In this guest post, Gravitas CEO and founder Julie Fitzpatrick (lead image), says as budgets are tightened everywhere, it’s creating a renewed focus on customer loyalty…Just like TV reboots and 90s fashion, customer loyalty is back in vogue – and it couldn’t come at a better time for Australian businesses. Whether it’s a discount on their next purchase, free shipping or loyalty points, value-adds are essential to ensuring customer retention. The future of loyalty programs is set to become customer value management, where businesses unlock customer insights (‘big data’) to determine differentiated sales, service and loyalty treatment strategies, aligned to value and potential. With marketing budgets in the spotlight, brand loyalty will be critical. Differentiating offers, aligned to the values of each customer, will be crucial to cost-effectively extracting incremental revenue and maximizing customer lifetime value.