loyalty management magazine: 3rd quarter 2012 issue

Volume 4 Number 3

Third Quarter 2012

KELLOGG Adds LOYALTY PROGRAM

SPECIAL EDITION:

ENGAGEMENT & EXPERIENCE EXPO !"#!$ GET A SNEAK PEEK at WORDS OF WISDOM from SESSION & WORKSHOP SPEAKERS

A NEW ERA in AIRLINE LOYALTY

CHANGE is on the Horizon

In this Issue...THIRD QUARTER 2012

Letter from the Editor

Loyalty 360 on the Web

Your Voice

Behind the Brand

Martie Woods, Deluxe Corporation

360 Insights: The 4 C’s of Loyalty

Mark Johnson, Loyalty 360

Q & A: Ask the Experts

Loyalty Innovation

By the Numbers

Loyalty Reads

Behind the Brand

Tim Suther, Acxiom

WWW.LOYALTY360.ORGVOLUME 4 NUMBER 3

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LOYALTY FORUM: IN EVERY ISSUE

FEATURES

20 A New Era in Airline Loyalty Shubhodeep Pal— SimpliFlying

26 The Changing Landscape of Travel Benefits Mark Robeson— VIPdesk

24 Digital Rewards: Greater EngagementLoyalty 360 Interview with InterContinental Hotels Group & the first club

22 Kellogg Adds Loyalty ProgramPhillip Britt— Loyalty 360

30 Differentiating Customers Through the Intersection of Loyalty & Value Shirli Zelcer— Merkle Inc.

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YOUR BUSINESS

RESULTSDELIVERED

OUR INSIGHT

aimia.comWe see relationships di!erently. Visit us to learn more.

THIRD QUARTER 2012

TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS & REWARDS

BEST BUSINESS PRACTICES

Innovation: New Value Propositions & Channels Sarah Phelps, First Annapolis

Loyalty GamifiedLoyalty 360 Interview with Kris Duggan, Badgeville

The Mobile Avenue & the Modern Customer Diane Cerulli, Epicor

Critical Investment: Customer Service that Satisfies James Norwood, Kana Software

Virtual Assistants Empower Online Customers Dennis McGuire, CodeBaby

Understanding Data Loyalty 360 Interview with Troy Blackman, Altair Customer Intelligence

The Power of Consumer Recommendations RewardStream

Loyalty 101: Capture Their Hearts, Not Their Wallets Jun Loayza, RewardMe

Monitoring Marketing Performance Phillip Britt, Loyalty 360

The Communication Connection: Benefits & Loyalty Justyn Harkin, The Jellyvision Lab

Don’t Talk at Me, Listen to Me! Jonathan Levitt, OpinionLab

Strategies for Multi-Language Loyalty Marketing Ora Solomon, Acclaro

What Price for Engagement? That is the Question David Andreadakis, Aimia

Gold Medal Balance for Mobile Loyalty Andrew Lowe, Pointpal

WWW.LOYALTY360.ORGVOLUME 4 NUMBER 3

Loyalty Management Editorial & Production TeamErin Raese - Editor in ChiefMark Johnson - Contributing EditorCaitlin Schar - Editorial DirectorLiz Johnson - Senior Graphic DesignerCrescent Printing Company - Print Production

Loyalty 360 TeamMark Johnson - President & CEOErin Raese - COOCaitlin Schar - VP MarketingLiz Johnson - Senior Graphic DesignerJillian Hensley - Manager, Marketing & Web DevelopmentLindsay Wagner - Sales Manager

ContactsArticle Submissions & Advertising: Erin [email protected] or 513.800.0360, ext. 210

To subscribe to Loyalty Management, visit loyaltymanagement.com.

© 2012 Loyalty 360, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbid-den. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Loyalty 360 disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. The opinions shared are those of the contributing authors and not necessarily reflective of Loyalty 360 and/or its affiliates. Loyalty 360 shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the infor-mation contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.

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ENGAGEMENT & EXPERIENCE EXPO

October 28 - 30, 2012 | Hyatt Regency | Dallas, Texas


FROM THE EDITOR

Customer Engagement & Experience IntertwinedCustomer Experience, our latest “focus”. It’s interesting how we cycle through strategies. The last few years engagement was, the focus. Statements were being made as though “engagement” was the golden egg of the customer relationship.

This year, we’re similarly focused on the importance of customer experience. This is interesting to me, as you can’t have a great customer experience without effective engagement. We, as marketers, can’t focus on one over the other; they need to work together with all of the moving parts that allow our brand to create strong, long-term relationships with their customers.

This issue and the upcoming Engagement and Experience Expo 2012 will show how these concepts are intimately intertwined, how important a united focus in these areas are to building a strong foundation with customers, help you determine the right initiatives and messages for your customers and perhaps most importantly empower you to make it happen.

Throughout this issue, you’ll hear from a number of the event’s speakers. You’ll know them by and the QR codes. Scan the code to learn more about the event, the topic and the speaker(s). To highlight a few articles: Mark Johnson’s 4 C’s is a must read (page 15). The 4 C’s are the foundation of Expectation Matching. Get to know Martie Woods from Deluxe Corporation in our Behind the Brand interview (page 12) and be sure not to miss her session at Engagement & Experience Expo where she’ll share how Deluxe has built a client-centered research engine to stay close to its market, gain new insight and raise the bar on the experience it delivers. We also had the opportunity to sit down with Kris Duggan from Badgeville (page 36). During a workshop on Sunday, October 28th at the Engagement & Experience Expo, Badgeville will teach us what gamification means and what implementing the strategy can mean to us when it comes to engaging our customers.

I hope you enjoy this issue as much as we have, and we look forward to seeing you in Dallas in October!

Cheers!

Welcome new Loyalty 360 Members:

Erin RaeseEditor-in-ChiefLoyalty [email protected]

Dallas Los Angeles London

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Loyalty Management Online

MOST BRANDS IGNORE CUSTOMER FEEDBACK: SURVEY

DESPITE THEIR DESIRE TO PROVIDE FEEDBACK, MOST U.S. CONSUMERS ARE DISENCHANTED BY MOST BRANDS’ LACK OF RESPONSIVENESS, ACCORDING TO A SURVEY BY EMPATHICA INC.’S CONSUMER INSIGHTS PANEL.

Survey results showed that 85% of consumers have provided some form of feedback to big box retailers, yet only 46% of respondents believe that brands actually use this feedback to make constructive changes to the customer experience

In addition, only 52% believe that feedback is shared with individual locations—even though the majority of consumers (81 percent) feel that feedback should not only be shared with local managers, but with all of the brand’s employees

83% of consumers agree or strongly agree that they would be more loyal to a brand if they knew the brand would act on their feedback

AIMIA RESEARCH CLARIFIES SOCIAL MEDIA CONSUMPTION TO AID LOYALTY MARKETERS

“We found it surprising that ‘Onlookers’—passive, multi-network users who rarely, if ever share their personal information, find social media so core to their lives that they consume it on a daily basis. And the sheer size of ‘No Shows,’ users who haven’t logged into a social network in more than 30 days and non-users, representing 41% of the US population may surprise your readers given all the attention social media gets.”

—Mona Askalani, Director of Social Marketing at Aimia

UK RETAILERS SCORE ONLY FAIR ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION INDEX

“SMG adds that the value of A SMILE AND GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE CAN INCREASE SALES BY AS MUCH AS !"# . The battle is half won by drawing the customers in the store through discounts, sales and promotions. But to convert the shoppers to buyers, merchants need to excel in customer service to differentiate themselves from their competitors, according to SMG, which sites staff training as an essential element in improving customer service.”

Loyalty 360 Resources:

STUDY SHOWS DISCONNECT BETWEEN TIMING OF MARKETING CAMPAIGNS AND EFFECTIVENESS.

ANALYZING CAMPAIGNS OF !" MAJOR RETAILERS OVER A THREE%MONTH PERIOD, THE YESMAIL INTERACTIVE RESEARCH DISCOVERED THAT:

level of activity on Tuesdays, yet that day is fourth in terms of when campaigns are deployed

day in terms of retweets

YouTube occurs on Monday, but it is the least utilized weekday for campaigns

DAILY DEALS HELP SOME COMPANIES DRIVE LOYALTY

BUSINESSES WITH THE BEST SUCCESS WERE:

on daily deals

PERFORMING POORLY WERE:

LOYALTY 360 ON THE WEB

Highlights from research & industrystudies covered on Loyalty360.org &

Loyalty Management Online

TRENDING


FIND A PARTNER Looking to build your organization’s engagement and loyalty strategies? Loyalty 360 makes it easy to !nd a partner with the capabilities to help you reach your goals.Want to be a part of the largest engagement and loyalty supplier directory? For only $2500/year, sign up to be listed with your own customizable member page.Find tools, tips, and connect with your peers to !nd the answers to your loyalty questions at loyalty360.org

The Countdown has Begun!Engagement & Experience Expo 2012 is almost here! Powered by Loyalty 360, the NEW expo website is easy to navigate & includes features such as:

ALL NEW EngagementExpo.com

What’s

with

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OYAL

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Visit Loyalty360.org for exclusive Loyalty Management articles

& many other features

LOYALTY 360 ON THE WEB


HOW DO YOU DEFINE ENGAGEMENT?

LOYALTY FORUM: YOUR VOICE

At Google, we look at brand engagement as the

interactions between a person and a brand; the output of marketer e#orts and consumer perceptions. Ideally, these are repeated interactions that strengthen emotional bonds between your brand and consumers throughout the customer lifecycle—Don’t assume that what works for one channel will automatically work for another. Failure to proactively manage your presence will result in your brand becoming lost in the clutter, irrelevant, or out of your control.

Google Tran Hang, Head of Industry, Lodging

Engagement extends well beyond the actual transactions that a customer

has with your business or organization. Instead, it is the sum of impressions that a customer has from recent (and sometimes not-so-recent) interactions with your organization—interactions with the people, the systems, and the “on the public stage” images of your organization. And for something that is so subjective—so personal and individualized—it may be somewhat surprising that the backbone of successful customer engagement is a well-crafted web of systems and process- execution. Repetitive execution of engagement-driven processes can ensure that moments of engagement are delivered with consistency and relevance, and ensure that feedback from moments of engagement are gathered with timeliness and value to the organization.

Citizens BankTrevor Knott, Senior Vice President, Director of Partnership Strategy & Marketing Operations

Engagement occurs when a customer transitions from a transactional relationship

to an emotional relationship with a brand. Customers may not be frequent purchasers, but if they look forward to interacting with the brand on any level (the anticipation of opening an email, the feeling of discovery on their website or in their store, sharing their positive experiences with family or friends) then they are engaged.

$at emotional connection is usually driven by service. Even a bad experience can be turned around by great service recovery; an associate willing to listen, smile and go the extra mile. In many cases, what we remember is the human interaction, so hiring associates with the right attitude, then training and empowering them are key to cementing a great relationship with the consumer.

Wyndham Hotel GroupRobin Korman, Senior Vice President, Loyalty Marketing and Strategic Partnerships

Engagement, arguably the most important part of the customer- brand relationship,

is the sum of every interaction you have at every single touchpoint whether it’s online, in store, by phone, through social media, in packaging, etc. Every interaction—including transactions —adds to or detracts from the total engagement equation.

$e key !rst step is developing a deep understanding of your individual customers through data and analytics. With that insight, you can create processes and tools that deliver upon their needs and connect with customers through their preferred channels with tailored in-the-moment communications. Add to that an organizational culture that empowers employees to respond authentically to customer needs, and you have a winning combination to best drive customer engagement.

Aimia Adina Dahlin, Vice President, Customer Experience


To be engaged is to pay attention. $e ultimate goal of any marketer is for consumers and prospects to see, hear, understand and respond to her message.

Consumers that are engaged with a brand buy more than the “average” consumer because they respond to more social media posts, open more emails, use branded search and on and on… I become engaged when I get content that is relevant to me, in terms of things like life stage, interests, and what I am in market for now... It comes down to getting the data in a timely fashion, and having the ability to comb through available content (or o#ers) and tailor communications for me.

Pluris MarketingBob Fetter, Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing

Engagement is any action whatsoever that connects a consumer with a brand—but that’s the challenge. Marketers really need to think about prioritization of engagement on a scale that aligns

with how that engagement ultimately contributes to lifetime value…

Does the engagement make her feel more valued?Does it strengthen the bond of trust between brand

and consumer?Does it add to the e!ciency of interaction?Does it reinforce a consistent message or brand

position?Does the engagement provide greater relevance of o"er

or communication?And can the consumer use engagement to impact the

control she has over her relationship with the brand?

$e key step in driving engagement is to challenge yourself on every initiative or investment to see if it aligns to these six engagement elements. $e answer is to be practical and pragmatic while still being creative. Ultimately, consumers will engage when it suits them, not because it seems like a cool idea in a conference room.

TIBCO Loyalty Lab David Rosen, Strategy, Analytics and Consumer Insights

Engagement is any experience with your brand, product, service or promise—whether initiated by you or not… Most

businesses focus on purchases when they think of engagement. Purchase is one point of engagement, but it is probably the one that happens least… Consumers engage constantly with you. You should focus on their experiences across all channels to ensure every engagement, even a negative one, delivers on your promise. An irate customer is an engaged customer none the less… So, take advantage of existing engagements, especially the negative ones, and new engagements will follow.

A%nion Loyalty Group Mike McDonnell, Vice President of Product Management & Client Solutions Customer engagement occurs when the relationship between a brand and

its customers has graduated beyond one that is simply transactional or purchase-based. When customers consider brands to be a part of their life as more than just a service provider, you have customer engagement. Engaged customers are those who are not only loyal to your brand, but also advocate for your brand. $ey want to continue to do business with you because they are compelled by the entire brand experience.

VIPdeskMark Robeson, Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing

Engagement can be de!ned in many ways but for Best Western, engaged customers would be de!ned as those

who actively choose to stay with us, regardless of other options or choices in the market place. It’s a personal commitment our customers make to our brand. We believe the best way to engage our customers is by building strong relationships with them through relevant o#ers and a commitment to superior customer care. Our goal is to humanize our loyalty program, building trust with our customers and ensuring they know we are dedicated to meeting and surpassing their expectations throughout their experience with us.

Best Western International Tammy Lucas, Managing Director, Marketing Programs

A Brand’s enga gement w it h it s customers is a

deeper level of involvement and collaboration that results in creating value for both sides. Engagement needs to be built on the pillars that are key to any relationship: insight, communication, trust, respect and value. It’s important to understand that all Brand’s are not the same; all relationships are not the same; and hence a good customer engagement strategy needs to take into account the brand promise and customer expectations.

KANA SoftwareVikas Nehru, Vice President of Product Marketing

Everything we do is in the spirit of moving the customer into and across the engagement continuum. We are basically

trying to continually facilitate emotional connection with the brands they love and help them understand the more rational perks, advantages and rewards of engagement with their brands.

Kobie MarketingMarc Glazer, VP Brand Loyalty

FOR MORE THOUGHT LEADERSHIP INSIGHTS ON THE TOPIC OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE & ENGAGEMENT, INCLUDING PERSPECTIVES ON EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES & ENGAGEMENT Strategies DOWNLOAD A COPY OF

“Understanding Customer Engagement: The Opportunities & Challenges Marketers Face Today” AT LOYALTY360.ORG.


M A R T I E W O O D S—Deluxe Corporation

Meet Martie Woods in Dallas this fall at Engagement & Experience Expo as she presents the not to be missed session: “Using Client-Centered Research to Position Customer Experience and Innovation as a Key Priority.”

M ARTIE WOODS IS VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXPERIENCE OFFICER AT DELUXE CORPORATION.

With expertise in consumer psychology and buying behavior, Martie’s charge is to improve customer engagement and loyalty throughout the !nancial services industry. In her twelve years at Deluxe, Martie has been a leader in driving the company to focus on customer-centered decision-making and innovation. Loyalty 360 had the privilege to hear from Martie Woods, for a look at the leadership Behind the Brand.

LOYALTY FORUM: BEHIND THE BRAND

WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE RELATING TO CUSTOMER LOYALTY AND RETENTION? There is and will continue to be a divide be-tween brands that make it and brands that

consumer who is more educated, more par-ticular and savvier than ever. They demand intuitive, integrated channels that account for their preferences but also, in many cases, deliver a human touch that integrates those channels. The economic crisis was like a re-set button that led consumers to think differ-ently and choose more carefully. They will choose brands and offerings that are supe-rior in meeting their functional, social and emotional needs—and, those brands that can deliver on this will enjoy the consumers’ new willingness to pay.

HOW CAN RETAILERS BEST CREATE A CONSISTENT EXPERIENCE AND MESSAG-ES ACROSS MULTIPLE CHANNELS? By starting with a different question. Start by clarifying your own story—who are you, what value do you offer and who do you best serve? Then, build everything based on that. If you are the cellular network provider that hangs its hat on providing uninterrupted ser-vice to extreme techies that want to stream video all day long from wherever, don’t even offer 3G because it isn’t enough. If you are the weight loss program partner for people who have just been told that if they don’t lose weight they could be dead in a year, you take a more extreme, less apologetic approach that demands high touch, multi-channel in-

teraction that is focused on increasing the likelihood that the program participant can be reached or reaches out during moments of weakness.

Start with your business and customer strat--

nel strategies with clear focus on their role in delivering the experience you hope to deliver.

IS YOUR EXISTING CUSTOMER STRATEGY FOCUSED MORE HEAVILY ON ACQUISITION OR RETENTION? WHY IS THIS THE MOST VALUABLE APPROACH AT THIS TIME? We are attentive to both, but we lean toward retention. We strongly believe that if we take good care of our customers and focus on delivering increased value in a way that is transparent, above board and good for the environment and communities, that people will talk positively about us, buy more and remain loyal.

WHAT IS YOUR CUSTOMER LOYALTY PHILOSOPHY?

—values that have deep roots. But we change our minds on how we want those values served. I don’t think it is a problem if a com-pany makes a mistake or causes a problem—I think it is a problem if they don’t handle it well. I don’t think it is a problem if a company recommends a program, plan or product to a customer that turns out not to be right, I think it is a problem if they don’t reach out to make that correction.

WHAT BOOK(S) ARE YOU CURRENTLY RECOMMENDING?I try not to read too many business books. I read enough business articles. I think it is important for me to balance my reading

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. I absolutely love it. I like novels that take place in the outdoors. One of my all time favorite books is called Woodswoman by Ann LaBastille. She is a wildlife ecologist. The book is really old but a terrific read and great information about the Adirondack Mountains.

DEFINING LIFE MOMENT?About a month after my daughter, Sawyer, was born, I borrowed my neighbor’s jogger to go running with my daughter. I carefully strapped her in but didn’t attach the safety strap to my wrist. Twenty minutes into my run, I was talking on my cell phone, looking at the sites around me and running all at the same time. I had been pushing the stroller ahead of me and then catching up to it. Sud-denly, the stroller took off down a hill. It was picking up speed and heading straight

“Power has shifted to the consumer—a consumer who is more educated,

more particular and savvier than ever. ”


Inspired by James Lipton on “Inside the Actors Studio” we asked Martie to share her quick !re response to the questions originating from the French series, “Bouillon de Culture” hosted by Bernard Pivot.

1. What is your favorite word? RAVENOUS

2. What is your least favorite word? MOIST (ICK)

3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually, or emotionally? EXERCISE IS HUGE FOR ME. MY BEST IDEAS AND INSIGHTS COME WHEN I AM WORKING OUT.

4. What turns you off? MEETINGS

5. What is your favorite (PG-13) curse word? I LIKE THE WORD “DAMN”. GETS MY KIDS ATTENTION BUT I DON’T FEEL GUILTY LATER FOR SAYING IT IN FRONT OF THEM.

6. What sound or noise do you love? THE SOUND OF COFFEE BREWING

7. What sound or noise do you hate? ALL MOUTH NOISES

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE MY OWN SHOW ON THE FOOD NETWORK BUT I WANT TO BE ABLE TO CHANGE MY MIND MID-SHOW ABOUT WHAT TO MAKE.

9. What profession would you not like to do? ANYTHING REQUIRING REPETITION.

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? “WELL DONE” MIGHT BE NICE. AND, THAT I CAN NOW SEE MY GRANDPARENTS.

for a busy intersection. In spite of my ef-forts, there was no way to catch the jogger. Thanks to the designers, the jogger suddenly pulled left, went up a hill and flipped over—about 10 feet shy of the intersection. Terri-fied of what I would find, I turned it over and looked at my tiny baby. She gave herself a shake like a wet dog would do and looked at me a little funny, but she was perfectly fine. That day, I decided I needed to slow down, focus on the task at hand and prioritize what really matters. Sawyer is now 10, healthy and beautiful.

WHO WOULD PLAY YOU IN THE FILM OF YOUR LIFE?

me to ask for my autograph. They were al-ways surprised when I signed my real name.

WHAT ORGANIZATIONS OR CAUSES ARE YOU MOST PASSIONATE ABOUT?

Milwaukee. It played a huge role in shaping

my friend and I decided we should start a camp for economically underprivileged children. We designed everything from the summer experience to the relationship with the schools. We flew out to NY to pitch our design to a group of retired investment bank-

upstate NY, serves over 400 children a year

and their parents when the kids are 8 and continue until they are 18 and ready for col-lege. It is a terrific program.

I grew up going to a YMCA camp outside of Milwaukee. It played a huge role in shaping who I am today. During graduate school, my friend and I decided we should start a camp for economically underprivileged children.

L


Join Loyalty 360 For the 6th Annual Loyalty Expo

March 20-22, 2013 Renaissance Orlando At Sea World

Orlando, Florida

CALL FOR SPEAKERSShare your story!

Submit your proposal by September 30, 2012Visit loyalty360.org for more information

or contact Erin Raese at [email protected] or 513.800.0360 ext. 210

LOYALTY EXPO 2013ANNOUNCING

LOYALTY FORUM: 360 INSIGHTS

#e 4 C’s of Loyalty:COLLABORATION, COMMUNITY, CONTENT & COMMERCE

As the challenging economic environment persists, we continue to see opportunities to create true brand loyalty in the market. We also see dissonance in the expectations

of the customer versus the service level and reciprocity given by some brands. We have discussed the idea of Expectation Matching: how to match our marketing with the temporal expectations of the consumer, which are &uid and dynamic based on where they are in the relationship with the brand. We now look to under-stand why brands need to be reciprocal with the customers (collaborate), measure the short and long term engagement they provide (community), and further explore how the experience product or service (content) they are currently providing can have a dramatic impact on pro!tability (commerce).

M A R K J O H N S O N

— L oy a l t y 3 6 0

15continued on next page »

Loyalty Management™

The Four C’s of Loyalty (continued)

COLLABORATIONBrands have to realize that in order to be successful they have to collaborate with their customers. The brands that are successful realize that collaboration is not a one time, or short lived process, fad, idea, etc. They have to build the processes (data collection, insight and usage), structures and internal commitments to create a unique dialogue with their consumers, and understand the data col-lection in context of this dynamic and fluid marketing environment. Brands need to be focused on long-term loyalty. They need to have the active dialogue with current, future and, when possible, past consumer to create the insight that can be used to increase marketing efficacy.

COMMUNITYbeen important, but with the advent and increased proliferation of social media, community has taken on an increased importance. The brands that have the ability to create increased community with their advocates allow them to exponentially increase their brand ad-

social media, we realize that individuals are social and if a brand can

media they will be rewarded with insight, and data that can be used in accord with increasing brand promise. Yet community should

reason you frequent a certain bar, follow a certain sports team, or pay $1,000’s per year to have your kid in a certain select sports program. Brands that create ability for individuals to engage with them in a “community” create obstacles for the individual to leave. As Seth Godin argued, we all want to be part of the tribe. Leaving the brand after a single or numerous service level foibles is easy, but leaving the community of interested individuals who comprise the “tribe” is much more difficult. All brands, whether proac-

-ing about your brand sometimes in front of you—at your stores; sometimes via their so-cial communities. It’s time for brands to un-derstand this and work to an understanding of these communities as well as be proactive by establishing more effective communities.

CONTENTIn order to have effective collaboration and build a strong community brands have to provide applicable product, service, customer service, ideas

-

is the reason that individuals engage with you. You have two

the noun, something that has significant profundity and the second definition is the adjective: satisfied with what one is or has; not want-ing anything else. A brands’ connotative content, the product, ser-vice or technology, needs to provide the experience that creates the denotative definition for its’ customers. Therefore, the bigger picture of creating strong, relevant content is one of the most important fo-cuses a brand should have as its’ impact is of great importance to their shareholders.

COMMERCEcommerce. Brands exist to create a profit for their stakeholders,

United Airlines, your regional restaurants or theater chain, or your local cleaner or wine store; without profit there is no brand promise,

continue to see increased discussion about capping profits, profit margin decline, or increasing the taxes on certain forms of com-merce the fact remains that businesses exist to create profit and cannot sustain themselves without profit. The most profitable en-tities are those who have higher margins supported by truly loyal, engaged brand advocates.

As we have discussed in the past, loyalty is not about points, thresh-olds or rewards, it is about creating a mutually beneficial dialogue between brand and consumer that through mutual reciprocity leads to a sustained behavioral change that is beneficial to the brand, but more importantly the consumer. A consumer will pay more to the brand for- the respective content that creates the community with which they can then engage. The brand that effectively collaborates with the consumer in a manner of reciprocity, is focused on the in-terests and needs of their current, future and hopefully past partici-pants. This is the promise of expectation matching; these are the 4

Mark is the President & CEO of Loyalty 360. He has signi$cant experience in selling, designing and administering prepaid, loyalty/CRM programs, as well as data-driven marketing communication programs.

COLLABORATION

COMMUNITY

CONTENT

COMMERCE

Loyalty 360’s FOUR C’s of LOYALT Y SM

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Yipee. Woohoo. Yea. Awesome. Love it. Wow.You’re kidding?! No way. Incredible. Yes! Aww.

Reward your customers with savings on the things they like to do every day — shop, dine, travel and more.

Show your customers how much you appreciate their loyalty by o! ering them something

unexpected: savings on dining, shopping, travel, attractions and more. For 50 years, we’ve been

the leader in discounts and promotions, and have been building loyalty programs for over

half of those years. Contact us today to see how we can help you create more excitement

with your customers. And more sales for your business.

And the best reaction of all? Their loyalty.

Show your customers how much you appreciate their loyalty by o! ering them something

unexpected: savings on dining, shopping, travel, attractions and more. For 50 years, we’ve been

the leader in discounts and promotions, and have been building loyalty programs for over

Ask the Experts:

Q&ALOYALTY FORUM: Q&A

Q: How does one make the case for a loyalty program internally, particularly to senior management?

A: the priority list. When it’s not, building a case for it may become quite a challenge for marketers. Without a strategic mandate to become more customer-centric (e.g., from the Board), competitive pressure or exasperation over the lack of accountability from existing marketing efforts, it can be futile. The result: low customer retention.

While organizations and their leadership teams have differing cultures and requirements for strategic decision-making, here are five fundamentals that make an effective case for loyalty:

Loyalty is the most measurable drive of organic growth via in-cremental sales from existing and new (expensively acquired) customers, unlike most other marketing activities. These measures

-ments.

Loyalty marketing creates efficiencies by correlating marketing and other resources to sales growth and profitability with precision. By definition, loyalty marketing is recognizing individual customers,

understanding their value and investing accordingly. By contrast, many companies try to do everything for everyone.

Loyalty yields insights for the entire business. It answers exis-tential questions such as “why are my sales down?” by revealing

the ultimate business intelligence. Best Buy is a textbook example of using customer data for decision support beyond marketing— merchandise and assortment mixes, store location selection, etc.

Loyalty is not a program. It’s a common misconception to equate loyalty marketing with discounts, points and rewards. Loyalty is anything a company does to better connect, be relevant and deliver

amplifier that costs measurably less than advertising.

Finally, loyalty is a question of leadership. The majority of companies don’t lead with customer-centricity or loyalty. Ultimate-ly, it’s a question for company top management to decide whether they want their company to lead or follow. The ones that do lead

-ers and for investors.

Making the Case for Loyalty

P H I L R U B I N

— C E O , r D i a l o g u e

“Loyalty is not a program. Loyalty is anything a company does to better connect, be

relevant and deliver value to customers.”


H E I D I Y O U N G

— S a l e s D i r e c t o r, R e w a rd s N OW

A:First, you need to demonstrate value and how a rewards pro-

gram can directly impact customer acqui-sition, growth, retention strategies. When we are asked to discuss the merit of re-wards programs, we focus on how the pro-gram can boost their bottom line and shape the profitable behaviors the organization wants from their customers. You really have to demonstrate that loyalty programs can help obtain and protect marketshare— then, they make sense for the C-suite and other executive management. Additionally, the competitive edge a well-designed pro-gram can give an organization, also speaks to top-of-mind issues of the C-suite.

What role will a loyalty program play in helping us achieve organizational mile-stones? It’s important for the C-suite to participate in loyalty program strategy sessions as it provides an opportunity to understand the role that a loyalty program can play in reaching business goals. As a tool, we run proformas so that we can

A:These days it’s hard to read any-thing to do with marketing that

doesn’t emphasize the need for marketers to accomplish more with less. The economy remains tight and budgets for just about any-thing are tighter. So it’s arguably tougher than ever to get approval for any new market-ing strategy–loyalty marketing or otherwise.

But good ideas have a way of rising to the top. As loyalty marketing practitioners we know that a well-designed loyalty program is an excellent way to retain and grow cus-

--

tiple industries are usually within easy reach.

-times an organization is simply not pre-pared to support a new loyalty initiative. It is usually because too many other aspects of the solution have not been identified or addressed. If all that was required to launch or relaunch a loyalty solution was the sim-ple act of writing a check, there would be a lot more loyalty strategies in the market today. Unlike an advertising campaign, cou-pon promotion or sometimes even a website, loyalty solutions have multiple moving parts and usually require the support of numerous departments within an organization—from Marketing to Technology to Analytics to

nance

visually demonstrate the kind of financial impact a rewards program can have. For example, proformas can be performed for a single product, such as a debit card rewards program, to a full relationship re-wards program where customers are in-cented for multiple products and services across the organization. Proformas can show incremental lift in revenue and bot-tom line cash flow, which is very important in making decisions on including a rewards program as part of a business strategy.

The other key issue that is top of mind for many senior managers is ‘how flexible is it?’ Showing how a program can be morphed to fit both current and future needs is ex-tremely important. Demonstrate to the c-

suite how you see the program today and how it will continue to grow with you three years from now.

and more. Your ability to map out all aspects of the solution is usually the biggest predictor of your success.

As the saying goes, the devil is in the details. A well-crafted plan that identifies and addresses all of the details is a lot easier to say “yes” to—than simply a good idea.

“You really have to demonstrate that loyalty programs

can help obtain and protect marketshare”

S U Z Y C O X

— S V P, O l s o n 1 : 1

1. dollars you are asking your company to invest will pay off

the role the loyalty strategy will serve in the company’s overall approach to marketing.

3.Illustrate the machinery. Map out which departments need to be involved, how and for how long

4.role each of your agency partners will play and highlight any gaps that you need to fill

Be resourceful. Investigate different ways to fund the program: reallocate funds, find new funds, ask for partner funding, consumer fees, etc.

“Unlike an advertising campaign, coupon

promotion or sometimes even a website, loyalty solutions have multiple moving parts and usually require the support of numerous departments within an organization… Your ability to map out all aspects of the solution is usually the biggest predictor of your success.”


THE CHANGING FACE OF AIRLINE LOYALTY

S H U B H O D E E P P A L

— Si m p l i F l y i n g

There’s a fundamental shift underway. Whereas traditional airline loyalty programs were essentially intended to reward those already loyal—by

dint of them being frequent &yers for various reasons—we’re now seeing airlines explore a truer meaning of loyalty, in terms of making those who travel loyal. Think about it: traditional loyalty programs typically reward only those who are already flying like crazy (one free ticket typically

occasional flyer might join the loyalty program as a formality (or even, to be fair, for some trivial boarding pass privileges) but no real hope of ever redeeming more than a couple of tickets in his/her lifetime. Today, however, airlines are keenly aware that loyalty, or rather, affin-ity, can be inculcated even in those not flying frequently.

A WELCOME SHIFT IN PHILOSOPHYIt is no longer news that there has been a paradigm shift in the market. Information, opinions and candid product reviews can be shared easily on social networks. This has made many airlines realize the immense

social advocates, and subsequently mining social data born out of online interactions could help promote and increase loyalty to the brand.

programs have started toying with the idea of driving loyalty by engaging customers online. Offering real-world rewards for virtual actions

are willing to gladly promote and recommend it. American Airlines, for example, recognized the need to have a critical mass to engage

from 100 to 100,000 miles for the AAdvantage loyalty program.

controlled and all decisions were essentially one-way traffic thrust upon a consumer hardly able to effect any changes or improvements nor considered worthy of being a part of the process. Today, loyalty comes with the price of proactively engaging customers and includ-ing them in the decision-making process.

GAMIFICATION AND THE VIRTUAL ECOSYSTEMThe most relevant example of such a shift is seen in BalticMiles’

Brainstorm, BalticMiles invites members to suggest partners for the scheme as well as the benefits they’d wish to receive in that tier. Suggestions with the most ‘likes’ will translate to mileage points for members, who will be invited to help develop their ideas with the BalticMiles team.

A NEW ERA inAIRLINE LOYALTY

FEATURES


Needless to say, this delighted passengers. Moreover, it is estimated that the initiative earned KLM over 1 million Twitter impressions.

Location-based services are perhaps best equipped to track loyalty in terms of repeat visits as well as social advocacy. Air New

aimed to do precisely this—by rewarding Mayors (people with the most number of

with free access to their Koru Lounges.

flights started operating from the brand-new

Airport, plenty of virtual “check-ins” hap-pened during its grand opening ceremony.

social scavenger hunt for guests to dis-

By virtually “checking-in” at various spots in the airport and announcing their presence

Twitter, participants earned badges redeem-able for prizes. It was quite a sight to see grown men and women running around in a bid to see their names on the leaderboard set up in the main hall.

Needless to say, this is just the beginning of the evolution of a fascinating new land-scape. As more airlines find value in driving loyalty via social initiatives, traditional loy-alty programs themselves might get shaken up. While most airlines, for now, are keeping their social and traditional loyalty initiatives

is optimistic that the future will be integrat-ed. “I’m not fully convinced yet that a social loyalty program has to exist next to a regular loyalty program. I think they can very well be integrated.” That future, you may safely assume, is not far.

TRACKING LOYALTY THROUGH LOCATION-BASED APPSAllow me to put forth a rather flippant

to you? The simplest answer is that he’d return to your house even if he were let out for an evening

you frequent with your colleagues? Is there a particular restaurant you always take your family

prefer to fly a particular airline? I can speak for myself and admit that the answer to all of these questions is yes. But, to flip over to the other side of the fence, let’s ask some

restaurant know that you frequent them?

its loyalty program, is it doing anything to personalize your experience or know you better in a way that compels you to pay for its product again?

KLM, which understood the need to do this very early, managed to drive loyalty through their popular KLM Surprise campaign. When passengers arrived at security check-points and gates, flight attendants would be there to greet them by name and give them a personalized gift—something that the pas-senger could use on his or her trip, or enjoy when they returned home.

All these gifts were carefully chosen after researching the passenger’s social profile (the passenger, of course, would be randomly identified via a tweet or check-in they might

that tracks distances and walking speed.

With 14 days still remaining in the month-long campaign, already 380 ideas have poured in,

a sphere of airline activity that used to be tightly controlled by the airline, this marks a surprising (and welcome) change from how loyalty executives are now thinking.

“There is a lot of untapped creativity out there that can help a company further its busi-

potential to drive meaningful conversations with its customers and we are excited to have helped them with the creation of the world’s first crowdsourced membership level.”

At its essence, this is what gamification for driving business goals is all about. What is a game after all? A fun activity with the some inherent rewards for those participating in it.

first initiative of its sort in the world). The app rewards virtual advocacy (eg. writing a review, sharing photographs) with points that can be redeemed for real-world rewards.

-ty points (or miles) redemption that typically involves redeeming a flight in exchange for

-site move, customers fly in order to redeem their rewards (eg. lounge access).

measurement, the initiative was a dream come true. After it was launched, AirScore

Within 10 days of being launched, 1040 mem-

Moreover, 1,340,000 wall impressions were

If you’re someone keen to think about this initiative’s monetary worth, here are some stats to impress you: given that 4.8 million impressions were served, this would trans-late to a value of $48,000 assuming a stan-

per action) of $10. Unique visitors num-

fact, didn’t have to spend.

Shubhodeep Pal is the Senior Innovation O!cer at SimpliFlying, a leading aviation brand consultancy that has helped over 25 airlines and airports engage their customers pro$tably.

“I’m not fully convinced yet that a social loyalty program has to exist next to a regular loyalty program. I think they can very well be integrated.”—Gabi Kool, CEO, BalticMiles

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Kellogg is going beyond boxtops in an attempt to build loyalty among customers through its

recently announced Kellogg’s Family Rewards program.

KelloggsFamilyRewards.com, to register and enter unique codes found inside packages of their

eligible to earn a variety of rewards as well as a daily chance to win

-tional reward points and a chance to win prizes through special bonus offers on specially marked products. In addition to the rewards, con-sumers can also view product and recipe information, access coupons, and share information with friends. The more product codes they en-ter, the more chances to win and the more rewards they can earn, said

“Over time we hope to enhance our rewards catalog to include a selec-tion of causes that consumers can support, along with allowing more opportunities to earn points through social interactions and behavior. We believe this program is more than a promotion—it supports an ‘always on’ approach to rewarding our most valuable consumers,” Keller added.

Keller said that the company looked at several other programs in or-der to tailor one to meet the needs of Kellogg’s customers: “We know and respect a number of existing consumer loyalty programs in market,

including those across a wide range of industries such as retail, hospi-tality and other consumer packaged goods. The basic concept of our program is similar—provide great rewards in exchange for consumer

and right for Kellogg consumers. To do that, we explored what is most relevant to our audience and have designed a catalog of rewards and sweepstakes opportunities that we believe will surprise and delight our consumers. We will continue to add relevant, exciting, family-focused reward opportunities to our consumers as the program grows.”

Keller expects other consumer packaged goods companies to add loyalty programs, following the leads of companies like Kellogg and

“Like many other initiatives, loyalty programs will continue to move more deeply into digital, with an ever increasing opportunity to

-

anism through which we have built this program—unique codes on packages and the ability to understand consumer behavior—will

-ing up to other industries such as banking, hospitality and retail as it relates to loyalty programs. This is mostly due to the shift in how con-sumers engage with media and an increase in online program partici-

The loyalty programs are becoming more important for a wide variety

to attain a more detailed understanding of their consumers. Kel-logg’s has developed a program that is comprehensive in nature and is

Kellogg Adds Loyalty Program

FEATURES

FPO IMAGE

P H I L L I P B R I T T

“The key has been to make Kellogg’s Family Rewards unique and right for Kellogg

consumers. To do that, we explored what is most relevant to our audience and have designed a catalog of rewards and sweep-stakes opportunities that we believe will surprise and delight our consumers. ”—Dan Keller, vice president of CRM/loyalty for Kellogg North America

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ANALYTICS

Loyalty programs have long been an integral part of the hotel

including the desire for stronger customer engagement and reducing outstanding points liability, hotels are now expanding their rewards offerings. Over the last few years, hotel loyalty programs have embraced merchandise and gift cards as rewards alternatives and now they are adding digital rewards to the redemption catalog, providing options for customers to re-deem points at lower thresholds than ever before. With the ability to earn and burn at a faster rate, customers are more actively engaged with a rewards program, reinforcing the bene-fits of loyalty to the hotel while also helping the brand reduce outstanding points liability.

number of years ago. In effort to continue to support their

members instantly.

Inside Scoop on the

about engaging the customer, opportunities with mobile, and the impact of digital rewards.

WHAT BROUGHT THE FIRST CLUB AND IHG TOGETHER?the first club: ™ with the goal of add-

incentives to their members and wanted to be first to offer a world-wide comprehensive digital offering.

WHAT ARE SOME KEY INDICATORS THAT A BRAND MAY BE IN NEED OF A LOYALTY PROGRAM BOOST?IHG: A brand is a promise. It is a promise to satisfy specific custom-er needs with the hope of not only meeting the need, but exceeding it. As consumer needs change over time, all good brands keep pace.

I N S I D E S C O O P

DIGITAL REWARDS— A New Opportunity for

G R E AT E R E N G A G E M E N T

“Our primary goal is to engage light users and new members who have not built up point balances and who don’t realize the value yet,” Don Berg, vice president, Loyalty Program, IHG, said. “Instead of waiting for three or four more stays, they can redeem quickly and be more engaged early on. $ey will realize this thing has value and continue to seek out our hotels. $ere’s a stickiness to the rewards program when you can get people to experience what the value proposition is, which is of course, redeeming points. If you can get your members to be engaged with what your product are they will naturally give you more business.”

L o y a l t y 3 6 0 I n t e r v i e w w i t h

I N T E RC O N T I N E N TA L H OT E L S G RO U P

& T H E F I R S T C LU B ™

Weary about loyalty programs, today’s consumers will often seek instant grati!cation as soon as rewards are accumulated, even in small amounts. Enter the case for the newest trend in loyalty program redemption o#erings:

digital rewards. A digital reward is often instantly downloadable and redeemable content including: gift cards, music, games, software, mobile apps, eBooks and audiobooks, etc.

FEATURES


first and largest loyalty program for hotels,

enhance their program to meet the needs of its members. Whether it is a brand refresh, which

or a new points redemption offering, such as

at the forefront of the hotel loyalty industry by constantly innovating in an effort to better serve its loyal program members.

the first club: Some key indicators might be lack of engagement demonstrated by members holding large points balances and members activity with redemption leveling off or stopping entirely.

WHAT WAS THE CHALLENGE IHG FACED IN GETTING THEIR REWARDS REDEEMED?IHG: As the largest hotel loyalty program

With this large influx of new members,

more instant rewards by offering low priced rewards. With as few as 300 points, mem-bers can download music; 800 points re-deem for popular games—themed in sports, action and adventure. And once a member

redeem software for the home office, foreign language education and multimedia tools.

HOW HAS THE MODERN DAY MOBILE AND SOCIAL MARKETPLACE IMPACTED LOYALTY PRO-GRAM EFFORTS AND INFLUENCED THEIR VALUE?IHG: and Android apps, members can access and

-wards is another opportunity for tech-savvy members to use their points for music, mov-ies and more, and is a value-add to the con-sumer.

the first club: instant responses in their modes of commu-nication and search; now with the redemp-tion of compelling rewards transferred to any mobile device worldwide, the first club allows redemption options to meet this consumer expectation.

WHAT IMPACT DO DIGITAL REWARDS HAVE ON IHG AND HOTEL INDUSTRY?the first club:

is the first to bring to its members the wid-est choice of content on a worldwide basis.

--

in this category, this is a compelling opportu--

bers the latest in desirable content.

HOW DO IHG AND THE FIRST CLUB USE CUSTOMER DATA, COLLECTED THROUGH THE NEW REWARDS PROGRAM, TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER SERVICE AND ENSURE A CONSISTENT AND POSITIVE EXPERIENCE ACROSS MULTIPLE CHANNELS?IHG:

understand general member trends and to use this information to improve their program of-

send very targeted messages to the right mem-

their members with relevant information in a timely manner. By providing more relevant offerings and information about those offerings,

members’ needs.

the first club: the first club has a customer service tool that provides customer data and analytics reports from all download

to entice the customer with new offers such as experiential sweepstakes or promotions using popular artists determined by their download history and other site activity. In general, people feel frustrated when they are marketed items repeatedly proven not to meet their interests, for example when an OTA offers a sales promotion for a ski vaca-tion to a member whose past data indicates

and hobbies will allow them to communi-cate offers that engage their members and

its members. WHAT WAS IHG MOST SURPRISED TO LEARN FROM OR ABOUT THEIR CORE CUSTOMER AS A RESULT OF THE NEW REWARDS PROGRAM EFFORTS?IHG: While hotel rewards will always be the most important reward option for our

a growing segment of its member base who desire non-hotel rewards. These members prefer to use their points toward merchan-

cards, as they aren’t necessarily redeeming these points for room stays as often as other

that consumers desire more immediate re-wards—hence the move to provide instant

Loyalty programs have long been an integral part of the hotel industry. Currently, there are approximately $16 billion dollars in hotel loyalty points sitting unredeemed.

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FEATURES

Many travelers view the bene!ts of membership in loyalty programs a neces-sity for frequent travel—so much so that nearly three-quarters of the busi-ness travelers surveyed in February 2012 by the Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) program have taken an extra trip solely to rack up miles or status.

40% of consumers belong to a loyalty program with either reward points or frequent flier miles, many of which rely on these points to offset the cost of their personal travel.

The CHangiNG LANDSCAPE of TRAVEL BENEFITS

M A R K R O B E S O N

— V I P d e s k

FEATURES

As such, it is not surprising that given the choice between taking either their spouse or their customer loyalty program benefits on

of travelers would choose their loyalty pro-grams over their spouse .

There has always been a symbiotic relation-ship between customer loyalty programs and travel benefits, which are nearly always considered the most popular benefits of cus-tomer loyalty offerings. Traditionally, travel benefits have primarily consisted of “fre-quent-flyer”-style miles/points programs, partner marketing offers, such as hotel up-grades, airport lounge access, and some ad hoc benefits such as complimentary com-panion tickets for elite-level customers.

industry are changing the expectations that customers have of the benefits provided by the brands to which they maintain loyalty.

Travelers want personalized and flexible ser-vice, and new ways to use existing benefits such as miles and points. Travelers, whom brands now realize view travel as an end-to-end process , want travel benefits that can assist them at other points in the travel ex-perience than when they are in transit or in their hotel.

MORE THAN MILES

loyalty program with either reward points or frequent flier miles , many of which rely on these points to offset the cost of their personal travel . Unfortunately, many travel-ers find rewards points and miles difficult to redeem, which doesn’t provide any incen-tive for brand loyalty. This is why card issu-

historically rigid policies related to mileage/point redemption, providing customers multiple methods of easily utilizing their miles.


At this time, several public and private initiatives allow frequent trav-ellers to take advantage of an expedited security clearance process.

Clear: -

TSA Pre©™: Transportation Security Administration (T.S.A.) to participate in the

security to select passengers chosen from among the most frequent fliers, whose profiles are best known to airlines. The program is now in operation at special lanes at 13 airports, with three participating

Global Entry:

approved, low-risk travelers upon arrival in the United States.

Additional OfferingsOther travel benefits that have recently seen an upswing are perks such as priority boarding and money saving bag-fee waivers, as

LOUNGE ACCESS

list of the top-five used ancillary airline services.

Until recently, most brands that don’t maintain their own airport

independent airport lounge access program. Increasingly though, private companies and even the airports themselves are taking advantage of the popularity of airport lounge benefits.

Unlike many card issuers that limit cardholders to a meager selec-

card, then redeem the miles for a statement credit to offset that pur-chase. Miles can be used to pay for virtually any travel purchase—airfare, hotels, cruises, car rentals and more—through the service provider of the cardholder’s choice.

MAKING TRAVEL EASYWhile miles and points are very popular travel benefits, non-air/room redemptions are becoming a priority for travel reward programs look-ing to drive greater member engagement . Increasingly, the non-air/room redemption travel benefits that are being provided to custom-ers are those that help make travel easier in a time that a combi-nation of increased homeland security requirements and changing airline industry regulations are making air travel a laborious, time-consuming process.

Meet & Greet ServicesOnce the domain of children travel-ing alone and celebrities attempting to maintain a low profile while in transit,

with travelers who want to make it in and out of the airport as easily as pos-sible. Starting with a curbside meeting and access to an expedited check-in and security queue to pro-active flight moni-toring, escort to gate and pre-boarding assistance and ending with luggage retrieval and an escort to a car service,

guesswork out of air travel.

One brand that has embraced the de-sire for this form of personal assistance during the travel process is American Airlines. American Airlines customers

Service” program, which provides per-sonal, one-on-one assistance through-out all steps of the departure, arrival, and connection processes.

-holder benefit.

Fast-Track Airport SecurityLong lines in airports are one of the biggest qualms of airline pas-sengers, meaning that customers will embrace a travel ben-efit that reduces time spent in-line and in-airport. In recent years, brands have offered their customers ways to save time in airport

--

have actually shortened the security clearance process, until now.

27continued on next page »

Loyalty Management™

Airspace Lounge is one such company that started offering service at Baltimore/ Wash-

while Los Angeles International Airport’s

Worth International Airport have long been providing passengers with access to snacks, business amenities and comfortable seating.

The profile of airport lounges has increased

Malde International Airport, serving three of the brand’s Maldives resorts that include

Big Island have access to a private airport lounge for use while waiting for their compli-mentary airport transfers.

PERSONALIZED PERKSBoth airlines and hotels can gain commer-cial return from adopting a more personal-ized and tailored approach to their existing loyalty programs by offering wider choice, value and relevance to members .

years of development into an update of the

appeal to “sophisticated consumers who have become jaded by generic points and perks.”

include:

24-hour check-in: The industry’s first

out anytime they want.Ambassador service: All members who

stay 100 nights per year are invited to use Starwood’s one-to-one ambassador ser-vice across all of Starwood’s 1,100 hotels.

members, the result being that they get to know the needs and preferences of their members—travel-related and not.

There is additional opportunity for further development of personalized perks that reflect the changing mindset of consumers.

Saving Tracker finds that more travelers are looking to incorporate their personal hob-bies and interests into the travel experience, whether it’s a culinary retreat, a hiking ex-pedition, or a spa escape. This is especially true for those planning weekend getaways,

cultural activities into their itineraries, in-cluding museum visits, historical sites, and national monuments.

PERSONAL TRAVEL ADVISORS/TRAVEL CONCIERGEMore than half of travelers surveyed by

-whelmed by the vast amount of information the internet provides. As such, travelers desire assistance from a travel agent or a travel concierge, someone who can provide them with essential details and specialized information on destinations, saving them the time of doing it themselves.

services are popular with travelers who put a higher value on providers being able to service them when on-the-road, either by

and travel concierge can also provide as-sistance in the event of difficulties such as

following the multiple Icelandic volcano eruptions .

The travel concierge features most valued

listed in order of importance, are emergency assistance abroad, lost luggage assistance,

check-in service, medical facility informa-tion, help with business travel, pre-travel information on health, security and passport requirements, arranging for airport transfers and parking, researching and booking leisure travel and accommodation, flight alerts to inform others of the travelers safe landing, hospitality and event tickets and restaurant reservations.

MEETING CHANGING CUSTOMER NEEDSAs the travel industry changes, so do the travel benefits that consumers desire from loyalty programs. It is necessary for brands to deliver personalized, flexible and easy-to-use service throughout the entire travel experience. By making travel easy from start to finish, providing personalized perks that reflect a true knowledge of customer desires, it is possible to maintain a competi-tive advantage and stay on the forefront of the changing landscape of travel benefits.

Mark Robeson, Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing with VIPdesk, has over 18 years’ experience designing and managing bespoke B2B and B2B2C customer loyalty programs for Fortune 500 clients, luxury brands, and other brand-conscious companies.

“Losing Loyalty Status Is Worse #an Losing Luggage”, Wise Marketer, February 7, 2012 “#e Travel Gold Rush 2020” by Amadeus and Oxford Economics Summer Travelers Seek Vacations With Substance”, Colloquy, May 9 2012 Summer Travelers Seek Vacations With Substance”, Colloquy, May 9 2012 “#e new era of customer expectations”, Wise Marketer, April 4, 2012 “#e new era of customer expectations”, Wise Marketer, April 4, 2012 “Starwood Perks Up Loyalty Program”, Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2012 “#e Travel Gold Rush 2020” by Amadeus and Oxford Economics

The Changing Landscape of Travel Benefits (continued)

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CUSTOMERS COME AND GO. FANS RETURN AGAIN AND AGAIN.For three decades, Affi nion Loyalty Group has been a pioneer

in the loyalty and enhancement industries. We help our clients

retain and motivate consumers while delivering tangible results

and incremental revenue. We continually develop ground-breaking

products found in almost every wallet in America.!

www.affi nionloyalty.com 1-800-622-4863

LOYALTY PROGRAMS & PURCHASE CONSIDERATIONRESPONDENTS IN LOYALTY PROGRAMS

DIFFERENTIATING CUSTOMERS through the INTERSECTION of LOYALT Y & VALUE

S H I R L I Z E L C E R

—Merk l e Inc .

It seems every organization these days has a loyalty program, whether it’s relevant or not. But to be successful with any loyalty program, it’s important to !rst examine the question of why. Does it bene!t the consumer? $e business? Does the organization actually realize pro!ts from treating customers di#erently based on how frequently or how much they’ve purchased? A 2012 study

conducted by Merkle through Bellomy Research found that a majority—66 percent—of consumers say that loyalty programs do not drive their purchase with a particular brand. However, particularly in the travel and leisure space, brand loyalty programs are a given, simply due to the competitive landscape. So how can an organization ensure that it is making the right decisions about its use of loyalty programs without sacri!cing the bottom line?

the historic performance.

Ideally, loyalty tiers and value segments should be closely correlated; however this is not always the case. This is a growing challenge, specifically in the travel industry, due to airline alliances, hotel alliances, and branded credit cards. A company could have customers in top loyalty tiers that have actually spent very little with the brand itself.

To be fair, there are clear benefits to having a loyalty program. The Merkle study shows that 84% of travel and leisure customers will review options with their loyalty programs before deciding on their purchase. In other words, loyalty programs directly drive con-sideration, even if product and price are the ultimate drivers in making a purchase.

Additionally, the same study shows that within the travel space customers are espe-cially willing to share personal information with companies in order to participate in

-es, household composition, and even phone numbers are shared willingly and allow com-panies to reach out to consumers in a much more informed and optimized way.

LOYALTY VS. VALUEThe important point about loyalty is that it represents how the customer expects to be treated, as opposed to how the business wants to treat the customer. Loyalty mem-bers expect special treatment, even though, to the business, these may not be the most profitable customers. It is critical for an organization to not only differentiate their customers based on loyalty tiers, but based

should indicate the future potential of a customer (whether measured by revenue,

Additionally, many organizations (including airlines, cruise lines, and hotels) award life-time status and do not necessarily evaluate tiers annually.

loyalty tiers based on nights stayed, cruise lines based on number of cruises or nights sailed. Whether or not someone stayed in a suite every visit and generated a great deal

FEATURES


of revenue at restaurants and spas is rarely

of spend into account.

value segments should drive an organi-zation’s approach to investing in a given customer in terms of benefits, services, and

-mine whether a certain customer should get a certain creative or offer; instead it should be used to determine the threshold for investment in that customer. This includes spending more on marketing investments such as direct mail and catalog, routing of service queues, and surprise-and-delight type tactics.

If value segments drive investment in a custom-er, where does that leave loyalty tiers? Loyalty members still want and need to feel special. The tactics driven by loyalty should be around special perks and rewards that do not necessar-

-ples of this are sneak previews, exclusives, early chances to buy, etc.

One thing to note is that neither value nor loyalty should drive offer strategy. Many companies give out offers and discounts to their most loyal customers when often these customers are willing to spend the full amount regardless of offer. Instead of offers, these customers should be given a differen-tiated experience to keep them loyal to the

tools should be used to determine which customers need the offer in order to drive a purchase.

So why have both loyalty and value? Well, besides the previously mentioned benefits and competitive pressures, loyalty tiers are clear to customers. A customer does not see their profitability or the amount of margin they generate relative to others. Loyalty tiers are the best way for an organization to show customers that they are valued and to retain them. The key is to combine loyalty tiers and value segments so the customer feels special while the business is maximizing profitability.

Shirli has over 11 years of experience in strategy and analytics in the travel and entertainment, consumer, and $nancial services industries. At Merkle she has worked for a variety of di"erent clients including Dell, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Nike, and Disney, and has led projects for both consumer and small business lines of business.

Measure on a new scale.What happens when an agency mixes best-in-class analytics, leading technology and customer strategy with digital media excellence and provocative creative? Visible results. Of entirely new proportions.

Expect more. merkleinc.com.

Merkle_LM_QuarterPage.indd 1 6/20/12 1:52 PM

LOYALTY VALUE

Historic Looking Forward Looking

Determined by R/F/M and can be influenced by external factors (alliances, branded credit cards, etc.)

Determined by predictive models that generate expected margin/ profitability

Visible to the customer Not visible to the customer

Drive specific perks Drive investment levels

Goal is to have high correlation between loyalty tiers and value tiers

Goal is to drive customers to higher value segments over time

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BEINTOO – App Engagement

Beintoo transforms users’ activities and time spent in games, apps, and on the web into real world value. It’s a true loyalty program where users earn Bedollars, a meritocratic currency which can be redeemed in online and offline stores, allowing them to get personalized pricing from partner retailers.

Advertisers (both local, brick and mortar retailers as well as national brands) can promote themselves through Bedollars, offering customized prices for different users; thanks to a technology that matches user’s’ interests and localization. This new type of mobile advertising is able to effectively engage a demographic that is hard to reach. Retailers can use the loyalty users have towards their favorite apps to attract them to deals, offers, and products, creating a true personalized experience. Transforming time spent in an app to real benefits results in high conversion rates and very happy users.

Developers no longer monetize in the time that a user spends within the app but rather anytime they spend Bedollars within the whole network.

Beintoo recently launched two new products::1: Beintoo app is a virtual Wallet for user, where they see their Bedollars, and all retailer offers. The app will allow users to spend their Bedollars online and offline, anytime.2: “Beintoo Connect” allows retailers to Reward their users with Bedollars for each purchase and give them a cross apps and cross retailer currency. The users log in, view their balance and personalized discounts. Users can redeem tons of offers right in your own app, in the Beintoo app or in the retailers website.

GIVEX – Givex Helps Businesses Augment Mobile Apps with New Gift & Loyalty Wallet Capability

Many businesses have been restricted to card-based gift and

adoption. Givex, a global technology company, has launched a new Mobile Loyalty Wallet for these business and others, giving customers a convenient, secure way to use card-less gift and loyalty programs. Businesses can easily deploy these programs

hardware upgrades.

Typical mobile wallets simply store full card numbers and provide them at the point of sale, inviting fraud risk. This mobile wallet solution provides an added layer of security using Givex’s SUN (Single Use Number) system. In place of card numbers, the customer can generate a secure, single use token (the SUN) that can be used for the transaction. The SUN

without additional hardware expense.

While customers can access the mobile wallet by downloading the appropriate app, there is also a no-download version, which sits on a mobile website and can be accessed by any phone’s web browser.

Loyalty Innovation

Products, Advancements, & Technologies

technology for the customer journey

LOGOUT

Generate Single Use Number (SUN)

024528

SUN Expiry: 07/03/2012 12:13:28

Card Number: 603628*****165699768*

Card Description: Default Card

Balance: 422.07

TCS REWARDZ™– Rewardz™ powers relevanceTCS Rewardz™ is a cross channel reward management solution for delivering extremely targeted and personalized rewards to customers

based on their interactions and not just

transactions across channels—mobile,

online, social amongst others. With a

strong analytical foundation and best-in-

class architecture, the solution offers

real-time accrual & redemption capabilities

with an unmatched scale.

In this age of Retail 3.0, “Context is the

King”. Retailers should be contextual while

promoting their brand. Recognizing what

a customer has recently browsed, read,

watched, brought and interacted is definitely useful but all it provides is past

behavior. Analyzing these behaviors along

with the context provides the real potential

for defining the Next Best Offer.

TCS Rewardz™ helps retailers to achieve

customer centricity using the advanced

analytics that this product offers. It

determines the Next Best Offer for

the customer by constantly mining the

individual customer’s behavior, his/her

channel behavior, transactions, business

goals of the retailer, events, the assortment

available and the channels the retailer

serves & the customer interacts.

Customers can be delighted with the power to earn and redeem their

loyalty points in real-time for any of their

interactions. Such immediate rewarding

is likely to catalyze the future activity of

customer as they are being instantly

gratified for the program membership.

TCS Rewardz™ offers this ability with

the inbuilt Global Offer Hub,

an offer management system to drive

real-time earning and burning with multiple

reward types. This Real time capability

assumed all the more importance in

a cross channel and multi geography

retail environment to keep a tab on fraudulent redemptions.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a leading

IT service provider with over 44 years

of experience with various retailers, has

already filed three patents for this enhanced platform and is looking forward

for more with kind of innovation it is

offering in the Customer reward space.

Apart from implementing the product

for various retailers, TCS has signed

a strategic partnership with Mozido,

a mobile payment solution provider

for rendering loyalty services through

payment capabilities.



ADOBE CQ – Web Experience Management

digital marketers with easy-to-use, web-based applications for creating, managing, and delivering personalized online

Web content management. An easy-to-use application that enables business users to author and publish content across channels, while maintaining corporate standards.

Social communities. A fully integrated solution that enables marketers to create immersive social experiences as part of their website to build brand loyalty and generate demand.

Flexible digital asset management. A unified asset management application that empowers marketing organizations to optimize operations, connect with creative professionals, reuse existing assets, and maintain brand consistency regardless of format or location.

Marketing campaign management. A module for digital marketers to plan, design, launch, and optimize multichannel marketing campaigns that drive demand and increase brand engagement across web, email, mobile, and social channels.

Mobile sites and applications. A module that empowers digital marketers to design engaging experiences across mobile devices, helping to increase customer loyalty and acquisition through a consistent and relevant experience.

Integration with Adobe Digital Marketing Suite. An integrated solution for marketers that delivers personalized and tailored experiences that are analyzed, measured, and optimized across various channels of delivery.

Slate.com and Scottrade.

CROWDTWIST – Customer Relationship & Loyalty Platform

increase acquisition, improve retention, build loyalty, facilitate advocacy and measurably impact their bottom line. Their multi-channel

brand.

Once their white label, SaaS platform is integrated into a brand’s ecosystem, customers who opt-into the brand’s loyalty program immediately start earning points for everything from consuming,

While the value for customers is the points they accrue for interacting

provides vast amounts of previously disaggregated data to the marketer. Integrated into it’s reporting is a segmentation tool that allows marketers to identify the individual customers who are most influential at driving brand interest across their social nets as well as those customers who

knowledge is providing marketers with the tools to identify valuable customers and begin developing deeper and more rewarding relationships with them.

TCS Rewardz™ helps retailers to achieve customer centricity using the advanced analytics that this product o"ers. It determines the Next Best O"er for the customer by constantly mining the individual customer’s behavior.

BETTER THE WORLD – Helps Drive Superior Loyalty PerformanceWhile Doing Good

Two years ago, Aeroplan started a journey. They were looking for a way to inspire and engage members—to create a deeper emotional connection to their brand. They asked Better The World to help them explore opportunities to do this. They were looking for a program that was designed for and powered by members.

The natural place to start was a social responsibility platform that helps

consulting services and the technology platform that allowed Aeroplan to launch a market leading social responsibility platform—one that creates significant positive social impact and is good for business.

Better The World’s social fundraising platform provided the technology that empowered members (through the Aeroplan Beyond Miles

now create, manage and promote their own grassroots fundraising initiatives using the social web—raising miles for their cause(s).

Members have flocked to the program, raising miles for things like computers for their child’s school, a hotel room for their hockey team, or flights for a local charity. Now that members can give miles to what they care about, they’re more apt to consciously accumulate and redeem for things that benefit their cause. This not only increases the utility of the loyalty currency, it also creates a competitive differentiator for the program.

Upcoming releases are planned with several commercialization components for members and non-members, providing new sources of revenue for Aeroplan and its partners. Without an official launch (yet), the program has so far driven 10,000,000+ miles in donations,

version, the social fundraising platform can be used for any loyalty program. The platform includes a web front end, a comprehensive content management system, advanced reporting and a workflow

seamless integration with loyalty program back-office applications—enabling real-time account creation, points/miles transfers, and single user sign-on.

Better The World’s formula for member-driven loyalty-based giving programs provide a proven, unique way to drive customer engagement.



S A R A H P H E L P S

— Fi r s t An n a p o l i s


Despite various references to the potential negative impact of recent payments industry di%culties on rewards programs,

they continue to form a central part of payment products, including serving as the basis of account acquisition and retention strategy. In fact, new investments and innovations are appearing everywhere. As before, much of the change is being driven by external factors such as regulatory change, access to emerging channels, and smart phone adoption. While examples of actual implementation of these solutions are in some cases few and far between, program managers should pay close attention as each advance has the potential to drive engagement, and therefore revenue, for the sponsor-ing organization as well as for key partners.

REPOSITIONING FINANCIAL INSTITUTION ENTERPRISE PROGRAMS In the beginning, the customer value proposition for enterprise

primary sources: credit and debit spend. While it’s true that many enterprise programs also began to leverage their currency to drive point earning for utilization of non-payment products; without combining credit and debit, the stand-alone value from these sources was insufficient to drive customer behavior. With debit interchange regulation presenting a significant practical challenge to points-based debit rewards, the rationale for enterprise programs has lost footing.

Rewards Program INNOVATION: Engaging Consumers with NEW VALUE PROPOSITIONS & CHANNELS

SOCIAL MEDIA

have boldly gone where no others have gone before. What is fas-cinating is the slightly different approach each player has taken in

example, have planted their stakes at the brand level each having

More intriguing are recent moves that cross into the merchant offer

Based on current volumes, it is unlikely that issuer social media post-ings drive a significant amount of activity for merchants; however, with the remarkably low cost of this as a channel (arguably materi-ally lower than even e-mail), future attempts at utilizing social media to drive customer engagement are inevitable.

Be it points-based, cash or discounts, membership programs and customer incentives will continue to form an essential part of prod-uct strategy across key loyalty industries (financial services, travel

proposition for these organizations and their most valued customers are also the most active participants. Moreover, program member lists and activity data, not to mention accrued program balances, are

communications broadcasting new ways to utilize the program and to garner incremental value is core to sustaining customer aware-ness and driving ongoing engagement. In the near term, expect some program sponsors to leverage innovation to drive customer engagement and others to move more aggressively into the mobile and social media channels.

Principal at First Annapolis Consulting. Sarah specializes in the card issuing practice area and leads the loyalty support strategic initiative or the $rm. Her areas of expertise include strategic planning,outsourcing, credit card operations management, negotiations and card issuing partnerships.

strategies, watch for points-based rewards to play a role. You may see points programs connected to a range of activities including ac-count type, monthly balance, debit spend tiers, or direct deposit ac-count ownership. As an alternative to or a component of enterprise programs, points based debit is also being replaced, or supplement-ed, with merchant offers that either give the consumer discounts on purchases or deposit cash into an associated checking account.

MERCHANT OFFER NETWORKS In the wake of debit interchange regulation, these programs continue to captivate program sponsors. While the potential for the tradition-al model (centered on online purchases), to penetrate card volume and spend has been challenged historically; the underlying business

-vices programs, the revenue share rate on purchases made through these networks eclipses that of legacy signature debit and even credit interchange. That said, merchant offer revenues are unlikely to drive a meaningful difference until spend penetration increases. The program sponsor also has to decide what proportion of those revenues will be passed on to the cardholder rather than retained by the bank. Bank of America’s Add It Up program maximizes spend penetration by enabling online banking customers to use the pro-gram through all card products linked to the online banking account. Other organizations will likely continue to expand the opportunities for cardholders to access these programs through new channels and spend categories.

MOBILE COMMERCE

extend into the mobile channel. One underlying challenge is that most organizations are still experimenting with how to deploy their own brand into mobile; recognizing that the device is already crowded with a diverse range of customer utilities (tele-com, e-mail, texting, information discovery) and that the consumer’s behavior in this environment remains somewhat of a mystery. Several organizations are in the midst of taking more obvious or practical steps like making points balance information available as an extension of the mobile banking application or serving up alerts for redemption activity. A few organizations are focusing on this channel as a way to drive their merchant offer programs with

notable innovation in the segment is the integration of the mobile device into the redemption experience through in-store purchases. While in their infancy, each of these solutions has the potential to impact program economics over the long term, potentially driving a better consumer experience, increased merchant-funded volume, or lower redemption cost.

Perhaps the most notable innovation in the segment is the integration of the mobile device into the redemption experience through in-store purchases.

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Pharmaca increased cross-shopping by 50%

Virgin America's frequent !yers spend 25% more than non-members

U.S. Cellular enrolled over 1/3 of its members in under a year

Find out how at www.loyaltylab.com

Never say goodbye.


Gami!cation has quickly grown to be more than an industry buzzword. Games, ratings, ranking and rewards

are some of today’s most successful motivators of consumer behavior. In a Q&A with Badgeville’s CEO, Kris Duggan, we uncover a bit about the psychological in&uencers in gami!cation, the roots of gami!cation in loyalty and some of the latest trends being implemented in the industry today.

HOW DOES BADGEVILLE DEFINE GAMIFICATION AS IT APPLIES TO THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, ENGAGEMENT & LOYALTY?Gamification is a business strategy that takes techniques from traditional games and social games, applying these to non-game

engagement and loyalty, we view gamification as a modern loyalty program, rewarding many valuable customer interactions beyond transactions.

WHAT IS THE BASIC PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND GAMIFICATION’S INFLUENCE (OR POTENTIAL INFLUENCE) ON BRAND ENGAGEMENT AND LOYALTY?There are many psychological factors that play into gamification

by intrinsic motivation versus extrinsic motivation. There is a great deal of research from this. While offering tangible rewards may work for a short time, we are driven by our desire to successfully and creatively perform tasks and to be recognized. Gamification offers businesses a way to create customer tasks based on their business objectives. Of course, for the user, this shouldn’t feel like a task, but instead, an opportunity to engage. We enjoy structured tasks and progress-based missions as this provides and opportunity to com-

loyalty program which was once focused only on transactions could also reward users for sharing links to promotions, reviewing products or properties, and uploading personal photos related to their engage-ment with the brand. The more social the experience, the more pow-erful reputation in the community takes center stage as a motivator.

WHAT TYPES OF BRANDS OR PROGRAMS ARE BEST SUITED FOR GAMIFICATION TACTICS?Our customers come from virtually every industry. Gamification is ideal for brands or programs that have digital experiences which people interact with. These can be customer-facing programs, or

company that is already invested in loyalty is a perfect fit for gami-

obvious game mechanics may turn off the brand manager, there is a great opportunity in turning on a status-based “reputation program,” which highlights user level tied to that brand’s identity. It is impor-tant to carefully deploy a gamification program which is relevant to the brand. Some brands do well with heavily gamified programs, and

percent or more, when deployed properly.

provides six different gamification models for different types of user experiences, ensuring programs are designed to increase user

L OY A LT Y GAMIFIEDL o y a l t y 3 6 0 I n t e r v i e w

w i t h K R I S D U G G A N

—B a d g e v i l l e


L OY A LT Y GAMIFIEDbehavior in every business use case. While one framework is based on competition, others are based on collaboration and status.

WHERE DO YOU BELIEVE THE ROOTS OF THE USE OF GAMIFICATION TO INFLUENCE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT BEGAN? Gamification is not new. Any gamification expert points to traditional loyalty programs

reason gamification is so popular and suc-cessful today is that now customers are interacting with brands in many new ways on the web and across their mobile experi-

new opportunity to reward your customers and highlight their brand loyalty. This is not too far off from traditional loyalty programs, stemming back to the earliest frequent flier programs. Instead of rewarding flight pur-chases only, you now have the opportunity to reward brand loyalists for engaging with your brand between purchases, ultimately increasing loyalty and lifetime value.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE NEWEST GAMI-FICATION TRENDS INFLUENCING TODAY’S CUSTOMER?Status-based gamification programs are still relatively new, and growing in popular-

users who leave many reviews and engage in the community. The same type of status programs are now surfacing with the world’s most successful and popular brands. Top brand managers understand the importance of increasing a customer’s attachment to a brand by giving them a sense of ownership of the brand. The best way to do this is to reward the customer for their engagement across all of your digital touch points.

WHAT IS THE PERCEIVED VALUE OF GAME BASED REWARDS AND STATUS? WHAT HAVE YOU HEARD FROM TODAY’S CONSUMER ABOUT THEIR REGARD FOR STATUS REWARDS?There is great value of game-based rewards and status. This type of reward works for all demographics. The highly-valued Millenial demographic reacts to these programs most successfully, as this group seeks status and reputation in online social settings.

-wards and reputation are most valuable in highly social programs, where user behavior on a digital experience is highlighted on the site, versus the gamification being tied to a solo experience.

WHERE IS GAMIFICATION HEADED? OR RATHER, HOW WOULD BADGEVILLE LIKE TO SEE GAMIFICATION TAKEN TO THE NEXT LEVEL (NO PUN INTENDED)?Gamification, in its early stages, is about adding a reputation and rewards program to one site or one experience. While this may provide some lift in your programs, the greatest value gamification providers to the brand manager is the ability to measure and influence behavior across all of that brand’s

-

spective, this provides a portable reputation across all of those experiences. A global company may have multiple brands, and want to tie a gamified loyalty program to all of these brands, without each program be-ing siloed off into an individual website. This enables the company to surface new brands, products, and experiences to users within

lies an extremely large amount of potential for understanding and predicting user value based on this cross-experience behavior.

Gamification is as much about the data as it is about the reward. Big data technology enables us to provide brand managers with entirely new insights into their audience, which not only offer a whole new view into the health of their customer audience, but also actionable insights that significantly move the needle.

Kris Duggan—CEO & Co-Founder of Badgeville —is a sought-after speaker on gami$cation, analytics and user engagement, and is a thought leader of innovative ways to incorporate game mechanics and social loyalty programs into web and mobile experiences.


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Join Badgeville for a workshop at Engagement & Experience Expo 2012, Sunday, October 28 at 3pm

“$ese programs have been proven to increase

customer behavior 20% or more, when deployed properly.”


In an age where attention spans are short and marketing avenues are many, how can you successfully reach, maintain and nurture your customer relationships to drive sales,

increase loyalty and support the business processes necessary to thrive in today’s competitive marketplace? Savvy retailers are investing in technology tools that facilitate in-depth customer segmentation and promote a greater level of cus-tomer engagement through mobile technology. Businesses are leveraging powerful software applications that are completely mo-

Windows mobile devices to better serve the customer and make for

or software as a service (SaaS) offerings, provide convenient access to best-in-class software and functionality without the investment in overhead to internally manage these systems.

to ensure the right building blocks are in place.

1: Understanding the Customer: As with any marketing campaign, having an understanding of customer wants and

needs is crucial. Not too long ago, businesses simply segmented customers by zip code and income level as a first step in prepar-ing for one-to-one marketing. Today, social media and mobile tech-nology are enhancing this form of segmentation, and targeting the modern customer now involves a kaleidoscope of factors. Utilizing

allows retailers to capture, sort and glean more valuable customer information and behaviors to reveal more diverse, fine-tuned data-

sets across all shopping channels. Using data segmentation technol-ogy, businesses can bolster return on investment by identifying new

-chase behavior were identified. These attributes were then analyzed to find the most profitable customers, and then condensed into five more manageable segments. A marketing campaign focusing on those five segments was then created, providing much greater value to the retailer and customers alike. Without the data from all sales

segmentation and marketing would not have been possible.

2: Real-Time Marketizing Mobile: system is in place and you are able to slice and dice data

efficiently to target specific customers, the next step is taking the campaign to a new, mobile level. One of the hottest avenues driv-ing consumers to stores and websites is customized messages and coupons delivered to mobile devices. Industry analyst firm Yankee

-mation sits ready to access—or can be further researched online—in

and simple to scan, making for a smooth customer experience at the -

livering campaigns using SMS (short message service) is beneficial, as not everyone likes to read, but most enjoy pictures, sounds and video. Yesterday, a picture was “worth a thousand words”; today’s adage is “say it with audio, show it with video.” MMS (multimedia messaging service) allows retailers to better engage and inspire a consumer to want to shop with them. An SMS message will capture your attention for a few seconds, but a MMS message much longer, and it is sharable—thanks to the power of digital word of mouth.

3: Mobilizing Loyalty:

-phones and tablets. Loyalty “cards” in the physical form are now

D I A N E C E R U L L I

— Ep i c o r

THE MOBILE AVENUE: ENGAGEMENT THAT INSPIRES the Modern Customer


quickly becoming obsolete, as loyalty programs are increasingly being hitched to mobile numbers, mobile apps or even payment accounts. The next wave of loyalty will be based around this phenomenon as consumers are empowered to easily track, manage and leverage loy-alty programs from one spot—their mobile device. This also benefits

retailers as the offer/points-driven consumer has a more immediate view and access to the rewards that will drive them back to purchase more. It also offers more customer touch point opportunities—via reminders on how close they are to getting a new reward, or bonus rewards and coupon offers for check-ins.

4: Empowering Sales Associates: Interactive customer experience poll, when customers were

To address all of these requirements, retailers are turning to clientel--

database to sales associates anywhere in the store or enterprise —helps enrich client interactions and drive sales via in-person or online shopping by providing: 1) customer preferences and attributes in an instant via tablet devices on the sales floor, enabling associ-

-interrupted customer interaction as sales associates no longer have to step away from shoppers—or put callers on hold—to check product status; 3) ‘virtual closet’-aided styling as information about what the customer has purchased in the past can be accessed to fuel the personal shopping experience by helping round out existing wardrobes, portfolios or collections; and, 4) accurate data capture as clienteling sup-ports streamlined information gathering on-the-spot so systems are updated accurately in real-time. With clienteling and informa-tion at their fingertips, associates are able to engage with customers on a more personal level, which is key to building brand loyalty.

5: Centralizing Systems to Deliver the Ultimate Customer Experi-

ence: According to the recent “Benchmark--

continue to look to loyalty programs to drive customer retention, profitability, and cus-tomer engagement … but face challenges when it comes to creating and supporting differentiated programs that leverage intel-ligent offer management.” To keep pace with the increasingly smarter, cross-chan-nel, savvy shopper, most retailers need to commit to integration initiatives that cen-

businesses to mirror these behaviors from the sales floor and via marketing campaigns, centralizing customer data in-house has been a slower step as most retailers are still running separate, siloed sys-

-ibility organizations don’t even know are missing. Integration be-

opportunities; this allows businesses to move quickly and support personalization of loyalty programs to meet consumers’ wants and needs. While these types of integration efforts were costly and re-source-intensive in the past, today solutions addressing this pain point make the process far easier than ever before.

Knowing how to connect with today’s modern shopper—and how to navigate swiftly to keep up with constant changes in direction—is what will help retailers shift to a ‘store of the future’ for the consumer of today. As long as consumers steer behavior in the marketplace based on technology in hand, they’ll continue to be the focal point of the modern brand experience—and loyalty programs anchored by mobility will be paramount to engaging, influencing and inspiring this next-generation of customers.

With more than 30 years of experience in the retail sector, Diane Cerulli is Director, Product Marketing for Epicor, responsible for the product marketing e"orts supporting the Epicor Retail Suite.

“70 million mobile coupons worth $2.4 billion are expected

to be redeemed in 2013”

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The purpose of this research was to ascer-tain how capable each provider was of pro-viding satisfactory answers to a range of typical customer requests through both on-line and telephone channels.

-zations in banking, insurance and invest-ment management were featured in the sur-vey, and the researchers attempted to find answers to relevant questions such as:

check?

policy for someone other than myself?

account?

By asking a selection of straightforward, rele-vant questions using purely online channels and measuring the usability and responsive-ness of those channels, KANA was able to benchmark the overall quality of online cus-tomer service offered by each organization.

Customer Service that Satisfies

J A M E S N O R W O O D

— K a n a S o f t w a re

Times are tough in a global economy turned upside down. Competi-tion is sti#er, regulatory

compliance increasingly stringent, and perhaps nowhere more than in the !nancial services industry has customer trust become that much harder to earn. Although factors such as product, price and convenience are important in attracting customers, the number one reason customers stay with a !nancial institution is “no errors or problems.” Other reasons include consistently good customer service and rapid resolution of problems.

In order to assess the current standard of multi-channel customer service amongst U.S. finan-cial services providers, KANA Software carried out a ‘mystery shopper’ research exercise.


CUSTOMER SERVICE SHORTFALLS NOTEDThe findings revealed that the majority of fi-nancial services providers surveyed are not providing the level of service that inspires customer loyalty, enhances revenue oppor-tunities and reduces service costs:

95% of customer self-service websites could not answer

a simple question

1/2 of all companies surveyed did not offer a contact email

address on their website

6% offer the ability to easily escalate failed inquiries to

alternate channels

67% failed to provide a satisfactory answer to an email inquiry

-tions unable to provide the answer to a sim-

-centage of companies responded slowly to email inquiries and frequently failed to pro-vide satisfactory answers, while many failed to respond at all.


THE HIGH COST OF POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE

provider with a customer dissatisfaction rate of 11%, reported $476 million in loss of business each year due to customer defections. A report from Gartner on customer experience manage-ment found that poor customer service was the number one reason for customer defection.

Another study found that the average cost of acquiring a new

acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one, it is clear that opportunities exist within this sector for organizations to gain a competitive advantage by deploying world-class online cus-tomer service solutions before their rivals.

MEETING CUSTOMERS’ SERVICE EXPECTATIONS IN A MULTI-CHANNEL WORLDService experiences must be made more relevant to customers, service processes more efficient for the business. That means delivering on the expectation that information is accessible and transactions doable in whichever channel is convenient to and preferred by customers—such as opening an account via the web or smartphone and getting help from service reps in online chat when problems arise—being there builds trust.

It also means ensuring that customer history and strategic business

and customer history must help guide the steps in the business-to-client conversation or self-service experience to make the customer experience targeted and efficient, and make the most of every cross-sell opportunity.

It comes down to making sure data and service processes are work-ing together, streamlined with customer touch points, fine-tuned to business goals. With targeted and reliable information consistently at their fingertips, customers have better experiences and call center agents can focus on improving client relationships.

James Norwood, Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing O!cer at KANA Software, is responsible for leading KANA global marketing strategy and execution, including: corporate, product marketing, customer, $eld and partner marketing, communications and communities, demand generation, public and analyst relations, and web presence.

The average cost of acquiring a new customer was $118.16,

yet to keep a current customer happy costs only $19.76.

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taking advantage of their time and bombard-ing them with “pop up” offers and unnecessary redirects. Leaving the consumer in control of their brand experience will ultimately improve your customer “share of wallet” and maximize their lifetime value to your organization.

Time wasted online can cost your organiza-

would abandon an online purchase if they didn’t get quick answers, and also according to the report consumers actually find agent-assisted services to be more satisfying than traditional self-services

Agents Another Look,

By proactively educating and engaging customers,

companies can reduce the volume of higher cost phone contacts by employing virtual as-sistants to handle the more mundane calls that typically make up a significant percent-age of inbound traffic. The most preferred

-

cost, large volume transactions drain re-sources. Intelligent virtual assistants easily mitigate the number of these types of calls by empowering customers to resolve their own issues.

are powerful tools that further automate self- -

cally timed pre-emptive suggestions for prod-uct alternatives, essentially providing consum-ers what they need even before they know it themselves. They’re able to handle high-volume-low-value interactions or as needed, low volume deeper product interactions and

enable customers to effi-ciently accomplish their on-line goals such as answer-ing questions about their account, filling out forms or applications, or getting needed technical support.

In today’s world where the consumer is in charge, im-proving and simplifying their online self-service ex-perience will enhance your brand in their eyes. The consumer wants to interact with your brand when and how they desire, and the ease in which they can accomplish their goals regard-less of channel is paramount to long term

information and respond well to brands that seek to update and educate them. Interrupt-and-sell tactics will always have their place in the world of marketing tactics, but a key goal should be to empower customers with the key information they are seeking when they want it so they make better decisions—avoid

Forrester reported that 57% of 4,653 North Americans surveyed said they would abandon an online purchase if they didn’t get quick answers

�

VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS EMPOWER ONLINE CUSTOMERS

D E N N I S M C G U I R E

—CodeBaby

Self-service can be like herding cats. On the one hand, some people dislike the lack of any online self-service tools when making a payment or modifying account settings, while others distrust do-ing business with a machine. Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVAs) bridge the chasm between these

two types of customers by driving faster actions for the heavy self-service users and by becoming the branded company representative that creates an engaging and enjoyable online experience for others.



ENGAGEin more meaningful ways

More meaningful for your consumers, b2b customers, employees, sales teams, and most importantly, more meaningful to your business.Augeo develops, implements and manages loyalty programs for companies seeking measurable, mobile, social and dynamic solutions.

©2012 Augeo

Proven programs and performance history with Fortune 100 clients Over 400 clients programs across all industries Flexibile technology platforms to respond to changing program needs

International rewards in over 20 countries Broad base of solutions including customer loyalty, employee recognition, sales incentives, employment branding, fan engagement and national/local partner networks

augeomarketing.com1-877-781-2586

OFFICESSt. Paul, MN, HeadquartersChicago, ILPhoenix, AZNew York, NY

company’s gracious face, virtual assistants empower customers and improve web self-service outcomes on their terms, as it should.

-tion designed specifically for a customer’s deci-

reported this year, that IT decision-makers who have authority over budgets believe it is more important to be known for excellent customer

virtual assistant can both create a meaningful online experiences at a fraction of the cost of human support, while also improving revenue through better product education and subtle upsell / cross sell strategies—driving loyalty and retention.

-

virtual-assisted conversations from such large

“branded” virtual agents engaged in first-con-tact with consumers while collecting BI data for deeper insight with

Olympic Games, L’Oreal, and the US Army have successfully deployed virtual agents to deflect queries that escalate to a contact center (im-

virtual assistants can be applied to frontend and backend systems for eBusiness, IT, customer experience, and legal and government.

Successful deployments generally expand businesses into social, mobile and backend system integration so virtual assistant strate-

on improving website engagement, I recommend “The Ultimate

Dennis McGuire is CEO of CodeBaby an Internet software company making it easy to implement state-of-the-art intelligent virtual assistants that improve conversions and user experiences & loyalty on websites. He possesses over 20 years of experience developing innovative solutions for marketing, sales, and customer care organizations across multiple industries. To learn more visit www.codebaby.com

IT decision-makers who have authority over budgets believe it is more important to be known for excellent customer service than increasing revenue and cutting costs!

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WHAT ARE SOME BRANDS YOU BELIEVE ARE BEST PRACTICE EXAMPLES TO FOLLOW IN REGARD TO CUSTOMER LOYALTY & ENGAGEMENT? Amazon, Starbucks and Best Buy always come to mind when discussing top loyalty programs whether explicit or implicit. Amazon with amazing customer service and the originator of product suggestions based on others purchase habits or research. Starbucks with the community and social engagement that rivals Apple and Best Buy with thoughtful tiers and perks for continued loyalty.

WHAT DO YOU SEE TRENDING IN THE MARKETPLACE TODAY?

give relevant communications without being intrusive. They know the data is out there but they don’t want you to be overt about it.

The use of social will grow to better include marketing through the influence of peers. Influencers will become more prominent in networks and likely rewarded.

The past methodologies of using demo-graphic data for predicting behavior will grow through the capability of marketers to make better use of transactional data. Also, companies will be moving from batch pro-cessing to real-time.

WHERE DO YOU BELIEVE THESE TRENDS ARE HEADED IN THE NEXT 3 YEARS? Marketers will use technology to send fewer messages with more targeted and timely of-fers via mobile, email, and social using de-mographic and transactional information.

from their grocery store when the youngest in the house is 8 years old.


-gence will be conducting a joint research project to further explore these challenges and

addresses current marketplace trends and challenges, research objectives and discusses one of the leading loyalty myths he would like to see the research debunk.

A LOOK AT WHAT’S TRENDING NOWIN ALTAIR’S EXPERIENCE IN WORKING WITH THEIR CLIENTS WHAT HAVE BEEN THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES BRANDS ARE FACING IN ENGAGING THEIR CUSTOMERS? Irrelevant over-engagement is what we find

They know that their brands have informa-tion such as purchase habits but are frus-trated when the continual barrage of emails,

home. An example of this is an email about snakes when the loyalty club member has only ever bought dog products from the pet retailer. The consumer thinks I’ve only ever bought dog products why in the world would I need a 40% discount on a snake.

WHAT DO THEY HOPE TO LEARN & SHARE FROM THE FORTHCOMING RESEARCH TO ADDRESS THOSE CHALLENGES?What collection methods yield the best data, how best to maintain that data, how do you merge that data into a decision process in an ef-

purchase behavior and how to track it.

In our travels we speak to marketers about their data. We learn about

what are they collecting, how they’re collecting it, how they bring it together, and then what they plan to with it. It’s clear to us that everyone understands the importance of data but it also appears that many are struggling to get a place where the data works for them.

gather more data isn’t leading to profitabil-

report from Oracle on big data business challenge he notes the following:

in place to gather the information they need

access to pertinent information and need to rely on IT to compile and analyze information

not designed to meet the unique needs of their industry

What are the best doing that others aren’t? Why do so many companies struggle with this? Is this the loyalty marketer’s chasm?


S N E A K P E E K

UNDERSTANDING DATA New Research to be Unveiled at Engagment & Experience Expo 2012

L o y a l t y 3 6 0 I n t e r v i e w

w i t h T R O Y B L A C K M A N

—Al t a i r Cu s t o m e r In t e l l i g e n c e


WHAT RESEARCH CAN UNCOVERCAN YOU PROVIDE US AN OVERVIEW OF THE PROJECT WITH LOYALTY 360?We will be conducting joint research efforts to better understand the challenges marketers face with data collection, integration, and use in audience and channel optimization, predicting behavior, and per-formance reporting. To learn from those that are successful, uncover additional challenges, and deliver best practices.

WHY DID ALTAIR TAKE THIS PROJECT ON?

workshops and webinars that delivered actionable intelligence were of the most value. Our goal is an informative white paper with best practices immediately applicable to marketing departments of Loy-

WHAT DO YOU EXPECT TO FIND?We expect to find that marketers who can integrate data from disparate systems within their company, add third party data, build predictive ana-lytics and have platforms that support reporting and analysis in a timely manner are the most successful. These companies would be optimizing the marketing mix for the audience, offer, channel, and timing.

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN TO MARKETERS?It is our experience that no one company does each of the aforemen-tioned components perfectly. If marketers can learn best practices for each aspect they would be able to improve the performance of

their marketing and turn data collection and integration into a profit center rather than a cost center.

ANY BEST PRACTICE MYTHS YOU EXPECT TO SEE THE RESEARCH SURVEY FINDINGS DEBUNK? That having loyalty programs make customers more loyal. Our experience tells us the survey will show that many loyalty programs have been implemented without the data collection, integration and performance reporting in mind. The program can’t yet support itself with facts about performance, and without performance measure-ment you can’t tell if the program is changing behavior.

We’re approaching this project to help identify, not only where challenges lie but also where opportunities exist. The hope is to identify key opportunities and provide a benchmark to assist

#e results from this new research will be shared at Engagement & Experience Expo 2012 this fall. All attendees will receive a copy of the research and have the opportunity to hear about the results $rst-hand at the event.

Troy leads the Altair Customer Intelligence marketing and sales teams that are responsible for building thought leadership research and delighting customers through innovative strategy and intelligence.

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The POWER of CONSUMER- TO-CONSUMER Recommendations

— R e w a rd St re a m

FOOD FOR THOUGHTThe study confirms that word-of-mouth recommendations are the predominant influence on consumer purchasing behavior. This is true regardless of the type of purchase or where the consumer is in the purchase lifecycle. Indeed, the results consistently show that the importance of recommendations grows as consumers get closer to purchasing a product or service.

There’s no question that the opportunity for marketers charged with acquisition is huge. Your customers are your most powerful marketers. There are so many ways for marketers to help customers spread the good word.

One of the hottest topics facing marketers today is how to engage consumers in conversation about their brands, products

and services. Recently, Keller Fay conducted a study of U.S. consumers and how word-of-mouth recommendations in&uence consumer purchases across a variety of purchase categories. There is plenty of research that shows that word-of-mouth recom-

share experiences with friends, neighbors, acquaintances; they ask for advice and they give it, unsolicited—nothing new there. So we’re not breaking new ground when we say that word of mouth is happening—and happening a lot. But we thought it was time to go deeper. To help

-mendations influence consumer choices throughout the purchase life-cycle across a variety of purchase categories.

WHAT THE STUDY CONFIRMED

The results show that personal recommendations are the primary driver of consumer purchase decisions at every stage in the purchase cycle for every product category surveyed.

recommendations of others.

information, including advertising, in-store information, and consumer review websites.

they get to deciding on a purchase.

recommendations than by any other factor. As well, women are more likely to be influenced by a recommendation than are men.

RewardStream is a leading provider of recommendation marketing, social loyalty, traditional loyalty and engagement solutions that help brands and companies build deeper—and more pro$table—long term relationships with their customers.


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93% had made purchases based on the recommendations of others.


From Satmetr ix wor ldwide soc ia l media s tudy

52%of retailers said changing consumer expectations topped the list of most difficult external challenges

BY THE NUMBERS

ONL INE MARKET ING & SELL ING

From “Reta i l Redef ined: Invest ing For Success Through 2015” —survey produced by Retai l TouchPoint s and sponsored by Junct ion Solut ions

39% of businesses have no social media tracking in place

67 percent of companies do not measure or quantify

social media—increasing to 75% for B2B companies:

73 percent of CEOs are making significant investments in their organizations’ ability to draw meaningful customer insights from available data.From IBM global s tudy of more than 1,700 Chief Execut ive Off icers

51% of B2B companies have no tracking compared to 22% of B2C companies surveyed

Only 4 percent have any form of sentiment analysis

32 percent indicate CRM as the #1 investment focus

55%of companies ignore customers who provide

feedback via social media—by having no process in place to respond:

This increases

to 69% for B2B companies compared to 42% for B2C

SOCIAL MEDIA

71% of retailers say they will increase their focus on online marketing and selling to address critical internal and external challenges through 2015

Recent Industry Research


Will your marketing really change customer behavior? Or could you be marketing to the “sure things” that will buy anyway? Only uplift modeling can tell you. Pitney Bowes offers the world’s only packaged software application developed specifi cally for the task of building uplift models which can predict the direct impact of your marketing.

Make the move beyond propensity modeling, to uplift modeling, and realize benefi ts including: Decrease marketing program spend by 20-60% Improve campaign results by 30-300% Eliminate the negative effects of marketing by weeding out the “sleeping dogs”

Call our experts today at 800-327-8627 or visit booth 103 at the “Engagement & Experience Expo” October 28-30 in Dallas, TX. Register now at www.engagementexpo.com/registration.

Every connection is a new opportunity™

Insurance Financial Services Communications Public Sector Utilities

www.pb.com/software Solutions for Enabling Lifetime Customer Relationships

Don’t wasteyour money.I’m a sure thing.

&&&STARBUCKS REWARDS CARD'''Method:

How it works: Starbucks has a 3-tier

move up in membership status by earning stars. Once a customer reaches 30 stars,

Why it works: makes the customer feel special—it’s a

symbol of achievement for the hard work that they put in to achieve 30 stars. The feeling of recognition is so powerful that

message when his wallet was stolen:

they left I.D. n credit card but stole my

Results:

&&&VIRGIN FLYING CLUB'''Method: Status

How it works:

that can be used to move up to the next

level of membership.Why it works:

benefits. The ease of entry coupled by the bonuses encourages customers to fly more

often to attain the special privileges of Silver and Gold members. The feeling of status compels the customer to fly more often

to move up in tiers.


Last week I took my girlfriend out on

Akiko, the hostess, promptly greeted us by name with a wonderful smile and reas-suringly said, “We’re very busy tonight, but I’ll try to get you a table as soon as possible.

also greeted us by name, and asked if we

with an appetizer on the house, just for us.

The restaurant has captured our hearts with no formal coupons and no discounts (though the appetizer on the house was a great bonus).

loyalty: it’s the coffee barista that remembers your favorite drink; it’s the department store sales associate that remembers your size and style. As powerful as recognition is, it’s the critical element that the majority of cus-tomer loyalty programs lack.

CUSTOMER LOYALTY IS BROKEN

4% of rewards program members indicat-ed that their membership influenced their decision of which restaurant to visit. In other words, a customer that buys a product nine times is going to buy the product a 10th time regardless of whether it’s free or not. A busi-ness that relies on coupons and discounts to maintain customer loyalty is hurting its brand by conditioning customers to expect discounts.

But recognition is only one of several elements used to capture the hearts of cus-tomers. The following are examples of inno-vative companies and how they use loyalty programs to win the hearts of customers:

&&&NORDSTROM FASHION REWARDS'''Method: Status

How it works: Nordstrom has a 4-tier rewards program: Level 1 through Level 4

in level, a customer must achieve a target

annual net spend at Nordstrom.Why it works:makes it very easy for a customer to join the

to earn benefits immediately. The customer

receives a special feeling of status as he or she moves up in tier and receives private

party invitations and access to events that only one’s current status can obtain.

Results:

CUSTOMER LOYALTY AT RESTAURANTS LACKS INNOVATIONWith the exception of Starbucks, restaurants continue to utilize the archaic punch card or loyalty card to drive customer loyalty. They continue to go after a customer’s wallet via coupons and discount incentives, instead of targeting a customer’s heart through recog-nition and status.

A myriad of tech startups from Silicon

by merely digitizing the punch card.

CUSTOMER LOYALTY AT RESTAURANTS NEEDS TO EVOLVE

-lowing a Nordstrom model, customers can level up at a restaurant by achieving target

customer special privileges: complimentary appetizer, complimentary bottle of cham-paign on a birthday, a complimentary up-grade from a small to a large, restaurant mer-chandise such as a t-shirt, access to private events, or perhaps access to a secret menu.

waitresses and cashiers need to know a cus-tomer’s preferences and favorite items to personalize the experience and recommend similar items that the customer should try. A technology that recognizes the customer and informs the cashier or waitress about these data points will empower the employ-ee to better serve the customer, making the customer feel special.

Loyalty 101: CAPTURE THEIR hearts, NOT THEIR WALLETS

J U N L O A Y Z A

— R e w a rd Me

Jun Loayza is the Co-Founder of RewardMe, a customer loyalty platform that utilizes point of sale data to in%uence customer behavior.

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P H I L L I P B R I T T


I N S I D E S C O O P

MONITORING MARKETING PERFORMANCE DRIVES SUCCESSFUL CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE INITIATIVES

Dis constantly revising and tweaking various aspects of marketing efforts not only to bring in new customers, but also to entice them (and regulars) to continue to be

The latest change is a refreshed music playlist that features Texas country as well as some other rock music, featuring well-known art-ists as well as newer singer songwriters from independent labels.

only after extensive market research to ensure the music was in line with the tastes of the barbecue chain’s customers.

Other parts of the chain’s rebranding will include new interiors, new packaging, a refreshed Web site and an online ordering application that will be rolled out later this year.

“We did a major research program to figure out just who our custom-

Jr. “We figured out who our target market is and who the decision makers are (e.g., businessmen eating lunch, mothers deciding on weekend family nights out).”

The chain is constantly tweaking its marketing efforts looking for the right frequency and mix of promotions to go along with its Big Yellow

-clusive offers and first notice of special promotions.

you don’t want to hit them too often” with a promo-

drive any additional business. But, half off one meal, or buy one get one free are substantial offers that will grab a customer’s attention and business.

The offers themselves are always being adjusted

to reflect the latest analysis of the success of the restaurant’s past promotional and loyalty efforts.

built algorithms. You need to have an effective tracking system in place. You’ve got to be able to track results in real time. That which is measured gets managed. You can’t just keep doing the same thing. You establish a baseline, then you look at the redemption rates, then you find out which offers work better. It’s constantly a work in prog-ress. The name of the game is customer counts; you want more people in the restaurant to experience your food.”

It’s not just the offer itself, but also when the offer is sent out that can -

ing, recognizing the differences in offers and redemption rates, and

is having a dedicated marketing team responsible for social media, promotions and other advertising efforts.

The success of the chain’s customer experience efforts are a major

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THE COMMUNICATION CONNECTION: BENEFITS & LOYALTY

The link between employee benefits and loyalty is clear. The fact is, employees are more likely to stick around if they feel like they’re getting great benefits. This is true in every job function in every industry across every level of experience.

Although making sure employees understand and appreciate their benefits should be a key focus in any company’s human resource management strategy, a surprising number of organizations don’t apply the necessary resources toward benefits communication. In fact, many don’t even have a benefits communication budget. This is disheartening news because benefits communication is so important for attracting and retaining the best talent.

There are two major components to inspiring employee loyalty through a company’s benefits program. The first is providing great benefits to begin with. The second is making sure your employees understand the fact that they have great benefits. The communica-tion aspect is vital. Simply passing out a packet at new hire orienta-tion isn’t enough, and neither is providing annual refreshers during open enrollment.

In fact, in a national study analyzing forces impacting the trends, attitudes, and use of employee benefits, supplemental insurance

communicates about benefits only at open enrollment or new hire enrollment. Yeah, communication is that important. Oh, and here’s another little ray of sunshine from the same report: About half of US workers have at least a toe in the I’m-looking-for-a-new job pool. At any time at any company anywhere in the country, about half of the workforce is considering a move to greener pastures.

And who are these self-reportedly disloyal, job-hopping bums? Unfortunately for companies nationwide, they’re exactly the kinds of employees that they should want to keep.

According to that Aflac study, the majority of the workers with wan-dering eyes say that following qualities describe themselves “fairly”

Of course, if half of the nation’s hot-shot employees are thinking about applying elsewhere on account of their benefits, something has to give.

Because workers are twice as likely to leave their jobs when they

benefits, benefits communication is the natural place to begin.

The math is simple: the more a company communicates about bene-fits, the less likely its employees are to leave. Satisfied with a company that looks out for their best interests, these employees feel more loyal. In fact, employees who are “extremely satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their benefits program are nine times more likely to stick around than workers who think their benefits program stink.

If your company does have a competitive benefits package, don’t be shy

periods, or offer times when your benefits administrators can be avail-able for one-on-one consultations throughout the year. Send emails.

-gest saving time and money by looking into cloud-based virtual benefits counselor that can speak with employees (as well as their partners and families) no matter where—or when—they happen to work.

-ing its benefits package to a diverse workforce spread across dozens of

-selor, they were doing benefits communication the old-fashioned way: mailing large packets once a year and struggling with low information

and resentful of plan design changes whenever they came up.

personality, things changed. The employees responded enthusiasti-

-ees got their partners and families involved in the process by sharing the

engaged, and more appreciative than ever of their company benefits.

Using a tool like this is one way to increase engagement, but even if it’s not right for your organization, you have to increase the visibility of what you offer. If employees don’t know about your benefits, or if you only talk about them once a year, you may as well be offering a weaker package. But don’t do that. That’s crazy. Instead, amp-up your bene-fits communication efforts, make sure employees understand and appreciate their benefits, and watch the feelings of loyalty grow.

Justyn Harkin is a Communications Specialist at #e Jellyvision Lab, providers of ALEX™, the Jellyvision Bene$t Counselor, a virtual, cloud-based human resources personality that e"ectively eliminates mundane, and often confusing, bene$t communications.

J U S T Y N H A R K I N

— T h e Je l l y v i s i o n L a b

Aflac reports that 65% of US employees are “extremely” or “very likely” to leave their job

in the next 12 months if their company communicates about benefits only at open enrollment or new hire enrollment. Yeah,

communication is that important.

Dare to be different!You don’t have to settle for a “me too” program.Discover loyalty strategies that stand out. At Fairlane Group, it’s all about results!

Engaging People for Better ResultsLoyalty • Incentives • Recognitionwww.fairlainegroup.com

For more info, please contact [email protected]

Loyalty360_2012_3_Layout 1 12-03-30 10:16 AM Page 1

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Dare to be different!You don’t have to settle for a “me too” program.Discover loyalty strategies that stand out. At Fairlane Group, it’s all about results!

Engaging People for Better ResultsLoyalty • Incentives • Recognitionwww.fairlainegroup.com

For more info, please contact [email protected]

Loyalty360_2012_3_Layout 1 12-03-30 10:16 AM Page 1


DON’T TALK AT ME, Listen to me!

J O N A T H A N L E V I T T

— O p i n i o n L a b

TH E N E W Y O R K T I M E S recently wrote a rebuke of companies that badger customers for feedback relentlessly. $ey argue

American consumers are tired of weigh-ing in on “co#ee makers, hand creams, triple-bypass operations, veterinarians, dry cleaners and insurance agents.” Af-ter all, today’s retail landscape is littered with long surveys, gift card bribery and the proverbial albeit hollow “share your feedback” ask.

might think, “I’m up the creek without a paddle.” In reality, this actu-ally confirms my faith in what we do—and how we do it. I believe customers will share what they think intrinsically if you go about it in the context of real life—by allowing them to speak on their terms and at their convenience. In short, it’s about hitting them anytime, anywhere and the wealth of knowledge you gather will have a whole lot more integrity.

In the days before smartphones and a Starbucks on every corner, our only access to customer opinions was artificial settings in the form of focus groups and panel studies. Today, people don’t have to as-semble as a group to give you feedback. They do it on their time, not yours. The boom of Internet technologies has brought with it new possibilities for surveying consumers as they engage with your company on a website. Yet, as The New York Times article points out, too many people are being accosted with long, tedious surveys that merely fatigue them.

And I couldn’t agree more. A questionnaire crammed with 40 data points is a form of customer abuse as far as I’m concerned. Nor does it give you the results you need to improve the customer experience.

-

without stressing out or worse angering your customers to the point

KEEP IT SIMPLEThis one is a no-brainer. Lose the long survey and instead employ a concise customer comment card for feedback. No more than five questions, easy to access (our users simply click on the familiar [+] symbol), and a space for them to briefly tell you what the problem is. It’s that simple. The whole procedure takes no longer than half a min-

from the store receipt. Make it easy for them to access that comment card on their smartphone or tablet and give feedback on site.

GO OMNI-CHANNELThis may sound obvious, but as sophisticated as we have become in gathering data about customers online, many retailers are missing


the on-site store opportunity in a big way. In the first quarter of this year alone, consum-

these devices to research, shop, and engage with brands while on the go. And accord-ing to research that OpinionLab and TeaLeaf

report that improving the mobile customer experience will be just as or more important than online initiatives this year.

By including mobile access in the marketing mix, you can let customers give feedback anytime, anywhere via all platforms and channels. That’s going to help you to listen

stores, I won’t remember what I did there if you ask me to wait until I get home. What you need is proximity to the event to help open up lines of communication. And not to waste the opportunity to understand what folks in your stores are experiencing.

DON’T FORGET THE BACK END So let’s say you’ve done all that right; you’ve made it easy for customers to share and you are ready to listen. You still need to make sure you can make sense out of what they

-rectly, allows you to find out not only what your customers are doing, but from where and why. The more specific the data you

deliver specific info on the customer’s exact location within your website. A high de-gree of granularity enables your company to consistently collect information and tie that feedback back to a specific page.

STAY ON TOP OF INNOVATIONS

good vendor can help you stay plugged into

the ability to let customers send pictures and voice memos via their mobiles. That gives a company new visibility into the context of

customer experience, whether customers are shopping, using a product or interacting with a brand on its website.

LISTEN AND REACTAll the feedback in the world won’t help un-less you are open to what the customer is

Store, which put in place an omni-channel

what that means. The storage and orga-nization company embedded easy-to-use feedback buttons in both its website and a special streamlined site adapted to mobile. The results thus far?

-tainer Store they were having trouble us-ing the store locator function and that they wanted more functionality found on the desktop site, such as access to the gift reg-istry and organizational tips. The company also found out that many of those who were

not completing transactions online were us--

sign their dream closet online, only to then purchase at the bricks and mortar location.

to-day feedback from customers helps the company identify trends and prioritize what changes it wants to make in the near future.

So, the only thing I want to know is:

Jonathan Levitt is CMO of OpinionLab, a Highland Park, Illinois-based VoC provider. He has spent over 15 years helping a diverse list of brands understand their audience and leverage technology and data to build better product and customer experiences. A recognized authority in the spheres of web analytics, voice of customer, and social media.

90% of marketers report that improving the mobile customer experience will be just as or more important than online initiatives this year.

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O R A S O L O M O N

— Ac c l a r o

It’s a given of loyalty marketing that the more engaged your customers are with your brand, the more likely they are to stick around. Keeping the spark of engagement in your relationship with your customers can be challenging enough in one market. Scatter those customers across the globe and throw

in 20 or more di#erent languages to communicate with them, and staying together gets even more complex. How can you ensure your multi-language loyalty market-ing e#orts are successful? Let’s take a look at !ve successful localized strategies by global brands.

G L O B A L V I E W S

Strategies for MULTI-LANGUAGE Loyalty Marketing


1: KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO CHANGEWhat works in one language doesn’t necessarily work in all languages. Before expanding your loyalty program to a new region, start with ba-

giant’s popular membership program that provides benefits like expe-

Or you might need to make changes due to cultural differences.

-site, they won’t see the photos of women modeling swimsuits that

the bathing suit. Working with a localization agency can help you assess what kinds of changes you need to make.

2: TAILOR SERVICES & BENEFITS Multi-language loyalty marketing offers a great opportunity to play to your brand’s strengths in a particular market. What inspires a customer in the States to loyalty might not be what keeps a customer in Japan coming back. Nike.com, for example, offers free shipping to members but customizes it for different markets. In the U.S., where Nike is primarily an athletic brand, members

-ucts, which are more style than sport. In Japan, where style rules

most popular products in each country.

3: MAKE IT MOBILEIn many countries, mobile is far more popular than any other kind of medium, making a mobile program crucial to the success of your strategy. Mobile also gives you the ability to interact with custom-ers when they’re in the store, making them much more likely to ap-

while shopping, and even send a text to get an authentication code if they forget to bring their membership card.

4: TURN IT INTO A GAMEMany brands are integrating mobile and gamification as a part of their loyalty marketing, particularly in international markets. Gamification is fast becoming one of the most powerful tools

-ing the summer campaign, customers could scan posters in public

lasted only as long as it takes for an ice cream to melt, so customers

the code “melted.”

5: MAKE IT SOCIALin India prefer to receive information from their favorite brands

to promote brand loyalty comes from India, where snack company

and solve its supply chain problems at the same time. Using Twitter,

the snacks were out of stock. Within hours, tweets were pouring in reporting out-of-stock shops and

restock and meet demand by engaging its custom-ers with the problem. The most frequent tweet-

snacks. Brands looking to expand into India should -

ing social media for loyalty marketing in India and elsewhere.

In addition to overseeing all Acclaro processes worldwide as Vice President, Sales & Operations, Ora is responsible for client satisfaction and achieving operational excellence. Her experience with all aspects of localization—from project management to relationship marketing to account services and $nance—uniquely qualify her to oversee the $rm’s multi-faceted and demanding operational requirements.

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WHAT PRICE for ENGAGEMENT? THAT is the QUESTION


In order to understand the e#ect that price &uctuations have on customer loyalty and engagement, marketers need better visibility into

not only how the customer treats price during the current buying decision, but also all buying decisions over time.

complicated. Advertising messaging, branding, jingles, and loyalty programs all assert influence over the consumers’ perceived value. By clever design, it is becoming more and more difficult for consumers to make an “apples to apples” comparison between products that are virtually the same in function and purpose, but different in price.

As consumers consider all of these influences, they develop individual mechanisms for making decisions. An understanding of

example, a marketer may ask: “What role does loyalty play in the buying decision when prices change?” Good question. But an even better question is “what role does price have in loyalty?”

BUNDLING VS. CUMULATIVE VALUESome people look at the total cost of something and some look at the sum of the parts. Some do the math and some don’t. Some consum-ers “bundle” their decision and others take it in parts.

that consumers will respond. Two different ways that consumers respond are:

1: BUNDLING—by looking at the purchase decision as a whole

2: CUMULATIVE VALUE—by adding up the value from each benefit they get to arrive at some total valueKeep in mind; these are consumer behaviors, not the way that companies package their products.

Today, marketers have become much more precise at measuring

It’s hard to believe that not long ago, marketers believed loyalty redemption was a negative outcome. After all, it did mean that the customer relationship was entering a new part of the lifecycle. They had engaged with information and purchases up to a threshold.

predicted as they are now. Now we’re more informed. Marketers understand that the right type of redemption means positive customer engagement. Thus began the focus on engaging custom-ers at every step of their loyalty journey, as well as optimizing profit-able value at each engagement. One of the most important ways we engage with our customers is during the value exchange of a

be considered in the future level of customer engagement.

We know from our earliest economics lessons that price has an inverse effect on demand. When a customer considers a simple product purchase, we could map out an elasticity curve and determine how many fewer units we would stand to lose when price rose. In the world of modern marketing, the perception of value has become greatly

D A V I D A N D R E A D A K I S

— A i m i a


sort the value out to quantify their purchase (cumulative value). If the cell-phone

need to sort the individual element out. When the consumer spends little time sorting out the value of each component and considers it all together it is bundling .

example to a familiar loyalty scenario: a customer that purchases an airline ticket on price then evaluates the value of adding a preferred seat assignment for an additional cost is considering cumulative value. Another customer with elite sta-tus and special benefits might not consider the incremental value of each benefit.

-ly as he considered price all by itself. The second consumer would be less affected because she considered everything together and price was but one component buried in a larger collective value.

IMPLICATIONS

multiple initiatives occurring simultaneously: individualized offers to spend more, rewards for recency and frequency and better pricing (bundled) incentives to buy other products. When price increases affect the value proposition, these initiatives lose their impact.

mind. No one process will automatically predict whether pricing will increase loyalty participation or whether pricing will affect customer engagement through

this is one methodology to optimize pricing decisions to impact loyalty:

1: to determine which customers have discrete drivers of behavior and which ones “bundle”

2: Model how price change will affect each initiative

3: Adjust the incentives to level the value propositionIncidentally, the opposite impact holds true as well. If a price drop occurs, incen-tives will over deliver to drive a specific behavior. In this case incentives can be adjusted downward to level the value proposition.

There are many more implications for this behavior with specific applications for program design, promotions, competition, and more. As you develop better analytic abilities, ensuring you take into account price changes in your tactical planning will allow for much greater success rates.

A marketer may ask: “What role does loyalty play in the buying decision when prices change?” Good question. But an even better question is “what role does price have in loyalty?”

David is a Behavioral Economist and leads Business Development for Aimia out of the Loyalty Strategy team. As a core part of this team, his primary focus is to understand markets, and develop optimal loyalty strategies and tactics.

Pricing & Engagement: A Complex RelationshipPresented by David Andreadakis

Whether the relationship is business-to-business

or business to consumer, the value proposition to the buyer is a complex. It is an ever-changing and vital set of deci-sions and perceptions. If this complexity is managed efficiently,deep and sustainable engagement can be chieved. Maybe the trickiest part of this relationship is pricing. Since price is such a dominant factor in a buying decision, the way in which a buyer is affected by price variations in the immediate and long term will directly impact engagement, longevity, pur-

price is usually ignored in engagement strategy and also ignored in engagement analytics.

that further complicates engagement strategies. Sales forecasting is done without considering changing factors such as price trends and com-petitive options, while underestimating the intelli-gence of competition and their ability to respond with better offers.

This workshop will examine the different extremes in which buyers consider price in subconscious

in behavioral economics, you will learn pricing theory, predict the way your buyers will respond, and the impact each driver has on engagement. You will learn one methodology for measuring the impact of potential price changes on engagement using sophisticated techniques that will help inform decisions and defend against competitive threats.

To register go to: engagementexpo.com/registration

JOIN AIMIA FOR THEIR WORKSHOP AT ENGAGEMENT & EXPERIENCE EXPO SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2012 AT 3 PM

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Precision Marketing: Maximizing Revenue through RelevanceSandra Zoratti & Lee GallagherKogan Page | June 2012

Marketers around the globe are rec-ognizing that increasing customiza-tion and precision is critical to their

devoting marketing budgets to mass campaigns, precision marketers are mining customer data for predisposi-

tions to spend so that they can target buyers in sophisticated and individual ways.

Precision Marketing helps break down the perspectives, capabilities and skills necessary to deliver more powerful marketing results.

and others show how today’s leading performers are beginning to recognize, identify and capitalize on many of the concepts of Precision Marketing to set themselves apart and reach a whole new level of growth.

Engagement Marketing: How Small Business Wins in a Socially Connected WorldGail F. GoodmanWiley | May 2012

A definitive guide to growing your small business through "Engagement Marketing"As a small business owner, you've always relied on word-of-mouth referrals to grow your business. Thanks to social me-dia—and its nimble partner, mobile technology—it's now easier than ever to turn customers and clients into engaged fans who spread the word about your business across a variety of online platforms. And that's what Engagement

Marketing is all about. Written for anyone who owns or manages a small business or non-profit, this book is filled with practical, hands-on advice based on the author's experience of working with thousands of small businesses for over a decade.

repeat sales—using your existing customers and social networks.

customer reviews and endorsements

networks and run engagement campaigns that increase visibility— and endorsements—for your business

it to turn passionate fans in your social networks into tomorrow's new business

Engagement Marketing will help you make a bigger name for your company, build your network, and reach your goals.

Loyalty ReadsLOYALTY FORUM: BOOKS

The Tasti D-Lite Way: Social Media Marketing Lessons for Building Loyalty and a Brand Customers CraveJames Amos, Chairman and CEO, Tasti D-Lite & BJ Emerson, VP Technology, Tasti D-LiteMcGraw-Hill | September 2012

Their uncanny grasp on the latest social media—and their

build a franchise as unique and irresistible as their lower-calorie desserts, with millions of devoted followers around the globe. Now, in The Tasti D-Lite Way, industry pioneers

while unfolding the digital journey of an amazing brand as it jumps headlong into the realm of social media at a critical point in the history of the company.

The first of its kind written from a brand perspective, this book demonstrates the power that these new medi-ums can have when passionate customers are engaged through the creative use of social technologies.

The business cases and real life stories within these pages will challenge the models and mindsets of old and inspire new ways of doing business in this digital age of transparen-cy and the humanization of brands. Many other books have

great examples of providing creative customer experiences,

The Tasti D-Lite Way

Not just another book on social media, Jim and BJ share insights on culture, technology and the heart of the matter when it comes to customer engagement on the Web.

The Tasti D-Lite Way to:Use social media to really connect with customersInspire passion and loyalty to your unique brandStay ahead of the curve with the latest technologyLearn surefire ways to stay competitive in a media-

driven marketplaceUse online tools for engaging customers and opening

communications

There have never been so many opportunities for you and your business to make social connections like this before. And there has never been a book that shows you how to do it…The Tasti D-Lite Way.

* READ AN EXCERPT FROM THIS BOOK IN THE AUGUST EDITION OF LOYALTY MANAGEMENT ONLINE AT LOYALTYMANAGEMENT.COM

Join BJ Emerson at Engagement & Experience Expo!


The Consumer Mind: Brand Perception and the Implications for MarketersPepe MartinezKogan Page | July 2012

The Consumer Mind explores the relationship between consumers and brands, analyzing the types of communication and their perception of brands. Based on research from Millward Brown, one of the world's

leading research agencies, it provides expert advice for mar-keting practitioners on how brands, products, services and communications reach the mind of the consumer. With in-sights based on the latest advances in neuroscience and psy-chology, it analyzes the environment, and the implications for brands.

The book features global-level analysis of 100 top brands

countries across the globe and based on feedback from more than two million interviews.

The Consumer Mind encourages marketers to think about peo-ple and their everyday lives, enabling them to influence the way in which their brands are perceived and to encourage trial and repeat purchases.

The Conversation Company: Boost Your Business through Culture, People and Social Media Steven Van BelleghemKogan Page | June 2012

In an age of readily available feedback on sites like

word-of-mouth recommendations, client happi-ness and empowered employees are the pillars of

organizations make decisions that contradict these findings and lessen their prospects of expansion.

Because people now expect every brand to have a human "face," companies need to define a clear set of values and incorporate them in

both employees and customers. The Conversation Company is aimed at helping organizations become a business in which people are the key driver of growth, sharing engaging content and building the company's culture and business objectives.

Nokia, Unilever, Zappos and Microsoft, The Conversation Company is based on solid research which will help organizations achieve sustainable success.

Today’s consumer views loyalty to a business as a fad, and they also expect everything and then some. The compa-nies that are thriving (and will continue to thrive) deliver

just about being a department or a policy; it is about cre-ating a culture where customers can’t wait to do business

with you, and are excited to refer their friends to you as

-vice and the simple steps necessary to improve nearly ev-ery customer experience.

Mobilized Marketing: How to Drive Sales, Engagement, and Loyalty Through Mobile DevicesJeff HasenWiley | May 2012

Integrate your mobile marketing program and take your brand to the next levelMobile Marketing is finally entering the forefront of the marketing realm as megabrands roll out million-dollar bud-gets and small businesses have turned to the channel for its affordability, measurability, and repeatable successes in producing sales and driving engagement and loyalty. Through insights from bold industry visionaries and fellow mobile pioneers, Mobilized Marketing takes readers through campaigns worth repeating and others that are not. Learn the many roads that marketers can take and the proven strategies and tactics that move products and build loyalty through the consumer's most personal device.

With examples from the more than 130,000 campaigns

Mobilized Marketing breaks down how brands of all sizes have performed in their mobile efforts—why some have failed and how others bravely turned to mobile.

programs and how to effectively measure it

work harder

campaigns in real-time

keepers and which are not

It's time to mobilize your marketing programs and drive your profits to new heights.

How Organizations Deliver BAD Customer Service (and Strategies that Turn it Around) Barbara KhozamBarbara Khozam, Inc. | August 2011


AS A RECOGNIZED LEADER WITH EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE UTILIZING CUSTOMER AND MARKET RESEARCH, CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM) AND ANALYTICS TO FOR-MULATE AND IMPLEMENT GROWTH STRATEGIES FOR A VARIETY OF COMPANIES WORLDWIDE, WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF IN YOUR CAREER?There are really two things that come to mind. One is the team that

-

was possible, and it was really a fun and exciting time… We built an awesome team, and not awesome based on my humble opinion, but awesome in the sense that so many of those people now have re-

companies throughout the industry. It’s really cool to watch people that were young and full of ideas actually mature and assume leadership mantels at so many great companies. So, that really makes me proud.

IF YOU WERE NOT DOING WHAT YOU DO TODAY, HOW WOULD YOU BE SPENDING YOUR TIME?

When I am all said and done with this, I have this ambition to teach,

what I see myself doing, but no plans for that in the near term.

WHICH TALENT WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO HAVE? I BET IT WOULD BE SOCCER.

grew up it was about basketball, baseball, football and marshaling kids across the country. Yeah, I’d love to be better at soccer, but

T I M S U T H E R—Acxiom

Tim Suther is responsible for Acxiom’s global marketing, strategy and business development activities. Previously, he led Acxiom’s worldwide

digital, agency and multichannel marketing services business. He has more than 30 years of experience driving transformational results at the intersec-tion of data, marketing and technology. Let’s take a look at the thought leadership Behind the Brand...

LOYALTY FORUM: BEHIND THE BRAND

THIS IS THE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT & EXPERIENCE ISSUE OF LOYALTY MANAGEMENT; WHAT IS YOUR CUSTOMER ENGAGE-MENT & EXPERIENCE PHILOSOPHY? Making sure that whatever you do, in terms of your customer engagement strategy, is consistent with the overall strategy of the company, and then secondly that you have the right measures and key performance indicators that enforce the desired behavior.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE CHANGE IN THE MARKET’S APPROACH TO CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, ENGAGEMENT AND LOYALTY?I’d like to see more customer experience, engagement and loyalty programs actually integrated technically. So, in a good number of companies you have these wonderful sources of insight about customers that are trapped in the silo of loyalty systems. Or, conversely they might be trapped in a channel system… or in the call center system, or in the daily transaction logs in a branch or a store. So, what really is going to make a difference in customer experience is if an organization’s technical systems are actually integrated in a way that makes the promise of a consistent experience across chan-nels a reality.

WHAT GREAT MARKETING IDEA DO YOU WISH YOU HAD COME UP WITH FIRST?I think what the folks at IBM have done in terms of a smarter planet; I just think that’s brilliant. It’s authentic to who IBM is; it speaks to a higher purpose where it’s not just about the technol-ogy or the data; it’s about a smarter planet. So, I think it’s probably


actually there is something that has even a higher calling. I’d actually like to play golf a little bit better than I do. But, this darn day

WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU HAVE WON AND HOW DID YOU WIN IT?As a kid I played on 10 different champion-ship teams across a variety of sports, and the thing that I really liked about that was winning together as a team. There is nothing like it when you and your mates work really really hard against adversity, you learn from losing and when you end up at the end of the season winning it all, there is nothing like it.

So, that’s the part I’ve always enjoyed.

IF YOU COULD GO ANYWHERE (FICTIONAL OR REAL) FOR A SINGLE DAY WHERE WOULD YOU GO AND WHY?Now this one has a soccer answer. I’d love to be at a champions league final with Man-chester United winning it, and they did that, of course, not all that long ago.

WHO WOULD PLAY YOU IN THE FILM OF YOUR LIFE?According to my kids, the guy who plays

wears the glasses. I think John Stewart, but only if he was a foot taller.

WHICH BOOK(S) ARE YOU CURRENTLY RECOMMENDING?Wow, so from a business perspective, I like Customer Centricity

he’s written Thank You for Arguing, which is a story about Aristotle in the modern world, and you think wow, that’s weird, but it is a fantastic read. And then if you want a story that’s human drama, I’d recommend Unbroken wrote Seabiscuit; that is an awesome read.

F O L L OW T I M O N L OY A LT Y 3 6 0 . O R G —#is is an abridged version of the Behind the Brand interview with Tim Suther. Watch the full interview and hear in-depth insights as part of the Loyalty 360 video blog series on Loyalty 360.org. T H E N , B E G I N N I N G T H I S O C T O B E R T I M S U T H E R W I L L B E A F E AT U R E D R E G U L A R C O N T R I B U T I N G AU T H O R — S H A R I N G P E R S P E C T I V E S & B E S T P R A C T I C E S O N N E W S A N D T R E N D S L E A D I N G T H E I N D U S T R Y T O D AY.

“My one crazy claim to fame athletically is I actually shattered a

backboard dunking; literally shattered fiberglass flying everywhere!”

Inspired by James Lipton on “Inside the Actors Studio” we asked Tim to share his quick !re response to the questions originating from the French series, “Bouillon de Culture” hosted by Bernard Pivot.

1. What is your favorite word? ‘YES’ FOLLOWED BY, ‘I CAN’

2. What is your least favorite word? ‘NO’ FOLLOWED BY, ‘I CAN’T’

3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually, or emotionally? I LIKE THINGS THAT ARE INNOVATIVE, AND I LIKE PEOPLE WHO HAVE AN INTERESTING PERSPECTIVE, WHO ATTEMPT TO CONNECT THE DOTS AND TO VIEW THE WORLD IN NEW AND INTERESTING WAYS.

4. What turns you off? I THINK WASTED TIME. AND I DON’T MEAN THAT FROM A BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE, I MEAN, THAT IN THE SENSE THAT OUR TIME ON THIS PLANET IS SHORT AND WE OUGHT TO MAKE THE MOST OF IT.

5. What is your favorite (PG-13) curse word? ALL OF MINE ARE R RATED

6. What sound or noise do you love? THE SOUND OF A GOLF BALL AT THE BOTTOM OF THE CUP

7. What sound or noise do you hate? I HATE WHINING OF ALL KINDS, MACHINE GENERATED OR PEOPLE.

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? I’D LIKE TO DO THE COLLEGE TEACHING THING. I JUST THINK IT’S A WAY TO GIVE BACK AND IT’D BE A LOT OF FUN.

9. What profession would you not like to do? GOSH, SOMETHING MINDLESS. I MEAN, IF I’M DOING SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T STIMULATE THE BRAIN, IT’S JUST NOT GOING TO LAST.

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? WELL I TELL YA, I SURE HOPE IT EXISTS, AND I HOPE HE SAYS THAT I DIDN’T MAKE A MISTAKE, YOU CAME TO THE RIGHT PLACE.

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G L O B A L V I E W S

WHY YOU NEED GOLD MEDAL BALANCE FOR MOBILE LOYALTY


A N D R E W L O W E

— Po i n t p a l

It’s a new era for loyalty programs, an era of balance and mobility. Led by empowered consumers, fast-paced technology adoption and data-driven interactions, loyalty today is literally in consumers’ hands.

DON’T WASTE MY TIMEThe only winning loyalty experience is a streamlined one. Mobiles

particularly in the 18 to 30 year old demographic, have limited pa-tience for clunky loyalty processes. Mobile and digital campaigns means no more plastic cards and postage costs as well as faster roll-out of new initiatives or special offers or coupons

MAKE MY REWARDS SAFEMobiles can get lost or stolen and for some consumers the loss of

-ever, enterprise grade mobile platforms operating on industry leading technology can leverage the cloud’s scalability and accessibility to record all rewards traffic for each consumer. Likewise for marketers every offer, every store, every reward, every redemption and every incremental dollar is tracked and reported.

KEEP IT FRESHMobile loyalty tends to fall in two camps; the dedicated app camp and the community app camp. The dedicated app allows a high de-gree of tailoring (and cost) but the community app allows consum-ers serendipitous discovery of new brands and loyalty offers via the community search functions. Being part of a community also helps marketers to acquire customers without push marketing.

In markets such as Australia and Singapore, mobiles outnumber the population and have significantly altered shopping habits. Mo-bile offers and loyalty programs developed with a consumer: mar-keter balance will become part of the new era in loyalty programs. Are you ready?

While the mobile channel allows marketers to interact with consum-ers closer to the point of purchase, it also provides the tools for con-sumers to seek alternatives while in-store. This isn’t the death knell for loyalty but it is a signal that mobile will be an increasingly impor-tant channel in loyalty programs in the next five years.

-mands and behaviors with the marketer’s need for data-driven in-sights without degrading the experience for either. Mobile and smartphones just intensify the need for balance.

Sophisticated mobile loyalty platforms mean marketers can deliver a fantastic loyalty experience to consumers while capturing valuable behavioral data and insights that have been difficult to obtain previ-ously. And it really comes down to giving consumers total control (and hence total ownership) of their loyalty experience.

PRIVACY FILTERS A growing consumer concern is privacy and dislike of the stream of irrelevant offers via email and SMS. Mobile loyalty platforms can act as a trusted third party in the loyalty interaction so the consumer can interact and have a great brand experience without fear of a spam deluge. Marketers still gain behavioral insights and feedback that can be used to tailor future campaigns and offers more precisely.

more granular segmentation.

REWARD ME NOW-

built in instant rewards for every purchase as consumers collected stamps towards a free burger meal. To date the Oporto campaign has out performed all sign up targets and enables Oporto to build direct retention and engagement campaigns based on loyalty data. Another offer collected stamps towards a reward and also asked the consumer for feedback after each stamp was collected. This fun game for the consumer also provided real-time feedback to market-ers for instant review and rectification if required.

Andrew has masses of experience across the marketing and loyalty spectrum from agencies like George Patterson to analytics-led Omniture (now Adobe). He founded Pointpal to provide marketers with a mobile loyalty platform that delivers detailed behavioral, location and usage data, and that consumers love to use.

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Proactive Customer Experience Management Throughout the Lifecycle Presented by: SoundBite—Sunday, October 28 at 1pm

Pricing and Engagement: A Complex RelationshipPresented by: David Andreadakis, Director of Business Development Strategy, Aimia—Sunday, October 28 at 3pm

The New Engagement: Driving Customer Behavior with Gamification Presented by: Tony Ventrice, Senior Game Designer, Badgeville—Sunday, October 28 at 3pm

Turning Likes into Buys: How to Convert Your Digital Community Into Customers Presented by: Bob Gold, CEO, Gold Mobile—Tuesday, October 30 at 2pm

Practical Analytics for the Loyalty MarketerPresented by: David Rosen, Strategy, Analytics and Consumer Insights, TIBCO Loyalty Lab—Tuesday, October 30 at 2pm

Don’t miss this year’s hands-on workshops!

SPONSORS & EXHIBITORS

JOIN LOYALTY 360 AT ENGAGEMENT & EXPERIENCE EXPO 2012!October 28 - 30, 2012 | Hyatt Regency | Dallas, Texas

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ENGAGEMENT & EXPERIENCE EXPO

October 28 - 30, 2012 | Hyatt Regency | Dallas, Texas

Engagement is the Journey, KEY AREAS OF FOCUS: Customer ExperienceCustomer EngagementCustomer DataCustomer IntelligenceEmerging Technologies

Voice of the CustomerSocial MediaMobileROI

Register TODAY! www.engagementexpo.com/registration!

4120 Dumont StCincinnati, OH 45226

EEENGAGEMENT & EXPERIENCE EXPO

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loyalty management magazine: 3rd quarter 2012 issue

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