, brands need to use social media to handle customer service enquiries and not just as a means to promote themselves.

“We’re at the tipping point of customer-company interaction,” Applebaum says. “Our survey shows that on the one hand people still like to contact companies through traditional channels like phone and email.”

In another way to enhance the banking experience, Citibank today announced the launch of the Citi ThankYou® Rewards for Small Business, where small business owners can combine ThankYou Points earned from their personal and business accounts.

For many small business owners, their life is their business and their business is their life,” said Maria Veltre, Managing Director, Small Business. “In listening to our small business clients, it became clear that they want to earn rewards for things they do every day for their personal lives and business, such as using cash management services, making credit card purchases or having a small business loan. By making Citi’s proprietary ThankYou loyalty program available to these clients, we are providing the most value to their banking relationship.

Over half of loyalty programs either have a social media or mobile communication-enabled component currently in place or in development, according to research recently conducted by VIPdesk and Banyan Branch.

Other key findings include:   

27% of loyalty program members prefer to utilize a mobile device to access loyalty program features

32% of loyalty programs reward members with points or other currency for participating in social media and/or online discussions about their brand

While only 17% of loyalty programs offer members a mobile application to use when redeeming rewards, another 30% have a mobile app currently in development: meaning that 47% of loyalty programs have a mobile app either in place now or will soon

Punchcard, a mobile engagement and loyalty network, announced today that the company’s new mobile loyalty program, available through a mobile app, is now available nationwide, giving consumers a simple way to get rewards from the businesses they frequent most. Punchcard gives smartphone users access to rewards from millions of businesses of all types including specialty retailers, restaurants, grocery stores, coffee shops and many others. Punchcard grew rapidly in Southern California where it debuted earlier this year and after a few months has changed the retail landscape for many local businesses and consumers.