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May 27, 2007 LOYALTY CARDS: How many do you have? How many do you use?
There is a boom with Loyalty Cards. Every well-known company, specially those dealing with CRM programs and services, feel they must have them. However, their efficiency has to be questioned and thus this blog. Let me start this with two questions: 1. How many loyalty or membership cards do you have?
In my particular case these are the ones I can remember that I have: 1. Airlines cards from Iberia + Spanair + KLM + Lanchile And I am sure that I am missing many! The number speaks for itself. Interesting thing is that all these companies spend a lot of money in them. However, the results are really discussable in terms of the loyalty they are really generating. Because not only there is a problem of massification and non-use, but also a question of opportunism. I.e., in many occasions the customer will purchase and keep its normal consumption, no matter what you give to them with the cards. So if you give them an extra discount or points to be exchanged ,great for the customer..... but he will not change his behaviour (no change in the baseline as theorists would say).
My suggestion is that you therefore think carefully how you manage your loyalty cards. Be sure that: 1. They are appreciated and used by the customer Comments and additional perspectives are welcome. Best. Ignacio Gafo 
Posted on 27 May 2007 in International Marketing, Customer development and retention CommentsI moslty agree with your point of view in this topic. The success of a mass loyalty program depends, by my point of view, on distribution (number of Points of Sail and proximity to the customer), in a good relation product prize with competitors (in general terms) and atractive loyalty program (discounts, information, special events... just for "special customers". I always have in my wallet 2 or 3 loyalty cards but it's impossible to wear all the cards. There is a big problem with fisical cards. We could do much more than what we are doing. One idea is to let the different loyalty programs make a search for ID instead of making it for card number. Others companies let you tell them your card number (I have in my Pocket PC). We shuold work on it. At the same time we can also consider that prize to win a cutomer is five time less than to retain so, in terms of eficiency, it doesn't matter lose money to try to retain some customers. It cuold be a second oportunity to retain an unhappy customer or, maybe, to obtain a higher share of customer. Obviously, the end horizon is to build a data base and know in deep your customer. Nowedays, in Alsa, we are launching a new loyalty car: Bus Plus. The target is have a 40.000 customers in the loyalty program only in one month. Good morining Posted by: Carlos Yéboles at May 28, 2007 11:57 AM Hi Carlos. You are raising many point and I mostly agree. Main ones I would like to emphasize: 1. These actions pay off in most cases. Best. Ignacio Posted by: Jigafo at May 31, 2007 07:22 PM The key to how practical and useful a loyalty card is directly linked to the quantum of benefits that accrue in points.I have noticed that airlines,hotles in general are generous with their rewards, and hence these programmes are popular. In contrast the rewards offered by supermarkets or gas companies are so small that the effort involved in using and claiming these miniscule rewards far exceeds the benefit. Posted by: hemant jain at July 19, 2008 09:25 AM Being a manufacturer of Loyalty cards in India and having been associated with several loyalty programmes in the country I can say that with a fair degree of certainty. Posted by: Minoti Jain at August 1, 2008 12:53 PM Post a comment |
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