Loyalty 360: True Loyalty For Today’s SMBs
May 28, 2009
By: Scott Robinson
Today’s small and medium business merchant (SMB) is facing greater challenges than ever before. A struggling economy, poor consumer confidence and increased competition have SMB owners, and those planning to start a business, looking for new and economical resources to help manage their business. The start up and ongoing costs can be imposing when revenues are down, and fixed costs are not adjustable. As SMB’s price sensitivity increases, the financial institutions that serve them are growing more and more susceptible of losing their most profitable customers to competitors who launch aggressive acquisition campaigns. Now, more than ever, loyalty to the SMB is of critical importance.
Austin, TX-based Renovatix Solutions is solving the problem on both fronts with an innovative approach. Through a platform of leading software as a service (SaaS) based applications, a Financial Institution (FI) can brand an entire marketplace of world class branded SaaS applications ranging from VOIP, CRM, accounting, web services and many others, to SMB’s that need these services to start or manage their business. The applications from the developers of Google, Citrix, Media Wiki, Movable Type, Ratepoint and dozens of others, are offered as monthly subscriptions and provisioned to a user’s account for both purchase and usage. With a single sign-on to their account, the SMB can literally access the applications they need to manage their business more cost effectively, and from any computer in the world.
The value to the FI results from offering these services, but more importantly, how frequently their merchants will visit to obtain them. The Renovatix platform provides the marketplace owner the capability to select the applications they want to offer, and brand the entire marketplace as their own solution, often aligning perfectly with existing services and messaging. This allows the FI to maintain a tighter relationship with the SMB by being a central repository for their daily business applications and the ability to create targeted communications opportunities that deliver ever-changing marketing campaigns and thought leadership from their management.
“In our research of SMB merchants, we found that the second most common thing business owners do after obtaining their Articles of Incorporation, is to establish their banking relationship,” said Scott Robinson, General Manager of Renovatix Solutions. “Who better to offer these daily services to their merchants than the most trusted resource these SMBs rely on… their bank. With the growing acceptance of SaaS applications and the SMBs that use them, we felt there wasn’t a better time to introduce a subscription based platform for these services, especially given the state of the economy.”
That just begins to tell the story; in addition, Renovatix has also identified a glaring need within the loyalty programs catering to SMBs by working with leading loyalty-marketing firms over the years.
“It struck us that most programs these banks and providers offer to their SMB customers, don’t truly meet the unique requirements these merchants have. Travel, merchandise and gift cards are great options to individuals, but what do business owners really need? Why not have a category of redemption options for services that the SMB could use to redeem their points or cash and mitigate the expenses of managing their business?” Robinson stated. “The Renovatix platform allows the marketplace owner the alternative to offer these services so SMBs can both earn and use their points or cash program, with this very goal in mind.”
Now armed with a marketplace of leading SaaS applications and an informational platform that allows their customers to interact and share best practices, the FI is providing greater value to their customers, and staying in front of them on a regular basis, thus limiting the attrition of an FI’s most profitable customer.
Robinson remarked, “One marketplace owner estimated that by keeping just 1% of their SMB customers from attrition, it would result in a substantial savings of $14M of annual revenue. Imagine a solution that resulted in 2-3%? That becomes an incredibly valuable tool to retain customers, with significant ROI benefits.”
While the solution is perfectly suited to FIs with SMB customers, any organization with large constituents of SMBs is suitable for offering a marketplace. Member organizations, technology providers, insurance companies and agencies are quickly grasping the power of offering such a solution. However, in order to make the service effective for these groups, Renovatix also realized they had to solve for the single biggest hurdle when introducing a new technology; integration.
“Every technology related solution I’ve ever been involved in always comes back to the resources required, and where it falls in that client’s queue. If the resources and time to implement aren’t available, that puts most technology projects at immediate high risk,” continued Robinson. “We’ve developed a platform, that can be completely customized to the owners’ specifications and brought live, with absolutely no technology integration. We host, manage and maintain all the partner relationships: billing, reporting, even funding the loyalty component in most instances. Literally, all the client has to do is promote it, and enjoy a very healthy new stream of revenue, almost instantaneously.”
For more information on how Renovatix Solutions can put a marketplace such as this to work for you or your clients, please visit www.renovatixsolutions.com or contact Scott Robinson at scott@renovatixsolutions.com. Renovatix is attending the 2009 Loyalty Expo.