How to Evaluate and Engage Your Own Loyalty Program

This article I wrote recently for Loyalty360 was published this week.  Here it is as well...

How to Evaluate and Engage Your Own Loyalty Program

By Richard Long, Independent Marketing Consultant 

Ok, so you just landed a new role leading an existing, established in-market loyalty rewards program, or perhaps, are providing consulting or agency services to evaluate, enhance and grow it.  Where do you begin?

Before we start, let’s first set the proper scope.  It is generally difficult and not recommended to isolate the loyalty club membership on its own, separate from the overall customer experience that the member has.  Membership is the entire experience, from their first encounter with the brand (usually occurring before you even joined the club) to hopefully them not calling to cancel one day and every point along the way.  Members, like all humans in general, naturally think in a holistic fashion, taking in each and every big or small, good or bad interaction collectively.  So, start by approaching this challenge (and opportunity) by evaluating the entire member experience.

5-Step Strategic Approach

1. Current Foundational Assessment
   Understand the current state.  Gather information and data.  Start by identifying all key stakeholders in the organization (or perhaps external) that may have an impact on the member experience and meet with them and listen.  Learn first-hand knowledge and insights around their responsibilities and how they (or their team) may directly or indirectly influence the member experience.  Important functional areas include some obvious ones like Customer Service, in-store/on-site personnel and Marketing along with the “behind-the-scenes” functions such as IT, HR and Operations.  For example, in reviewing HR loyalty program-related incentive strategies and one in which a staff member receives valuable compensation for each new member sign-up , does that overtly drive individual frontline behavior to put the “hard-sell” on potential new members, getting that new sign-up at any cost, even if they cancel the next day?  
   
   Included in this step is a Data Audit, both a collection of all information collected above from these stakeholders as well as an actual data inventory.  This includes gathering, analyzing and interpreting reports and primary/secondary research that may include: loyalty program member financial performance (transactional sales, customer value, revenue, margin etc.) and engagement  behavior (you may need to define), both overall and by segment or tier, if applicable; member persona profiling and RFM history;  retention/attrition;  industry/competitive market landscape; loyalty program industry benchmarking and best practices; member needs and satisfaction; customer service member FAQs, complaints, suggestions and cancel reasons; and social media monitoring.  This is not a complete data list, but you should try to obtain as much as possible.  You may also need to supplement any key gaps with new data requests or even doing your own field research.
   
   
2. Touch Point Map
   Document the member’s holistic experience, sequentially from pre-member to post-member interactions, based on the Current Foundational Assessment, to help you to make key observations and see big gaps and potential areas of opportunity.  If there are differences among key segments, indicate those too.   This touch point map of the member eco-system is not intended to be exhaustive of every single interaction, which can number in the hundreds or more.  If you do try, it generally results in a spaghetti bowl that is difficult to gleam any meaningful insights from other than there being lots of interactions.  Instead, to make this mapping more manageable to document, develop a method of categorizing/color-coding all interaction types.  Just a few example types include marketing communications, events and Customer Service.  Then, as you plot them, still list out specific touch points that fall under them, like the market launch prospect mailing, new member welcome kit, VIP event, birthday reward email or monthly account statement.  Once you have completed this, you might find big clues for answering some of these important questions:
   • Are there sufficient pre-member acquisition activities?
   • Is there an impactful, informative welcome experience?
   • Are multi-channel communications well-orchestrated?
   • How well are you trying to engage members once they are no longer new?
   • Are the communications, benefits and experiences the same for all members?
   • Are there any proactive efforts geared towards inactive or less-engaged members?
   • Are there any post-member re-engagement activities?
     
     
3. Gap Analysis
   Conduct a gap analysis between the current foundational state and a more ideal future state.  Organize your analysis around some of the same foundation assessment and/or touch point categories.  Use data and insights already gathered to begin pointing you down your roadmap path. 
   
   
4. Lifecycle Framework
   Is there a member lifecycle framework in place?  If so, do the stages match the reality?  If a framework does not exist, it is important to create one that allows you to more effectively set goals, plan, target, manage and measure that seamless member experience as they progress through their lifecycle.  Most frameworks begin with the Acquisition stage, soon followed by Welcome.  A final stage is usually Reactivation.  What’s in-between?  Depending on the dynamics of your program and degree of precision you can manage to, there may be other important stages that should be built in, like Trial, Assimilation, Engagement, Re-Engagement and Save to name a few.  The actual names you pick can vary, but conceptually many of the same lifecycle stages should still apply regardless of the industry or program.
   
   
5. Roadmap Planning
   Before you start your roadmap planning, do you know the company business priorities and financial goals, both short and long-term, along with any ones specific to the loyalty program itself?  Company ones are probably documented, but perhaps not always for the loyalty program.  If that’s the case, you should help to establish them, along with KPIs.  As you develop the roadmap, you don’t want to jump the guardrails and get out of alignment, nor be able to measure what is success.
   
   Develop a loyalty program roadmap template as you start the planning process of all new or enhanced strategies and tactics.  This will enable you to evaluate all roadmap considerations consistently.  Develop evaluation criteria that align with goals and objectives and other company priorities.  Such ones may include Potential Business Impact, Ease-to-Implement, Timing, Budget, Key Stakeholders and perhaps even a Comments section that will be useful as you begin to fill this out and later reference. 

All of your roadmap consideration strategies and tactics you list on the template can be informed from all of the work done up until this point, along with any additional brainstorming and ideation sessions.  Also, it is critical to include as much member input as possible to ensure you are evolving the program around them and their changing needs.  No ideas are bad ideas…just yet.  Once all considerations have been listed, you then evaluate each and begin the filtering and prioritization process.  Your final roadmap should end up being a realistic, actionable and aligned pathway to a more impactful and engaging loyalty program.  Now, you can move on to delivery! 

The depth, rigor and scope applied throughout this process may vary depending on resource, budget, timing and other parameters, yet the more thorough you are, the more informed your overall loyalty program evaluation will be along with the impact of future enhancement roadmap planning and delivery.

About the Author:  Richard Long

Rich is an independent marketing consultant based in Chicago.  Throughout his career, he creatively and passionately puts the customer at the center of strategic planning, decision-making and execution to drive meaningful engagement with all customers to appeal to their hearts, minds and wallets. Rich has gained a unique customer-driven business perspective acquired from roles in consulting, agency and corporate environments along with a broad marketing knowledge base gained from a very diverse set of industry experiences. 

http://loyalty360.org/loyalty-management/january-online/how-to-evaluate-and-engage-your-own-loyalty-program

What ads this holiday season do you find memorable and effective?

What ads this holiday season do you find memorable and effective?

See the top 10 from Ad Age...

The 10 Most Effective Holiday Ads: Focus on Philanthropy Works for Walmart
http://adage.com/article/news/10-effective-holiday-ads/245757/?utm_source=daily_email&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=adage&ttl=1388013874

Lost and Found: Why Journey Mapping Is Critical to Your Business

just re-posting this interesting article by David Clark of SDL.  I have conducted many journey maps throughout my career and can't say enough about the value they offer if done well.  A few excerpts...


...In theory, an effective journey map highlights the actual flow of the customer experience—from initial awareness of a need to fulfillment of that need. They force a business to look at all of the components of the experience, not just the ones that are well understood, currently surveyed, or well funded for innovation/process improvement.

...Journey Maps are “about the process, not the picture,” and that “different customers go through different journeys. So the most effective CJMs [customer journey maps] look at the paths of individual customer segments. Sometimes there are even different CJMs for individual customers in a single segment

...Each customer will take a different journey—just like snowflakes, no two are alike. The key is to create an optimal set of potential experiences for them, whichever path they take.

...The best journey maps are always created based on ethnographic research, contextual interviews, and, increasingly, analysis of social data.

...Properly executed and measured, your journey map and associated customer feedback will highlight the barriers and the enablers in the journey. Each of these will likely correspond to a part of your organization.

... journey maps are at their best when used to map all customer interactions across the journey to develop an understanding of common pain points and challenges across all the moments of truth in different experiences and across different customer personas

...different customers place a higher value on different experiences

The full article is at
http://www.dmnews.com/lost-and-found-why-journey-mapping-is-critical-to-your-business/printarticle/323279/

Marketing, Customer Experience, and Revenue

Walt Disney once said, “Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it they will want to come back and see you do it again and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do.”

Disney's wise words encapsulate the power and value of customer experience (CX). Read more at
http://www.dmnews.com/marketing-customer-experience-and-revenue/article/313878/

When do company apologies make sense?

My wife recently received a "apology" email from the President of G.H. Bass & Co. (see below)letting her know how they had "lost their way over the past few years" which was a surprise to her.

Lately, a handful of companies have taken an "apology" approach to their marketing strategy and branding (ie. JCPenney just released a new ad featuring an apology to customers for recent changes and a promise to start listening more; Domino's campaign a couple years back stating how their pizza had been terrible all these years).  I'm sure declining business results have led these companies to finally realize serious fundamental and operational issues at play.  I think the solution, in addition to actually fixing the key problems (remember Oldsmobile?), doesn't always have to require that they apologize and point out all their past deficiencies to your customers (unless of course they also plan to give them something tangible, like refunds for "not listening to their needs").

In many of these business situations, I think these brands are making matters worse by focusing their attention and perhaps building greater awareness of these so-called transgressions by communicating them with their customers (and non-customers) as part of an overall strategy to introduce some bold new strategies.   I know that I would want my money back for all the pizzas I bought over the past ten years after now realizing I had been duped.

I am not saying that companies should hide serious customer issues or be deceitful in any way.  But it depends on the situation.  Certainly, there are companies that should be required to apologize, like BP, and at a bare minimum, ask for the public's forgiveness, share what significant actions they will take to make things right again (and prevent from happening again) in order to re-store customer trust.

Thoughts?

---

From: G.H. Bass & Co.
To:
Sent: Wed, May 8, 2013 4:15:52 PM
Subject: G.H. Bass & Co - A Letter From the President.

Click here for images.

Thank you for being a G.H. Bass & Co. Rewards member! Your point total as of last Sunday is 0.

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If you are not a member, or received this email from a friend, and would like to join our Rewards program, click here. You've received this message because you've registered to receive email from G.H. Bass and Co., Van Heusen, or IZOD. If you no longer wish to receive email from us, or would like to change your email preferences, click here. View our privacy policy. PVH Corp., 1001 Frontier Road, Bridgewater, NJ 08807

3 Missed Opportunities in Customer Loyalty

Sharing this good article on customer loyalty...

Customer loyalty is an incredibly lucrative opportunity for brands, yet marketers still struggle to maximize their relationships with existing customers even though recent research from Forrester shows that 93% of companies have placed customer experience on their list of strategic priorities, with 28% claiming it as their top priority.

Clearly brands understand the value of each customer, yet there is a disconnect between knowing what customers need and want and the ability to actually deliver in a way that creates an experience that builds long-term loyalty. Recent advances such as runtime modeling, location-based services and the increased use of smartphones as shopping devices have greatly improved marketer’s capabilities to deliver exceptional customer experiences by anticipating customers’ needs in near real time.
Lasting loyalty is built on three basic strategies: acquisition, retention and engagement. Here are three commonly missed opportunities and how brands can best address the needs of an increasingly mobile and connected customer to foster loyal and lucrative relationships.

Read more...
http://www.chiefmarketer.com/promotional-marketing/3-missed-opportunities-in-customer-loyalty-17042013

MEASURING LOYALTY BEYOND SIMPLY SPEND

Here's a good paper on how brands are benefitting from the power of advanced multi-channel loyalty software which allows them to extend their loyalty programs beyond simply measuring their customers’ spend but also by capturing all the ways a particular customer impacts a brand

MEASURING LOYALTY BEYOND SIMPLY SPEND

What the Convergence of CRM, CEM and Loyalty Means for Customer Experience

What the Convergence of CRM, CEM and Loyalty Means for Customer Experience

Panera Customer Appreciation. Good Tasting

I wanted to share an example of a great loyalty program member experience…

A couple weeks back, my wife, a member of the Panera loyalty club, received an email invitation for a “special tasting” at a nearby location on November 17th afternoon.  She registered in advance, and we both went.  When we arrived, they had a special room set-up with a person greeting us and taking down our name to confirm us. It was pretty crowded and everyone seemed to be having a good time.  They positioned it as customer appreciation. All in all, it was a very simple, yet nicely done member experience. My wife is not a real frequent visitor, nor high value, nor an infrequent or lapsed visitor as well…just visits periodically. I was not able to determine how might have been specifically targeted, but it was probably to increase her periodic visits/spend or to drive more store traffic to this location.

Do any of you have any loyalty program member experiences worth sharing?

Lettuce Experience

Hello All-

It's been a very long time since my last post.  Hope everyone is having a nice summer.

I wanted to share two examples of recent customer experiences...



Lettuce Entertain You
About a month ago, we received a postcard for a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant Frankie’s Scaloppine at 900 N. Michigan Ave. downtown for $25 off a meal, good through 6/27. I think they were targeting people in the suburbs to come into the city and dine at one of their restaurants. During the day on Saturday, June 23rd, we thought it would be nice to head into the city and go there again for dinner. My wife Karen called the restaurant about 3pm to make a reservation. They simply replied that “they stopped taking reservations for the evening, but walk-ins were welcome.” So, we decided to make a night of it. We arrived about 7:45pm. The host informed us that they had a private party on the inside and were not taking anymore people. We asked about the “outside” area (not really outside) of the restaurant, which was still serving many patrons. There were at least 5 open tables right in front of us. The host then went on to say that the private party would be spilling out soon and he could not give us a table.

If the person on the phone in the afternoon told us this, it would not have been a big deal, and we just would not have come into the city. However, in sharing this with the host, he honestly couldn’t care less. His only response was that the person on the phone probably thought we lived in the neighborhood. My wife and myself were really incredulous over his lack of empathy or interest in the situation. My wife even asked him, “you really don’t care, do you…you would just prefer we walk away.” He really didn’t say much, so we did just walk away feeling really angry. We know how much emphasis founder Rich Melman places on customer service, so we were really shocked. We drove close to an hour into the city on a Saturday night, parked, for nothing? After walking around afterwards trying to figure out how to salvage the evening, we ended up at other Lettuce Entertain You restaurant Mity Nice Grill. We had an excellent dinner and great service. Afterwards, we even complimented the manager on both.

With the help of a friend who had contacts with lettuce Entertain You, I was able to get my story to a company executive.  A few hours later, I was contacted by the Managing Partner of Frankie's, who offered his sincerest apologies.  He then said he would send us somethiing for our trouble, hoping we would give them another chance.  Later that week, we  received four $25 gift cards in the mail along with a nice personal letter, again, offering us their apologies.

I was impressed how they dealt with this situation and made a real sincere effort to win me back.  We will be making our reservations soon!

Apple
This past Sunday, I visited our local Apple store because my iPod stopped working the day before when I was out for a run.  As usual, the store was buzzing with activity.  I had forgotten to make an appointment, but when I showed up, there was a cancellation so I only had to wait 10 minutes for my apointment.  When my turn was up, the store consultant looked over my iPod for a few minutes, then took it away to further investigate for a few minutes.  When he returned, he said my iPod had gotten a little moisture in it (sweat), which caused it to shut down and stop functioning.  He then handed me a new iPod with no questions asked.  I was very impressed by the ease and resolution of my experience.  They certainly have my loyalty!


Do any of you have any good or bad experiences to share??