Many successful small businesses also focus on "in the moment" loyalty initiatives, partly because their employees can have a greater impact. They can manage their training and buy-in more effectively than larger entities, since the locus of control is much smaller. They have the ability to be more nimble and, if they are truly committed and have a full-time employee (FTE) to put against the initiatives, the ability for them to glean actionable insight. The goal of all loyalty initiatives is to get back to the "corner store mentality" and engagement levels of the early mom-and-pop stores -- a time when the proprietor knew more about the interests, attitudes and opinions of their customers than they know today. The chance for small businesses to be "in the moment" is quite important.
Lastly, smaller companies that have more control of their programs can use value propositions that are easier to understand and resonate better with their customers. Because of their smaller customer base, smaller companies do not have to develop programs that have to appeal to more diverse communities.
The challenge to smaller companies around driving loyalty programs lies not in their interest, but the willingness to dedicate an FTE or even half an FTE is hard given the productivity issues in small America. For example, I was recently talking with leaders of a small sized construction company who ruefully acknowledged to me that they had no one on staff to run a loyalty initiative. In their efforts to hire someone for this capacity, they discovered that because loyalty marketing is such a complicated field, bringing someone on board can be very challenging.
The complexity of loyalty and engagement initiatives has increased, but the returns of effective administration of these programs is larger than ever before.