Home Depot Shows Pro Loyalty With New App Integration

Mobile apps are having a moment this week, with Walmart announcing it will make its app symbol part of its official signage, and Home Depot giving a mobile-first edge to its new loyalty program.

According to Mobile Marketer, the home improvement retailer has updated its loyalty program, giving members of its Pro Xtra program a cleaner integration for earning points for shopping at Home Depot and redeem perks through its app. Users can track purchases and see savings by scanning a Pro Xtra Virtual ID in the app at store checkouts. Pro Xtra members need to tap within the app to see the Virtual ID bar code, which must be scanned at checkout to earn points. Included in the rewards: Tool Rental Perks, credits for future purchases and surprise perks. Home Depot started the Pro Xtra program in 2012.

“Home Depot’s integration of its Pro Xtra loyalty program with its mobile app may provide greater convenience to home-improvement professionals and foster stronger brand loyalty for when they decide which retailer to buy from,” says Mobile Marketer. “The app not only provides members with greater transparency into the loyalty program, but also lets them avoid the inconvenience of carrying clunky membership cards and key fobs that wear out or are easily damaged.”

Loyalty and loyalty programs have been a priority at Home Depot. According to the company’s Aug. 18 earnings call, the rate at which its existing customers adopted new channels has more than doubled year to date. The company has also seen a third of recently acquired customers reengage for another purchase in a different department. During Q2 the mobile app saw a record number of downloads, along with significant growth in conversion rates across all digital platforms.

“But with all these new customers engaging across all The Home Depot capabilities, we’re very closely watching reengagement rates,” Ted Decker, executive vice president of merchandising, said on the earnings call. “We’re seeing people shopping across departments. Are they engaging in other capabilities? What is their duration before there’s a repeat engagement with a capability or indeed a purchase? And the name of the game for us is engagement, and that is really what’s all behind how doers get more done. The more our customers engage with our capabilities, whether it’s in the store, self-checkout, app downloads, delivery, search tool rental, using our lockers, using our calculators, every time our customer engages in another capability that we’ve built out, that’s stickiness, that’s repeat business, and that’s customer loyalty.”