Loyalty Campaigns

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It seems that everyone has a loyalty programme these days. Airlines, hotels, coffee shop chains, even Domino’s pizza! Does it really work? Hell yeah.
Its not enough to just copy a random scheme though. You need to know what you want to achieve, what your customer wants, and you need to consider carefully how you’re going to change their purchasing habits.

Loyalty schemes are not just about discounts. You should be discounting to attract new customers, but not to your loyal customers. They’re coming for a different reason. It should be the way you do business with them. Nobody stays loyal because of price.

I fly alot, usually jetairways. The loyalty programme provides a few small perks, extra baggage allowance, priority baggage tags, lounge access, free flights after a set number of miles. Nothing that KingFisher doesn’t do better to be honest. My last flight was with KingFisher, they treat me better, they have more lounges, better lounges, but their customer telephone response team is terrible, and the online booking is glitchy. The free stuff isn’t enough to overcome the way their core business is conducted.

Understanding your customer is important, it enables you to value add through your loyalty scheme in ways that make their experience better, not just cheaper. I found that this article provides a decent overview of how to assemble a campaign. The are plenty of others, but remember that nobody knows your business and your customers like you. Your campaign must consider your customer, their needs, it must directly enhance their experience whilst subtly influencing their purchasing in ways you need.