Loyalty Programs

For brands today, the battle for customer loyalty is more difficult than ever before. Rather than sticking to one brand, many customers are selecting products based on a variety of factors like price, overall purchasing experience, and reviews from family and friends. In fact, recent studies show 81 percent of consumers trust their friends and family’s…

Nearly 70 percent of consumers say their loyalty is more difficult for a retailer to maintain than ever before, according to a recent Clarus Commerce study. And consumers are pinning the blame on retailers — 88 percent say retailers could do more to earn their long-term loyalty. When it comes to satisfying the needs of…

In episode 209 of Total Retail Talks, Executive Editor Joe Keenan interviews Allegra Stanley Krishnan, vice president of loyalty at Sephora, a global beauty retailer. Listen in as they discuss the redesign of Sephora's customer loyalty program; how the brand launched its new rewards program, Beauty Insider; and why a focus on emotional loyalty is key…

Credit card information was once considered the Holy Grail for hackers, with bad actors targeting retailers in an effort to glean this sensitive data and use it to fraudulently purchase goods and services. In recent years, the industry has grown more security-minded and introduced new ways to protect against the use of stolen card data…

This spring, 3Cinteractive completed its fourth annual mobile loyalty survey of both brands and consumers to gauge how attitudes and behaviors towards loyalty programs have evolved year-over-year, as well as the effect mobile technology is having on the interactions between consumers and their favorite brands. This year’s results showed consumers still expect more from brands when…

It’s no secret that the retail landscape is changing. With the rise of direct-to-consumer brands, widespread adoption of mobile and m-commerce, and the so-called “retail apocalypse,” retail’s status can only be described as complicated in 2019. As retailers evolve and adapt to this new normal, loyalty and rewards programs remain a mainstay tactic. Ubiquitous across…

Across the globe, retailers and similar organizations invest more than $323 billion in their customer marketing initiatives. Yet when it comes to making critical decisions based on the customer data they collect, a surprising number do the equivalent of flipping a coin. We surveyed more than 1,200 loyalty program operators and thousands of consumers in…

Remember the days of punch cards that stores gave out to encourage customers to return, typically by offering discounts or freebies? In today’s world, the punch card has been replaced by digital identity: customers join loyalty programs by creating personal accounts on a website or app. A lot of online rewards programs nowadays are still…

Consumers and brands continue to reap the rewards of loyalty programs. However, experience matters more to today’s members than earning points and cashing them in, according to the ninth annual Loyalty Report by Bond Brand Loyalty. The global study, conducted in partnership with Visa, surveyed more than 55,000 consumers in 20-plus markets and assessed approximately…

Much has been written on the topic of loyalty and the use of promotional offers to both acquire and retain customers. The difficulty with the statistics is that most customers join and stay in a loyalty program because they receive special discounts, coupons, and other offers. For example, Kohl’s loyalty program proudly gives customers a…