It’s not just the US dollar that’s feeling the pinch of inflation – loyalty programs too have been increasingly caught in a spiral of “less for more”. Though it’s a lot more frustrating to see your cash balance erode at the gas pump or supermarket, it’s also problematic when something you’ve been saving up for…
Anyone who takes the subway on a daily rush hour commute understands the experience of being jostled on crowded platforms and crushed inside packed trains. Now one transit system is trying a novel approach to easing the commuting crunch. The San Francisco Bay Area’s BART system is rolling out an experimental customer loyalty program that aims to entice riders to shift their travel outside of peak commute times.
The gamification market is estimated to be worth about $2.8 billion, having increased 10 fold over 3 years. Widely used in staff training or education, there is now a growing trend toward adding gamification to drive consumer engagement and loyalty. The online environment vastly increases the possibilities for the use of gaming to engage customers . You can turn your instructions into simulations that can demonstrate your products. Virtual tours have become popular for the travel industry and real estate industries. Virtual environments can also apply to the use of products. Customers can try products in a virtual environment and be rewarded for their efforts.
Consumers aren’t exactly brand loyal as they were years ago. Consumers evaluate how a product or service benefits them on multiple levels. They are savvy buyers and have access to a lot of information to help them make their choice. A Texas-based company called CataBoom offers tools to integrate reward-based games in marketing campaigns. Through gamification, consumers discover new ways to benefit from engaging with a brand.
Loyalty programs have a long and varied history, with retailers rolling them out in different forms to entice longtime customers to continue spending with them. Canadian Tire, one of Canada’s largest automotive accessory retailers, has one of the oldest customer loyalty programs. Consumers who buy items with cash or credit cards earn paper bills that look like money. The Canadian Tire Money loyalty program has been in place since 1958.
Sitting in a call center taking and making calls is the kind of job that many people find repetitive and boring. But at one major American company, an entire department plays games on company time and does so with the full knowledge and consent of management. That company is the Hyatt Hotels Corporation. Encouraging employees to play games, the company found, improved employee engagement in the work by setting goals, which in turn, boosted their productivity.
For 2 decades I’ve been deeply enmeshed in loyalty. First as a customer, then an obsessive “hardcore” loyalty junkie. Eventually my interest in loyalty helped give rise to the gamification movement and my work designing and developing engagement solutions across a wide range of industries. Although gamification encompasses much more than loyalty, I’ve continued to…
COFFEE LOYALTY RUNS ON DUNKIN 2014 is the eighth year in a row that Dunkin Donuts nabs the top spot in Brand Key’s customer loyalty rankings. Their top ranking is only in the two coffee categories (coffee and packaged coffee), but it is a fairly impressive grab for a company that competes with Starbucks on…
Below is an article from Comarch, one of our Gold Sponsors at GSummit SF 2014. Join us at GSummit this June 10-13 in San Francisco as we discover the secrets of engagement science together! Also, hear from Comarch’s CEO, Jerry Filipiak in his talk about “The Internet of Things: Using Technology to Engage”–where Jerry will…
In most of our wallets these days lies a series of punch card loyalty programs that offer us anything from free sandwiches to free haircuts and just about everything in between. All we have to do is buy ten of them at the regular price first. Unfortunately, problems abound with this situation, both for the consumer and the retailer alike. Isn’t there a better way to produce loyalty?
It might be. A loyalty program is not something that you do once, flip a switch and set it on autopilot. If you’re not regularly reviewing and refining your customer loyalty program then you may be long overdue for a loyalty program audit.
A loyalty audit is a non-biased look at your company’s loyalty program to ensure that the program is working. Saks Fifth Avenue Refreshes SaksFirst, Overstock.com, Marriott Rewards and others have updated their loyalty programs in 2013.
Here are seven factors you can evaluate to ensure that your program continues to grow and be successful over the long-term.
