Build Loyalty with an Analytics Platform That Inspires Confidence

This post was written anonymously by an Amplitude customer.

Insights/Action/Outcome: The company wanted to drive more applications for their branded credit card. The mobile team leveraged Amplitude to understand key points in the journey where users are most likely to apply, and used Experiment to test different experiences. They learned the most effective path was highlighting the offer on the landing screen for new users, and later saw an opportunity to drive engagement in the checkout path. Introducing those changes led to a 100% increase in applications.

When you have one of the strongest brands in your field, it’s easy to become complacent. But our sector is highly competitive, and we face a lot of external factors outside our control. It’s our job to foresee various obstacles and help mitigate them for our customers so they can have the best experience possible.

Analytics helps us understand behavior and drive loyalty

One of our priorities is building strong connections between the app and our brand. We want people to use our mobile app, but our average customer transacts with us several times a year. We’re focused on how we can encourage them to interact with our brand several times a month, and that requires us to deliver value in other ways.

Driving genuine value for our customers means we have to develop methods for the app to drive loyalty. The more value our customers receive from the app, the more they use it and connect with our brand over time, and we will be top of mind when they intend to make a purchase. Our dedication to the customer experience was the catalyst for us to adopt tools so we can more deeply understand how customers interact with our product.

We’ve partnered with Amplitude Analytics as our primary analytics lens for our mobile app. Analytics unearths an incredible amount of information for us to glean trends and understand how customers interact with our app. It allows us to focus on solving key problems for our users instead of solving foundational questions like how many times an event occurred.

I’ve often had to use one tool to gather information and another to analyze it. Analytics lets us do both, which makes our lives simpler and empowers us to take action faster.

Making work easier, especially for lean teams

We always knew our app was important, and we wanted to make it the focal point in our brand lifecycle. But it’s not enough to just have an opinion on how to elevate the user experience—you also need data to drive those decisions. Amplitude Analytics is the best platform to guide us on this journey.

The product management team loves to explore user events and interactions within Analytics, and the platform allows everyone across the organization, including developers, analysts, and customer service teams, to work more efficiently.

Without democratized access to data, answers from a data science team take days or even weeks. W e need to move faster than that. By empowering everyone with data through Analytics, we can turn a question into an answer within minutes. That means we can react and take action sooner.

Analytics is also easy to use, with a next-to-zero learning curve for most people. The self-service nature of Analytics breaks the mold of traditional product analytics tools and allows us to answer our questions and collaborate more effectively.

Building loyalty and achieving a 3X increase in revenue

Loyalty drives the top-line revenue metrics most important to boards, investors, and C-suite executives. Traditionally, a company like ours would identify loyal customers by examining various user patterns. But that only supports an existing opportunity rather than looking for growth.

We know that users signed into the app have a significantly higher average order value and a higher lifetime value. Using Analytics features like Personas and Cohorts allows me to identify different types of users who most meaningfully engage with our brand. By doing this, we can understand our customers better and take the appropriate steps to build on the loyalty journey.

We used Analytics to probe our loyalty program, exploring who used what elements of the program and the different values they provided. This activity allowed us to identify a key growth area within the credit card market.

Our loyalty members spend close to 50% more than other customers. A credit card builds loyalty with the brand and has the added benefit of driving additional revenue. We partnered with a national bank, who played a strategic role in creating our loyalty programming. The initiative was a big growth opportunity—and an equally big risk if it failed.

A top priority was to boost the number of monthly credit card applications. We wanted to publicize the initiative on the app without interfering with other users, who had a specific intent when logging into the app. We used Analytics to find the moments in the journey where users were most likely to apply. Then, we turned to Amplitude Experiment to test application introductions at different parts of the onboarding process. We learned the most effective strategy was highlighting potential savings for new users on the landing screen.

We could further drive applications in the checkout path, where users can immediately apply for the card to pay for their purchase. Any time we touch anything in the checkout path, there is a lot of risk because any detour could lead to revenue loss. The team’s culture of testing, creative thinking, and our confidence in Experiment led us to make strategic changes to the application process, which doubled our monthly credit card applications to more than 2,000 per month.

Nearly 70% of users have signed up for our loyalty program, up from 30%—and we have tripled revenue, which is incredible.

Moving with ease, speed, and confidence

One feature that enables us to move quickly is feature flagging. Regardless of where I am, I can post a message banner on our home screen in real time alerting users to anything that might affect their purchase.

Troubleshooting is another process Analytics helps improve. In one example, users reported issues logging into the app, which caused further complications with payments for 20% of users. Using Funnel and Pathfinder Users charts alongside event stream data, we connected insights to specific session information to discover the root cause of the problem. The occasional problem with an app is inevitable, but users expect quick fixes. Thankfully, our team was able to move fast and resolve the issue.

These steps reduced our customer service contacts related to the mobile app by 30%. We improved the user experience and reduced the operational costs of inefficient troubleshooting.

We have achieved so much because of our partnership with Amplitude. We see fewer errors and increases in credit card applications, revenue, and loyalty program adoption. We feel more confident about testing new ideas and putting them into action, increasing brand loyalty and ensuring our brand stays relevant and competitive.