Loyalty Management 3rd Quarter - 2014

Third Quarter 2014
VOLUME 6 NUMBER 3
IN THIS ISSUE:
Raleys Keeps It Simple,
Intuitive, and Compelling
for Its Customers
Single-minded Focus on
the Customer Integral to
U.K.s Telefonica O2
MAACO-VER
Complete as Customer
Becomes Focal Point
Engagement &
Experience Expo 2014
Session Preview
The Loyalty360
CX Awards
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Loyalty360_FullAd_ExchangeSolutions_FINAL.pdf 1 2014-07-16 9:34 AM
3 Loyalty Management THIRD QUARTER 2014
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In this Issue...
THIRD QUARTER 2014 WWW. LOYALTY360.ORG VOLUME 6 NUMBER 3
FEATURES
20
Raleys Keeps It Simple, Intuitive,
and Compelling for Its Customers
Jim Tierney | Loyalty360
24
Single-minded Focus on the
Customer Integral to U.K.s
Telefonica O2 Priority Moments
Loyalty Program
28
MAACO-VER Complete as
Customer Becomes Focal Point
30
Loyalty360 CX Awards:
How Sweet it is
Michael Guarente | Loyalty360
32
The Advantages of a Customer
Lifecycle Strategy
4 Letter from the Editor
6 Loyalty360 on the Web
8 Your Voice
10 Behind the Brand
with Lonnie Mayne | InMoment
12 The Continued Renaissance of Loyalty:
The Challenge of Simplicity in the Age
of Complexity
Mark Johnson | Loyalty360
16 By the Numbers
18 Q & A: Ask the Experts
31 Trending Now
34 Behind the Brand with Kristi Gole
Global Hotel Alliance
36 Loyalty Innovation
62 Loyalty Reads
LOYALTY FORUM:
IN EVERY ISSUE
Session Previews
64
November 10-12
Renaissance Dallas Hotel
Dallas, Texas
2 0
1 4
Expectation Matching: Being where your customer is, when they want you there,
with the right message, through the right vehicle, pre-transaction, during, and
post-transaction. Our CEO, Mark Johnson, rst mentioned this concept at the 2012
Engagement & Experience Expo.
As we approach the 2014 event, the concept of expectation matching is still top of
mind. This issue and the event will share real-life stories from top brands working to
build the best possible customer experiences, and insights from experts focused on
best approaches and road mapping.
Raleys, which garnered three Platinum honors at the inaugural Loyalty360 Awards at
the 7th annual Loyalty Expo in March, shares its compelling story, best practices, and
how it always keeps the customer rst in-store and throughout its organization.
Learn direct from the president of MAACO how he instituted signicant changes by
placing the customer rst and what this new focus has done for the brands positioning
and overall protability.
Paul Conder and Laurie Meek from Lenati take you through the three key steps to
achieving a holistic customer experience loyalty strategy on pgs 50 51. Julia Barrett
of EffectiveUI teaches that personas and journey maps are essential customer experience
tools on page 45.
If you enjoy this edition, be sure to join us at the 4th annual Engagement & Experience
Expo, November 10 12 at the Renaissance Dallas Hotel, Dallas, Texas.
Sincerely,
FROM THE EDITOR
Erin Raese
Editor-in-Chief
Loyalty Management
erinraese@loyalty360.org
2 0
1 4
November 10-12
Renaissance Dallas Hotel | Dallas, Texas
TECHNOLOGY,
TRENDS & REWARDS
BEST BUSINESS
PRACTICES
38 Digital Gift Card Trends: Convenient, Available,
and Versatile
Mike Fletcher | InComm Digital Solutions
40 Retail Innovation Reaches New Heights
Krishna Mehra | Capillary Technologies
42 Big Data Enables CPG Companies to Gain an In-Depth,
Personal Connection with the End User
Miklos Tomka | InfoTrellis
45 Contextualizing Customer Insight: Journey Maps
and Personas as Interfaces
Julia Barrett | EfectiveUI
46 The Love Matrix: loyalty to the brand, or (just)
to the programs discount?
Scott Robinson | Bond Brand Loyalty
50 The CX/Loyalty Connection
Laurie Meek and Paul Conder | Lenati
52 Use Customer Experience Management to Host
the Best Party in Town
Kelly Koelliker | KANA, A Verint Company
54 How Behavioral Economics Leads to Intimate
Brand Engagement
Christian Goy | Behavioral Science Lab
56 Four Hurdles to Great Customer Experiences
Syed Hasan | ResponseTek
60 Loyalty Powers Consumer Advocacy
John Bartold | Loyalty Solutions, Epsilon
WWW. LOYALTY360.ORG
2014 Loyalty360, Inc. and/or its Afliates.
All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction and distribution of this publication
in any form without prior written permission is
forbidden. The information contained herein
has been obtained from sources believed to be
reliable. Loyalty360 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 reective
of Loyalty360 and/or its afliates. Loyalty360
shall have no liability for errors, omissions or
inadequacies in the information contained herein
or for interpretations thereof. The opinions
expressed herein are subject to change
without notice.
In this Issue...
THIRD QUARTER 2014 VOLUME 6 NUMBER 3
Loyalty Management Editorial
& Production Team
Erin Raese - Editor in Chief
Mark Johnson - Contributing Editor
Christopher Schatzman - Design Director
Jim Tierney - Senior Writer
Crescent Printing Company - Print Production
Contacts
Article Submissions & Advertising:
Erin Raese
erinraese@loyalty360.org or
513.800.0360, ext. 210
Digital Gift Card Trends:
Convenient, Available, and Versatile
38 46
The Love Matrix:
loyalty to the brand, or (just)
to the programs discount?
Big Data Enables CPG Companies to
Gain an In-Depth, Personal Connection
with the End User
42
L
360
LOYALTY360 ON THE WEB
Whats New
ON LOYALTY360.ORG
Whats New
brand
bites
Drawing from insightful conversations with brand CEOs and CMOs, Loyalty360 brings
you a new way to digest this information with the introduction of brandbites. Download to
get the inside scoop on what keeps todays top execs up at night.
Visit loyalty360.org/resources#research to download this pdf and view other resources.
BRANDBITES: EXCLUSIVE INSIGHTS FROM TODAYS TOP EXECS
Loyalty360 continues to elevate the customer experience conversation, talking with top brands
to uncover best practices, trends, and challenges in the marketplace. Check out the following
exclusive content and more on Loyalty360.org:
Red Lion Hotels shared its retail industry approach to its new loyalty program Hello Rewards
as it strives to bring hospitality back to loyalty programs
With over two million members in 2 years, Stride Rites loyalty program has been deemed a
success, and the brand talked program insights as well as its new Stride Rite Rewards App
Schneider Electric has been making investments in innovation, and shared how its recent
implementation of SDLs Customer Experience Cloud is personalizing communications
with customers across the globe
ELEVATING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE CONVERSATION
NEW MEMBER-ONLY FEATURE: BRAND PANEL
Brand Panel will be launching soon, and will offer an exclusive online community that
allows marketers, customer experience professionals, and customer engagement
professionals to consult with one another and gain insights.
Only accessible by members, Brand Panel is an online platform for:
Connecting with other professionals
Sharing and receiving news, ideas, advice and opinions
Gathering for regularly-scheduled roundtable discussions
Learn more about becoming a member by contacting Mark Johnson at
markjohnson@loyalty360.org or Erin Raese at erinraese@loyalty360.org.
Phone. Chat. Email. Social Media. Surveys. Customers have more
ways than ever to communicate withand aboutyour business.
With Verint
Voice of the Customer Analytics
solutions, you can capture

their interactions and sentiments, analyze them, then use the results
to surface hidden issues, detect trends, and deliver the kind of
experiences that keep customers coming back again and again.
Find out how Verint Voice of the Customer solutions can help
make Customer-Inspired Excellence
TM

a reality in your business.
Visit www.verint.com/voca or call 1-800-4VERINT.
2014 Verint Systems Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
Speech Analytics | Text Analytics | Enterprise Feedback Management
Do you
know what
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you will.
With Verint

Voice Of The Customer Analytics,
VerintVOCA_Loyalty2014.indd 1 1/10/14 6:31 AM
LOYALTY FORUM: YOUR VOICE
8 Loyalty Management LOYALTY360.ORG
What are the top ways you utilize
According to Loyalty360s most recent Loyalty Landscape Report, 24% of marketers say that consumers expect
more personalization now than 2 years ago. And when executed correctly, personalization improves both the
customer experience and aligns with business goals. With this in mind, Loyalty360 set out to see how marketers
are utilizing personalization to enhance the customer experience and positively affect the bottom line.
to drive revenue?
personalization
Personalization depends on the quality of analytics as
a driving force:
1) Within Telecom, serving up relevant upsell offers
to customers. Example: You watched 15 Videos On
Demand last month. You like movies. Upsell offer:
50% off for 3 months on HBO Box Ofce.
2) Within contact center: Create an IVR Data Dip
for specic customer cohorts (dened by analytics
along multiple behavioral traits) and route calls
directly to specic queues, like Gold Queue or high-
revenue customers.
3) Personalization of self-serve web portals reduce CES
or Customer Effort score customers can get what
they need with minimal time spent.
- Shahzad Chaudry, Senior Director Loyalty Analytics &
Insights | Etihad Airways
I believe personalization can be interpreted in 2 main ways. One, personalization can,
and should, reduce customer effort. This, in turn, would drive customer happiness.
On the other hand, personalization can boost revenue by helping your customers buy
the right things for them. In a digital setting, we would recommend:
1) Get Personal: In an era full of noise, your customers seek to be acknowledged
as individuals, and feel that you are attentive to their unique needs. Create these
personalized experiences, while balancing aha moments and big brother ones.
Use predictive models and machine learning to scale personalized decisions. Inject
personal touches throughout the experience, in a scalable way (e.g. visit history,
special offers for special circumstances, etc.).
2) Be Memorable: Employ the Pareto principle to personalization. Five strong and
well-calculated personalized offers or calls-to-action are more effective than 30+
messages that are perceived as junk mail.
- Idit Aloni-Halfon, Portfolio Marketing | Enterprise Group at NICE Systems
ALWAYS
MOST OF
THE TIME
SOMETIMES
NEVER
8%
9.1%
22.7%
29.5%
30.7%
RARELY
To what degree does
your company deliver
personalized experiences
to customers?
9 Loyalty Management SECOND QUARTER 2014
1) Become outside-in. At its most basic, a conversation about
personalization is often the rst time a large, multi-product organization
thinks about being outside-in - being centered around the
customer. Often our clients are coming from a fractured inside-
out web content strategy that is driven by product groups, services
and business unit silos, creating a web experience that is a bi-product
of their org structure. Personalization, at the very least, enables
organizations to have that conversation, to consider a common
customer across each of these organizational silos and to enable
cross-sell.
2) Drive brand afnity and advocacy: The correlation between
promoting related products and lift in sales for the retail industry
is proven and well understood, but in other industries, like nancial
services, its less obvious. In industries where the buying decision
is more considered than a discretionary spend driven by other
people also bought, its a different set of emotions that organizations
need to appeal to. Here, organizations can use personalization to
appeal to that specic visitors mind state, which drives loyalty,
brand afnity and creates advocates that will virtually coax other
prospects along the customer journey. For example, you need to
provide different content to engage someone who is cautious about
investing than to someone who is an ambitious entrepreneur.
3) Shorten the visitor task: Offering relevant content based on simple
triggers, such as the campaign that someone is responding to or
the search terms they used to reach the site, shortens the time for
the visitor to nd what they need and transact. Each click for
todays distracted visitor, while they nd what they need, is a
potential for them to bounce off the site. How many times have you
clicked on a banner ad, only to be left on a generic landing page and
it becomes your job to nd the specic product or service that
meets your needs? Personalization can be used to adapt that
landing page experience.
- Ian Truscott, VP Content Strategy | Tahzoo
1) Tailor the offers to the updated customer state (needs/
preferences, and status) by selecting the best benet
(type/size/value). This will increase the offering
relevancy to drive higher response rates and satisfaction.
2) Manage the engagement dimensions personally select
the best communication channel for the given customer,
decide on the marketing approach, whether or not to
dene personal reminders and how many, set the
validity duration, use past responses and interactions
to adjust the this engagement accordingly, etc.
3) Use predictive analytics to further improve the above
2 bullets.
- Dilly Lachkim | Independent Internet Marketing Specialist
ALWAYS
MOST OF
THE TIME
SOMETIMES
NEVER
8%
9.1%
22.7%
29.5%
30.7%
RARELY
To what degree does
your company deliver
personalized experiences
to customers?
LOYALTY FORUM: BEHIND THE BRAND
BehindtheBrand
WITH LONNIE MAYNE | INMOMENT
2014 HAS BEEN A BIT OF A WHIRLWIND FOR YOU AND
INMOMENT; BRINGING TOGETHER TWO STRONG AND
INNOVATIVE ORGANIZATIONS ROLLING THEM INTO A NEW
BRAND. PLEASE SHARE INSIGHTS ON HOW THIS CAME ABOUT:
We had accomplished a lot at Mindshare, but we knew we wanted
to take the company and our customers - to the next level, and we
wanted to do so fairly quickly. There are a variety of options companies
have to accomplish this in a healthy way. One of these is acquiring
complimentary technology and expertise. We looked at that option,
and Empathica was a great t. Once the acquisition was nal, we
discovered that there were even more opportunities to innovate and
bring new value to the market than we had imagined. At that point,
we knew that neither the Mindshare nor the Empathica names fully
captured our new vision. So we decided to choose a new name one
that would represent our shared mission, as well as the new opportunities
we can now offer our clients, and the CX industry as a whole.
WHAT IMPACT DID THE CURRENT ECONOMY AND TRENDS IN
CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR HAVE IN THE DECISION TO MAKE THESE
SIGNIFICANT CHANGES?
The ckle economic environment and changing customer expectations
denitely present some real challenges. However, we see these as
massive opportunities. Customer experience will be the factor that
sets status-quote companies apart from leaders. Both B2B and
consumer customers are demanding more from brands. They want
more than a transaction; they want relationships. We made some big
changes to our company to ensure we have the right technology,
people and resources to help our clients deliver a world-class
customer experience. We made the decision to invest at a difcult
time because we had made a commitment to our customers to stand
with them, and help keep them out front.
WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FOR THE REST OF 2014 AND 2015?
More brands both large and small taking signicant actions to
improve the customer experience. Weve seen CX leaders make some
phenomenal changes, orienting every area of their business around
the customer. And this isnt just a trend. Technology, economics and
buyer behavior trends all show that this is the new normal. Companies
that cant or choose not to make this shift will not survive. Those that
do, will move at the speed of light. And that includes InMoment.
WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE NEXT BIG TREND IN CUSTOMER
ENGAGEMENT AND LOYALTY?
Customer engagement and loyalty will emerge from their silos and
become priorities for entire organizations. We are already seeing
this happen with our most innovative clients. I spent a good part of
this past year on the road, meeting with c-level executives, and even
boards of directors, answering questions about what more they can do
to connect with their customers. For years, our industry has identied
this as one of the most challenging barriers for both implementation
of best-of-class CX programs, and more importantly, the relationship
and nancial results we know come from mature programs. Those
days are over. As a result of this enterprise-wide awareness, well also
see companies connecting the dots in all things customer through an
elegant stream of data points, creating the absolute best customer
experience possible.
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE YOU ARE CURRENTLY
LOOKING TO SOLVE?
Hiring the right people fast enough. There are a lot of potential
employees with a great skill set and experience.
WHAT TREND OR TECHNOLOGY SHOULD MARKETERS EXPIRE AS
A FAD OF THE PAST?
Weekly circulars.

Lonnie has spent his entire career helping companies focus on the human side of doing
business. Whether its building a healthy culture for internal teams, or centering decisions
around customers and their needs, Lonnie is laser-focused on creating people-centric
enterprises that bring value to everyone they touch.
WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS KEY IN DRIVING TRUE CUSTOMER
ENGAGEMENT?
Really meaning it. If youre serious about transforming your company
from the old transactional model, to one based on real relationships,
authenticity is critical.
WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL MOTTO?
Live! Not someday, but today!
WHICH BOOK(S) ARE YOU RECOMMENDING AND WHY?
Mindfulness for the busy person. Dr. Michael Sinclair and Josie Seydel.
Because in this crazy world slowing things down is essential. A great
book on mindfulness and focusing on whats right in front of you.
WHO HAS HAD THE MOST INFLUENCE ON YOUR
PROFESSIONAL LIFE
My uncle Bob, who recently passed away, had a huge impact on my
professional life. When I was very young, he brought me in to his
board and business meetings and asked my opinions. He showed me
what hard work is all about, but he also taught me that you have to
slow things down and focus on whats most important. The people!
FAVORITE LEISURE ACTIVITY? DOES THIS INFLUENCE YOUR WORK?
Hanging out with my children and grandchild, pretty much anytime
anywhere. I travel a lot, so my time with them is very precious.
HOW DO YOU MEASURE SUCCESS OR FAILURE?
Only by whether weve done our absolute best. If my team has given it
their all and we still dont accomplish our objectives, thats not failure.
Thats success.
WORDS OF ADVICE FOR THE NOVICE MARKETER?
Customers crave acknowledgement. They want to be seen and
understood. Talk with them, not at them. Try to create exceptional
experiences and your customers will reward you with
outstanding loyalty. L
WHAT IS YOUR
FAVORITE WORD?
PERSPECTIVE.
WHAT IS YOUR LEAST
FAVORITE WORD?
CANT.
WHAT TURNS YOU ON
CREATIVELY, SPIRITUALLY,
OR EMOTIONALLY?
WATCHING SOMEONE,
ANYONE, OVERCOME
ADVERSITY AND DO THEIR
BEST TO SUCCEED.
WHAT TURNS YOU OFF?
PEOPLE WHO GIVE UP AND
CANT MANAGE TO STEP BACK
AND REALIZE THAT THEY HAVE
THE POWER TO CHANGE
THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES
AND THEIR LIVES.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE
(PG-13) CURSE WORD?
IM PRETTY MUCH LIKE
THE BROADWAY PLAY. THE
WORST YOURE LIKELY TO
HEAR ME SAY IS CRAP.
WHAT SOUND OR NOISE DO
YOU LOVE?
THE LAUGHTER OF
CHILDREN.
YOU HATE?
AN AMBULANCE SIREN.
WHAT PROFESSION OTHER
THAN YOUR OWN WOULD
YOU LIKE TO ATTEMPT?
FILMMAKER.
WHAT PROFESSION WOULD
YOU NOT LIKE TO DO?
ANY JOB WHERE I WOULDNT
HAVE LOTS OF HUMAN
CONTACT -- WORKING WITH
PEOPLE IS ESSENTIAL TO
MY PROFESSIONAL AND
PERSONAL QUALITY OF LIFE.
IF HEAVEN EXISTS, WHAT
WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR
GOD SAY WHEN YOU ARRIVE
AT THE PEARLY GATES?
WELL DONE.
* Inspired by James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio we asked Lonnie to share his quick re response
to the questions originating from the French series, Bouillon de Culture hosted by Bernard Pivot.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
QUICK FIRE QUESTIONS*
LOYALTY FORUM: 360 INSIGHTS
T
he interest in customer loyalty has never been
greater. We launched our Brand Forum this past
summer with an increased focus on brands to
understand the challenges they are facing in this new
marketing paradigm. We continue to hear from brands
about their concerted efforts to understand their customers in
a more deep and meaningful manner. We see more brands
that are willing to discuss their customer journey with
most having a more pronounced need for metrics and
insight. The most common theme we hear is the need
for simplicity. Yet, simplicity is more challenging now than
ever before due to a number of factors marketers face
today. While these inuencing factors themselves are not
misunderstood, they are daunting and numerous, and
include new technology, too much data, and ROI
challenges for old, new, and integrated technologies.
We have spoken with more than 100 brands since this summer and
hearing about their triumphs and travails is quite revelatory. We live
now in an age of data, yet how data is spoken about from vendor to
marketer can leave the marketer quite perplexed. There is the massive
challenge of leveraging all kinds of data: structured, unstructured,
internal, external, social, siloed, aggregated, experiential, qualitative,
quantitative, and sentimental all with the opportunity to create
actionable customer insight for the brand.
Brands want simplicity. They know they have challenges
and need more assistance in their journeys than ever before.
The need for simplicity in the relationships they have with their
customers is compounded by the dissonance that can be created
by technology (in practice, pitch, and performance) that is used
to facilitate this simplicity in the rst place.
Brands ask us continually: Why is a new acronym necessary?
We are already confused with the current ones. We understand
the complexity involved, and we want to create it, so we need help.
We gleaned considerable insight from the Loyalty Landscape.
According to marketers, the top three must-have attributes for
loyalty programs are customer satisfaction with rewards value
(34%), easy to earn and burn rewards (26%), and easy to
understand programs (24%). Even as consumer expectations evolve
and the tools available to both customers and companies proliferate,
the most critical components of a loyalty program remain the value
of the rewards and the ease and speed of how they can be earned
and burned.
The biggest challenge faced by marketers is being
able to to deliver on consumer expectations
regarding value and relevancy (22%). Next are
those challenges related to protability and hitting
revenue targets (18%). The push and pull of meeting ever-growing
consumer demands and expectations, such as top-notch experiences,
unique engagement techniques (18%), and always-on customer
service while navigating internal constraints is a real struggle for
many. Navigating the uidity of emerging challenges, such as rapidly
developing technology (9%), mobile and omni-channel expectations
(3%), are somewhat lower on the list.
Loyalty:
The Challenge of Simplicity in the Age of Complexity
The Continued Renaissance of
Mark Johnson
Loyalty360
Continued on page 14
According to marketers, the top three
must-have attributes for loyalty
programs are customer satisfaction
with rewards value (34%), easy to
earn and burn rewards (26%), and
easy to understand programs (24%).
The biggest challenge
faced by marketers is
being able to to deliver on
consumer expectations
regarding value and
relevancy (22%).
Mobile and
omni-channel
expectations (3%),
are somewhat lower
on the list.
26%
3
4
%
24%
22%
18%
18%
9%
3%
Loyalty
LANDSCAPE
TM
Next are those
challenges related to
protability and hitting
revenue targets (18%).
The push and pull of meeting
ever-growing consumer
demands and expectations,
such as top-notch experiences,
unique engagement
techniques (18%).
Always-on customer service while
navigating internal constraints is a real struggle for
many. Navigating the uidity of emerging challenges,
such as rapidly developing technology (9%).
LOYALTY FORUM: 360 INSIGHTS
Brands told us through the landscape that benchmarking is the most
sought-after competitor insight (33%). Marketers want to know how
their competitors are performing on key success metrics like ROI,
prots, and sales. Without this critical information, its difcult for
many to make the case for budget spending on innovative tools and
techniques, yielding a greater commitment toward customers.
Most marketers (58%) indicate they are laggards when it comes to
using new tools, technologies, and techniques to build customer
loyalty. Without benchmarks to justify budget and gauge success,
it is difcult to get buy-in for tools and techniques that push loyalty
strategies beyond just points.
We look forward to presenting our rst CX landscape at the 2014
Engagement & Experience Expo. We will be helping tie together the
challenges of Customer Experience (from a brand perspective) and
how that can be used to drive true emotional loyalty. We will also
be putting forth a series of metrics that will help brands understand
and benchmark their customer experience efforts.
Loyalty, at its core, is quite simple: It is an emotional commitment
(not always understood) to a person, process, team, or company. As
former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said: I know it
when I see it.
We know the brands, teams and passions that evoke loyalty; yet
we also know that the experiences (positive, negative, and post-
encounter / transaction) one has with a brand or team or process
can build loyalty / engagement metrics. But how? We know that the
active process of listening to your audience and putting in process the
products, services, and standards that the individual wants is what
you should do, but how to do it is another challenge.
Brands have a clarion call for simplicity and detailed 1-to-1 knowledge
like the corner butcher store from the 1920s that knew my great
grandparents needs on Tuesday (pork), Thursday (Chicken, right
Mr. Dorr) and Sunday (Lamb for Sunday?). They know that the
technologies today offer the greatest opportunity to create that
level of engagement; yet the simplicity of the 1920s is complicated
by the obtuse modern reality of technology and data.
We look forward to helping bring simplicity back to loyalty. L
The Continued Renaissance of Loyalty continued...
Loyalty, at its core, is quite simple: It is an emotional commitment
(not always understood) to a person, process, team, or company.
As former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said:
I know it when I see it.
Brands told us through the landscape
that benchmarking is the most
sought-after competitor insight (33%).
LOYALTY FORUM: BY THE NUMBERS
Internet of Things:
A Game of Give and Take
Internet of Things is a term that refers to the internets ability to
enable communication among physical objects. An exploding market,
this category includes devices such as wearable tness trackers,
smart watches, appliances, thermostats, CO2 detectors and more,
all connected to the Internet. That connection can make these
devices powerful tools for consumers in their quest for health,
safety and efciency, and a burgeoning source of rich customer data
for companies. But how are customers willing to share data,
and what are the benets that connectivity should provide?
50%
would share car data in
exchange for free maintenance
will share personal data if
given a coupon or discount
of consumers have privacy
concerns with wearable
Internet of Things (IoT)
connected technologies
80%
but...
Smart refrigerator?
Sure!
Internet of Things:
would like recipes on
their mobile device for
food to make from the
food in their fridge
85%
82%
50%
would share car data in
exchange for free maintenance
60%
want location-based
automatic coupons on their
mobile device for
frequently purchased foods
86%
looking for the least expensive places
to purchase favorite food products
of consumers were willing
to pay more for a smart
alarm, compared to 59%
who were willing to pay
more for a smart refrigerator
83%
*Data from recent Acquity Group: Acquity Group, a leading Brand eCommerce and
digital marketing agency, now part of Accenture Interactive, recently released the
2014 State of the Internet of Things Study.
LOYALTY FORUM: Q&A
Ask the Experts:
Q
&A
Q:
What are some best practices for aligning on
all fronts to ensure a consistent experience
that customers love?
-Peter Oxley | ResponseTek
A: Teamwork is the beating heart of every successful organization. Without it, communication lines get
scattered, goals move off track, and, most detrimentally, customers receive poor service.
Organizational alignment from the executive level right down to the front lines is an imperative step
for a successful customer experience program. Here are ve ways you can get your company train on the
right track:
1. Brand Your Customer Experience Program
A strong identity and catchy name will go a long way. This means all content, training materials, reports and
communications must reect the brand and its goals.
2. Give Everyone Access to Customer Experience Insights
All levels in your organization should have access to the customer experience insights that are relevant to
their role. This ensures each employee understands how their role in the company affects the customer.
3. Set the Benchmark
Variety is the spice of life, but consistently good experiences make customers loyal for life. Ensure your
customer experience program has benchmark questions across all channels. These questions create clear,
consistent, measurable metrics and standards you can ACT on.
4. Make It Worth Everyones Time
Tie compensation programs directly to customer experience targets for effective performance management.
Celebrate the people in your company who are customer experience heroes too. Reward them for a job well
done and make them role models for the rest of the company.
5. Eat Your Own Dog Food
Ask your employees the same questions you ask your customers, but be careful to only ask questions that
youre willing to hear the answers to (and are prepared to act on).
Great service = great business. Take the time and resources to get your team on board with your customer
experience program and youll see returns in greater NPS scores, customer satisfaction rates and overall sales.
-Peyton Lindley | EffectiveUI
A: While there's a great deal of discussion around designing and building great products and
services that customers will love, we often inspect the organizational ecosystem in which these
products are conceived. Without a customer-centric culture, willingness to pivot, and ongoing
leadership, alignment is incredibly difcult to maintain. We've done some preliminary research with
our clients on their best practices for customer centricity, and have identied ve key focus areas:
Organizational structure
Customer focused initiatives cross many disciplines, yet departmental structure gets in the way (silos,
poor communication, competing agendas, limited resources). What organizational changes have been
made to capture and translate customer need?
A digital focus
Customer-centric organizations put digital at the heart of everything they do. Your customers are
connecting with your brand at all hours, from any location and any device. Are you providing a
great experience?
Infrastructure
Teams need the right tools, training and environment to experiment and rise above the status quo
and move your organization forward. What systems are in place to allow teams to build/test/rene
with customers?
Customer-driven methodology
Do you have a user-centric design process (that actually involves real customers) that focuses on
designing for customer outcomes rather than designing a predened solution?
Technical capabilities
Strong IT organizations that are involved early and buy in to the vision are essential to success.
Customer-centric technologists, well-architected APIs and clean data are all part of the solution.
A: As customers, we want to nd the same information, assistance and experience with any part of
the organization regardless of the channel of interaction. The root causes of most customer experience
opportunities are often hand-offs, design vacuums and communications within and between organizations
and systems. There are many ways that can help brands be more consistent:
Create structure and accountability to embed a cross-team approach for both reacting to customer
issues and for designing/improving existing interactions.
Ensure exibility in the organizational structure to support caring for the end-to-end
customer experience.
Create formal customer experience guidelines including checkpoints for meeting those guidelines, to
ensure teams are complying with designing end-to-end and optimized experiences.
Journey mapping sessions create very eye-opening and memorable experiences for cross-team attendees.
Provide education and learning opportunities about customer experience. Everyone in the organization
should have some level of customer experience practitioner expertise depending on their role.
Recognize associates that model the desired cross-team approach that carries the entire
customer journey.
-Diane Magers | AT&T
FEATURES
SOMETHING EXTRA
The result: Raleys is giving Something Extra to its customers.
As Something Extra was being developed, Tom Hutchison, Director Marketing, CRM
& Analytics at Raleys Family of Fine Stores, constantly asked, In order to effectively
compete against Walmart or Amazon, how do we create compelling value?
The answer: Its about fair and consistent pricing, understanding customer elasticity,
bringing the right tools to bear, and placing the customer at the center of our world,
he says.
Hutchison says Raleys overarching goal is to make the shopping experience as easy
as possible for its customers, while providing a world-class experience.
Customers are nding that shopping with Raleys is getting easier, more intuitive,
and is providing them with more value, he says. The intuitive piece comes from
Raleys using the data to dramatically improve assortment, adjacencies, category
shape and store ow. The value comes from the offers, but also from using the data
to smartly improve pricing and promotions.
Raleys has seen great results in communications (open rates, click-throughs),
program engagement (enrollment, offer activations, offer redemptions, customer
feedback), and top and bottom lines business improvement.
Every single tactic is measured through test and control, and the ROI for the overall
program is signicantly positive, Hutchison explains.
LOYALTY PROGRAM BIG PART OF SALES
In its rst year, the Something Extra customer loyalty program accounted for 65% of
Raleys total sales.
The Something Extra program is not a two-tiered loyalty program where members
get a reduced price and non-members get penalized, Hutchison says. To reach 65%
in the rst year is unprecedented. Like many grocery retailers, Raleys faced negative
sales trends during and after the economic downturn and before the launch of the
program. Since the programs launch in September 2012, Raleys has seen a return to
sales and share growth. At a time when the rest of the grocery industry is negative,
Raleys has turned the corner.
In recognition of its highly successful Something Extra customer loyalty program,
Raleys garnered three platinum honors at the inaugural Loyalty360 Awards held
in March at the 7th annual Loyalty Expo, presented by Loyalty360 The Loyalty
Marketers Association.
Raleys took home top honors in the following three categories: Best Reward Program,
Platinum Winner; Best Customer Experience & Engagement, Platinum Winner; and
Best Technology in Loyalty Marketing, Platinum Winner.
In the aftermath of the recession of
the late 2000s, retailers across the
country were faced with the challenge
of examining how they could engage
with customers in smarter ways that
would drive long-term loyalty. For
Raleys, this was an opportunity to
return to its roots by providing world
class service based on delivering on
what customers were saying is
important to them.
The competitive grocery landscape
in Northern California and Northern
Nevada had become intense and
Raleys ofcials needed to nd a way
to differentiate themselves while
holding a steady eye on the ultimate
goal: Providing a world-class
experience to the customer.
Keeps It Simple, Intuitive,
and Compelling for Its Customers
Jim Tierney
Loyalty360
RALEYS SURGES WITH 1-TO-1 APPROACH
Hutchison, who came to Raleys in March 2012, has spearheaded the
companys team creating a resurgence toward customer-centricity,
implementing a hugely successful loyalty program thats easy to use,
developing data insights, focusing on 1-to-1 marketing, and making
innovation an ongoing theme.
Raleys 1-to-1 approach to marketing is more complex when compared
to more traditional loyalty programs because almost all regular
communications are unique to each Something Extra member.
Whats more, senior leadership ensures that everyone is aligned
to its customer-rst strategy.
Personalization is at the heart of the Something Extra program because
we know share of wallet is a privilege and not a right, Hutchison said.
We want to earn our customers trust and, subsequently, their
business by engaging them in a relevant 1-to-1 dialogue.
Raleys Family of Fine Stores is a privately held, family-owned
supermarket chain that operates 118 stores under the Raleys
(76 stores), Bel Air (20), and Nob Hill Foods (22) names in Northern
California and Nevada.
PUTTING THE CUSTOMER AT THE CENTER OF RALEYS EXPERIENCE
Having that world class service/world class experience, and having
the right assortment for our customers in our stores is crucial,
Hutchison says. And thats born out of a lot of research. But its also
about the experience we provide in our stores. Raleys wants to make
shopping better, easier, and more personalized. The customer is at
the center of that and were committed to giving them a world class
experience.
Here is how Raleys focuses on rewards and relevance:
Points-based program: Customers earn 1 point for every dollar spent
as well as points for various activities (buying specic products,
attending wine events, etc.). At the end of every calendar quarter,
each customer who has a balance of at least 500 points receives a
voucher in the mail (or digitally for load-to-card) for the value of the
points. Points are each worth 1 cent (e.g. 500 points = $5.00, 2100
points = $21.00).
Offers: Customers also receive highly targeted offers (coupons)
on a regular basis both digitally for load-to-card and paper-based.
These are called Personalized Offers. Customers also have three
other sources of offers they can interact with and use. Extra Friendzy:
Social commerce offers where customers load high-discount, limited
quantity, limited time offers to their cards and this information is also
posted to that customers Facebook newsfeed. Social Evangelism:
Something Extra Try-It is a social advocacy platform where Raleys
elite customers can receive free and highly discounted products with
the expectation that they share their feedback with all their friends
and family both online (social media) and ofine. A key aspect of the
Something Extra loyalty program is the extreme focus on relevancy in
total experience, in content, and frequency. The program has a xed
learning period with a calculated contact frequency aimed at providing
increasingly relevant content to the customer as Raleys learns more
about them and at teaching the new member about the program and
its mechanics.
The Rewards and Relevance campaign response rate is more than
75%, a staggeringly high gure considering the industry norm is 11%.
It speaks to the success of the relevance and reward strategy, and the
strategy to wade in slowly toward increased frequency, Hutchison says.
Whats more, manufacturer (CPG) support of the Something Extra
program is signicant and very encouraging, Hutchison adds. More
than 150 manufacturers representing over 300 brands are actively
engaged with Something Extra.
Raleys has over 1,000 offers/coupons in the system from these
manufacturers to target to customers, which is much greater than
the industry norm of 300, he explains.
FEATURES
COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE PROPELS INNOVATIVE CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE STRATEGIES
The competitive landscape for grocery retail in California and Nevada
is highly saturated, Hutchison explains. Customers have an abundance
of options in brick-and-mortar and ecommerce.
This highlights the need for effective and forward-looking customer
experience and engagement strategies, which will build loyalty and
share of wallet, Hutchison says.
Raleys customer experience and engagement strategies focus on
ease, reward, relevance, and value, Hutchison outlines.
Ease: Raleys is focused on making life easier for its customers as it
pertains to grocery shopping (pre- and during shop). Our aim is to
reduce the amount of time needed to plan, shop, and check out. This is
accomplished by thoroughly understanding our customers, providing tools
to help them plan and shop, using customer information to provide
only those things most relevant (thus reducing search), and integrating
all of our programs to ensure seamless checkout.
Reward: Raleys shows its loyalty and thanks to customers by rewarding
them for shopping. This reward comes in the shape of cash back on
purchases and highly relevant and rich offers.
Relevance: Raleys is committed to ensuring that all communications
are personalized and contain highly relevant content to each customer.
Customers worlds are increasingly overloaded with information and,
amongst this sea of noise, our customers need to have condence that
when they get a communication from us that it has value they want to
see and experience.
Value: Raleys is pursuing multiple avenues to provide value to its
customers. Raleys is partnering with manufacturers and third
parties to get offers (coupons and promotions) and were illustrating
them in a variety of ways, both targeted and untargeted. Were using
proprietary tools to ensure we have the best promotions in front of
customers in the stores and our communications, and were using
our loyalty data in combination with market data, research data and
proprietary tools to ensure we get pricing right for our customers. We
have a robust training and organizational engagement practice, which
motivates our store frontline team members and empowers them with
the right information to engage the customers.
CRM/customer data: This is central to the customer experience and
engagement strategies employed by Raleys.
GREAT PLANNING SPARKS ENHANCED QUALITY OF INTERACTIONS
Great planning has taken place to build the systems and processes
to store, organize, cleanse, access, and execute against customer
data toward our customer experience and engagement strategies and
tactics, Hutchison says. Were zeroing in on perfecting quality of our
interactions, and well continue to rene our frequency of interactions.
We felt it very important to start on the low end of communication
frequency so as not to violate promotion overload, and we will learn
more and more about each customer to better understand their
optimal communication frequencies.
The customer-centric loyalty approach and its customer experience
and engagement strategies are changing customer behavior and
drawing market share as well as protability, Hutchison says.
With more tools and customer solutions launching continually as
part of Raleys customer road map, these positive returns will only
accelerate, he says.
Raleys customer segments are divided among ve groups: Premiers,
Valuables, Potentials, Uncommitted and Lapsed. Premier ofine shoppers
shop three to ve times per week, while our click-and-collect
ecommerce grocery shoppers shop online once every two weeks.
Making suggestions based on their purchase history is how we can
help change behavior, Hutchison says. You have to do it and do it
well, and that will set those companies apart by putting the customer
at the center of the organization.
When asked about how Raleys targets customers and personalizes,
Hutchison explains: We look at each customer and their shopping
behavior and their derived communication preferences and we
personalize effective tactics for them.
Hutchison is excited about evolving the companys digital space,
which will provide an enhanced shopping experience with
cross-selling involved as well.
But what it really comes down to, Hutchison says, is delivering on the
core, simple threads.
Some customers want a lot of noise and movement, others want it
to be quiet, he says. We have to focus on things people will focus
on and present it in a clean and compelling way. Shopping can be
stressful for people. How do we take this potentially stressful chore
and make it more pleasant?
Ofine and online need to be aligned, he says, as far as look and feel,
tone and personality.
Raleys continued...
NOT JUST LIP SERVICE
This isnt just lip service, he says. Were
setting ourselves apart by putting our
customers at the center and asking, Does
this project deliver on one of these promises,
whether its accounting, supply chain,
operations, merchandising or marketing?
Its all customer-centric.
Hutchison says Something Extra is aptly
named because we dont penalize our
customers who arent members, and we
give them a compelling reason to swipe
their cards a check they get back at the
end of every quarter.
Raleys tracks measurable metrics related
to sales growth and customer opinions
as key metrics to dene success and
improvement.
If it cant be measured, you should not do
it at all, Hutchison believes. The customer
is at the center of every decision Raleys
makes. One of the most rewarding things
about Hutchisons job is when he receives
notes from customers.
I get handwritten letters from our
customers who love the fact were making
their lives easier, he says. They dont
have to search for coupons online. We
send them coupons that are relevant to
them. Relevancy, rewards, experience,
and giving back. We personalize their
experiences for them and we tie into all
the other ways our stores differentiate in
positive ways. You have to keep it simple.
Were not Walmart. Were not Safeway.
Were not Amazon. Manufacturers can
spend their incremental dollars with us
because were showing this return on
every dollar they spend with us. L
Can you talk a bit more about what youre
doing from a customer experience/employee
training perspective? How often do you train
and what are the overarching categories in
which Raleys trains?
We have a cross-functional team engaged
within the organization focused on ensuring
Raleys delivers on commitments made to
our customers. Part of that effort is making
sure our team members know what the
commitments are, and how to effectively
deliver upon them. Were using a technology
solution as well as team leadership driven
efforts for training, which includes scenario-
based training. The most important part is
that this is supported at all levels of the
company and is based on strong organizational
engagement principles and best practice.
Can you talk about how Raleys leverages the
CPG/manufacturer offers? Are these the
offers that are sent to customers?
Personalization is a key pillar of our CRM
efforts. Offers are one of the primary fuels
in engaging our customers, and if theyre to
be personalized, then we need to have offers
representing a breadth of products across
the store. For that to be achieved, CPG/
manufacturers have to be highly engaged
and in-sync with Raleys. We have spent
a lot of time and emotion building the technology,
processes, and relationships to support the
acquisition on the offers from CPG, the
intelligent targeting and dissemination
of those offers to our customers, and the
reporting of the results to our CPG partners
and internally. The result is a streamlined,
yet evolving system that ultimately delivers
relevant offers to our customers in a
relevant channel.
Does your research and/or database allow for
a matching of behavior to offer?
We absolutely use behavioral data to target
the offers for each customer on a 1:1 basis.
What do the manufacturers think of the
process? With this targeted approach, are the
manufacturers able to hit their numbers?
We have excellent relationships with our CPG
partners where we work together towards a
common goal of building loyalty with our
customers. We also recognize that both the
CPG partners and Raleys have business
objectives that need to be met as well.
The great news is that building loyalty with
customers results in achieving business
objectives of CPGs and Raleys. The key is in
the smart execution of the loyalty program
and in ensuring that proper measurement and
reporting follows. Another key is having a host
of tactics within our marketing portfolio to
satisfy a variety of business objectives for
CPGs. Some are solely 1:1 and some allow for
greater degrees of customer acquisition.
Can you offer a few more specics on
this statement?
We felt it very important to start on the low
end of communication frequency so as not to
violate promotion overload, and we will learn
more and more about each customer to better
understand their optimal communication
frequencies. Essentially, our goal is to get to
a point where we understand the desires and
action points for each of our customers with
respect to communications from Raleys.
Some customers would prefer to receive one
communication every two weeks, while others
would prefer to receive three per week, while
others just want to receive communications
whenever there is relevant news from Raleys.
While we work toward that knowledge level,
we are starting from a point of less is more
whereas some other companies prefer to start
by sending communications daily to customers.
Can you expand a bit about what Raleys
is doing now digitally, and how that might
change in the future?
We use all of the primary digital communication
channels including email, SMS, Push Mobile
(both iBeacon and Geo-fencing), mobile apps,
web, and social media/social advocacy. With
social advocacy, we have the worlds rst
retailer-owned platform. Were constantly
evaluating where to go with respect to all of
those, and particularly with our web and
mobile platforms. The aim is to provide
solutions that make our customers lives
easier, better, and more personalized.
with Tom Hutchison, Director Marketing, CRM & Analytics
Q
&A
FEATURES
Jim Tierney
Loyalty360
W
e knew when we launched Priority Moments it was go big
or go home, Stevenson says. We had to offer our customers
something they couldnt get anywhere else.
Mission accomplished.
In the last two years, weve developed Priority Moments to be the
powerhouse it is today, Stevenson explains. The combination of
a rich proposition centered around our customers passionssport,
shopping/leisure, entertainmentexclusive and best-in-market offers,
relevant content, and money-cant-buy experiences.
Stevenson says Priority Moments has had to differentiate itself amid
an increasingly saturated daily deals market.
By consistently innovating and pushing boundaries, O2 has changed
the market with more sophisticated targeting and integration of
content with the introduction of 4G, and continued to enhance and
offer customers a better, richer, and more rewarding experience with
once-in-a-lifetime experiences communicated using real-time insight
and targeting.
Stevenson says the results speak for themselves: every minute of
every day, ve Priority Moments are being redeemed by O2
customers from more than 150 leading U.K. brands including
Odeon, M&S, ASOS, Halfords, New Look, Caff Nero, and WHSmith.
Stevenson says the company has gleaned a plethora of actionable
insights from the highly successful loyalty program.
One of the most crucial insights weve drawn from O2 Priority is
that matching experiences and rewards against the right customer
passions is the most important characteristic to get right when driving
engagement with the program and delighting customers, he explains.
In fact, its more important than the mechanic of the reward (be it a
competition, a free reward or a discount), and even more important
than how well known or famous the brand is that offers the reward.
O2 Priority was founded on this core principle to make O2 customers
feel special by giving them experiences and rewards for the things
they love, accessed through O2s Priority platform, and working with
some of the UKs leading, and most inuential brands.
For example, Stevenson says: We know that lm, like music, is a very
motivating passion and we know what sorts of offers work best, so we
gave Priority customers the chance to see lms like Despicable Me 2
or Rio 2 before anyone else, as well as big money-off deals on cinema
tickets with Odeon.
Whats more, Stevenson says the program takes that one step further.
Its what we refer to as a Heart and Soul approach when we know
what our customers want, we really go for itheart and soul, he says.
Whereas some of our competitors dip their toe in the water of
passion, we jump in and make the biggest splash. With lm, some of
our competitors offer just cinema tickets we dont. We offer Priority
customers the chance to win tickets to the premier of the biggest
movies, we offer everyone great deals on cinema tickets, and we throw
in the popcorn and drink to enjoy while they watch it, or offer them
great rewards to see movies at home. We also do the same with food.
We offer our customers free coffees on a cold day from Caff Nero,
free chocolate slabs from Hotel Chocolat for a spot of indulgence,
great deals on restaurants across the country and of course, a
lunch for 1. We always go for it and were constantly innovating
to do more.

Understanding what customers want and how they want it is
a crucial aspect of the program.
We learned from the analytics that the most effective mechanic at
engaging the highest volume of customers is offering them the chance
to win fantastic prizes, such as holidays for their family, tickets to
premiers, and even cars, Stevenson says. After that, our customers
love to be given free rewards, so we have invested to offer our customers
more free treats from free chocolates from WH Smiths, apjacks from
Holland & Barratt, to a free car screen wash from Halfords. We know
that getting the passion right, along with the right combination of offer
characteristics, can make an offer 13,000 times more successful than
getting any one of those factors wrong. Priority is an insight-led loyalty
program and we continuously invest to learn more using a mix of
analytics and research to stay ahead of the game.
Single-minded
Focus on the Customer
Integral to U.K.s Telefonica O2
Priority Moments Loyalty Program
When Telefonica O2 UK (O2) launched its Priority Moments customer loyalty
program two years ago, Mark Stevenson, the companys Marketing Director
of Priority and Sponsorship, was fully cognizant of the stakes involved.
Due to the staggering success of the Priority Moments loyalty
program, Telefonica O2 garnered the International Markets, Silver
Winner award at the inaugural Loyalty360 Awards which were
handed out in March at the 7th Annual Loyalty Expo, presented by
Loyalty360 The Loyalty Marketers Association.
Some of the direct brand metrics used to measure the program are
churn and registration while some indirect metrics include consideration,
attractiveness, and value for money.
Telefonica O2 UK (O2) has changed the way mobile operators
approach loyalty with the success of Priority Moments. Priority
Moments is a mobile loyalty program that uses real time insight
and targeting to offer O2 customers unique experiences and exclusive
rewards from brands they love via their mobile phones (app, mobile
web, online and MMS/ SMS), based on their interests, behavior,
and geo-location.
Priority Moments meteoric rise had a lot to do with O2 not being
afraid to take risks.
Telefonica O2 U.K. operates in, arguably, the most ercely competitive
mobile market in the world, Stevenson explains. The market suffers
from high churn, increasing subscriber acquisition costs (SRC), limited
differentiation, and low customer engagement and loyalty, driven
by consumer demand for heavily subsidized and increasingly costly
handsets in the intense battle waged to win and retain new customers.
As a business, Telefonica O2 U.K. thinks differently, Stevenson says.
Create a loyalty program that customers would engage with every
day, offering outstanding value in a tough economic climate, yet
dramatically different from the multitude of daily deals sites that had
saturated the market, he explains. O2 wanted to dramatically stand
out and offer its customers something they couldnt get anywhere
else. Priority Moments was born.
What makes Priority Moments the U.K.s leading loyalty
platform?
Without doubt, the insight and the inherent functionality of the
programme, Stevenson says. By maximizing the technology at
their ngertips (mobile; geo-location; targeting capabilities), and
consistently innovating to improve the platform, O2 delivers
exclusive rewards to more than six million registrants every single
minute of every day.
Priority Moments wouldnt be possible without the greatest persuasive
device ever invented: the mobile phone, the remote control to our
customers lives, which allows us to have two-way conversations,
encouraging engagement and building loyalty with an ongoing
interaction, Stevenson says.
At the heart of Priority Moments is location-based technology and
valuable customer insights, as well as the sequencing of relevant
experiences and rewards, which enable O2 to reach and engage
millions of customers wherever they may be.
Geo-location enables customers to reap rewards from leading
partners whenever and wherever they are.
Proximity alerts and push messaging driven by geo-fencing delivers
relevant and easy-to-redeem rewards.
Bespoke algorithm highlights the nearest offers and experiences
within a determined area, including customers individual
preferences and behavior.
Priority Moments takes advantage of all the available channels to
customers: The app, instant messaging - SMS, MMS, email, 460 high
street retail stores, contact centers with more than 3,500 personal
advocates, and then the offers come to life with innovative brand
experiences, such as O2 Angels giving out free lunches with
Upper Crust.
To ensure we consistently increase our levels of customer engage-
ment, differentiate our proposition and add value, we have introduced
two new functionalities (as of April 2013): featured offer, which uses
our location technology to nd the very best hero brand offer at that
exact moment in time, and introducing rich video content with the
launch of 4G, Stevenson says.
One of the most crucial insights weve drawn
from O2 Priority is that matching experiences
and rewards against the right customer
passions is the most important characteristic
to get right when driving engagement with the
program and delighting customers.
when we know what our customers want, we really go for it heart and soul
FEATURES
You have to give
customers more of
what they want and less of what they dont,
Stevenson explains. And more than that, you have
to inspire and motivate them with something new
that they cant get anywhere else, all with an
understanding of how to do this in a way that
most positively impacts your business.
Telefonica O2 continued...
1. Extraordinary Moments
Totally unique, un-missable experiences, content and rewards that
cant be found anywhere else, which create extraordinary moments for
hundreds and thousands of customers, rather than just a lucky few:
To celebrate the Jubilee, a free pair of Union Jack ip ops from BHS
An upgrade on the Heathrow Express and airport lounge pass
A totally free lunch with Priority Moments, at Upper Crust
The chance to get a new game, or DVD release before anyone
else at HMV
2. Extraordinary Offers
Exclusive offers giving O2 customers real value and savings on
everyday items and more occasional treats:
1 for a pizza and unlimited salad at Pizza Hut
4 free Millies Cookies
M&S Dine in for 8
50% off movie tickets at Odeon
20% off at TONI&GUY hair salons the rst time in
40 years theyd run a national discount
Buy one pair of shoes at Ofce for the party season,
get another pair for free
3. Thank-Yous
Targeted rewards based on value segment to thank O2 customers
for their loyalty on their two year anniversary with O2 when NPS
typically dips, or just to surprise them. Customers are targeted via
SMS/ MMS and collect their personal Thank-You via the Priority
Moments app, or mobile web site:
A Caff Nero Iced Coffee on a hot day just to say thank-you
5-20 mobile gift card to spend at Debenhams
A handpicked gift box from Hotel Chocolat
4. Headline Moments
A package of un-missable rewards to create excitement and a sense
of urgency at a key moment such as Christmas, where O2 can help
customers make the most of the festive season. For Christmas 2012
O2 created an advent calendar of 24 extraordinary rewards, exclusive
content and outstanding offers:
Christmas master class with renowned chef Jean-Christophe Novelli
giving customers tips on how to create the perfect Christmas dinner
and 25 off all the ingredients with Ocado
A free de-icer and scraper from Halfords executed in a super timely
manner - when it snowed
30% off at New Look
10 to spend on Christmas presents at The Fragrance Shop
Exclusive shopping events and grotto at Bluewater
5. The Ultimate Experience
To offer customers more of the exceptional, O2 created
a layered approach to rewards, in which customers could
unlock and access according to their level of engagement.
O2 therefore created a prize draw functionality which offers
unique one-off experiences for customers through an
immediate call to action.
Free coffee for every week for a year vs. one free coffee
Win a trip to Quicksilver surf camp vs. 20%
Quicksilver clothing
You have to give customers more of what they want and less of what
they dont, Stevenson explains. And more than that, you have to
inspire and motivate them with something new that they cant get
anywhere else, all with an understanding of how to do this in a way
that most positively impacts your business. At O2, our customers are
our priority in every sense.
Listening to customers is an absolute imperative.
We ask them what they want, when they want it, and how they
want it, Stevenson says. We then track what happens and learn
and improve what we do based on their behavior and the feedback
they give us across all of our channels. We have done this from the
inception of Priority, and we will continue to do so, using new
technologies to give them what they want and what they need at
a time when is perfect for them.
Stevenson believes many brands fail when they set KPIs, measure
against them, but then dont shift behavior or do anything different
based on what they learn.
At O2, we focus on innovation from the brands we partner with
in the delivery of Priority, the types of rewards we offer, when, how
and to whom we offer them, and how we communicate them,
he explained. We strive to improve continuously. As time has
progressed, we have gotten smarter at how we measure, what we
track and how we apply those learnings. New technologies are an
enabler of this. We use protability as our key measure and then
develop the correct ROI model according the channel and
the customer.
O2 is always ruled by the customer, Stevenson says.
A great example of this is O2s lm program, he explains. Using
customer feedback alongside our business intelligence, we looked
at our customer segmentation and their passion areas; this research
told us that lm was one of the biggest motivators. We therefore built
on this popularity and elevated lm to more than just popcorn and
tickets, by giving customers ultimate VIP experiences that they could
only get through O2 Priority.
When asked what one thing has led to the enormous success of
Priority Moments, Stevenson didnt hesitate: Single-minded focus
on the customer, always. L
The Arena, London
FEATURES
Jim Tierney
Loyalty360
MAACO desperately needed a makeover when
Jose R. Costa became president of the company
about 19 months ago. The Charlotte, N.C.-based
retailer was very much a strong player, but very
dormant in many aspects.
One of Costas key tasks was to transform the brand from
the 1970s to a contemporary player.
During the past 18 months, Costa says many aspects of the
business have been transformed. But he singled out and
explained the three most important areas of transformation:
Training Curriculum: We used to have a four-week in-class
training program called MAACO University. Throughout the
past 18 months, weve narrowed the program down to three
weeks, while introducing e-learning, on-site training, and
hands-on, real-time customer training in a model shop in
Charlotte. This combination has been a true success since
our new owners are performing above historical levels in the
rst three to six months.
Revamping Marketing Approach: Our next challenge was
to revamp our marketing approach, from our brand positioning
to the way we engage with customers. In the past, weve
invested up to 20% of our budget in Yellow Pages. However,
in the past 18 months weve migrated those resources to
social, mobile, and digital platforms where we are getting
great results. Our marketing team has seen a lot more
consumer engagement and all of our key metrics have gone
up, from CSI scores to all key brand health measurements.
Production Management System: This is the neural system
of our operations and it has brought new light into our day-
to-day consumer engagement. Previously, we had a home-
grown system that fullled our production needs, but was
becoming archaic in todays technological landscape. For
this reason, we partnered with a leader in the industry
(Audatex) to roll-out a state-of-the-art POS system that
offers ease of use, increases accountability, and enhances
the customer experience.
During the past year, Costa says MAACO partnered with
some of its best franchisees and developed a POS system
that fulls both operational and customer needs.
The platform makes our employees lives easier because
they can track every aspect of the repair, Costa explains.
We are now able to measure bottle necks in production and
idle time per team member, among many other metrics. It
makes production ow seamlessly because there are stations
throughout the facility where employees can see how much
time and supplies a single job is using, as well as review
delivery dates.
From a customer standpoint, it creates transparency and
communication with the local center, Costa says.
Consumers are able to receive real-time updates through
email and text including pictures of their car through the
stages of repairprep, sanding, painting, and detailing.
Since Costa came aboard, MAACO has received a makeover
and grown to be the No. 1 franchise in its category.
MAACO is North Americas body shop, with close to 500
body shop locations across the continent. MAACO provides
auto paint and auto body repair services for more than
12,000 vehicles a week, 600,000 a year more than any
other company in North America.
Costa took it upon himself to visit as many MAACO
franchises around the country soon after he took over as
company president. In his rst six months on the job, Costa
had visited over 400 MAACO shops.
We had to put our franchisees rst because theyre our
No. 1 customer and we need to answer their requests, he
explains. First, we needed to listen to our franchisees,
employees, and consumers to better understand what was
and wasnt working. So I personally spent months on the
road meeting with as many people as I humanly could.
Secondly, we used analytics and insights to determine the
direction that we wanted to take the brand. Once we had all
the analysis done, it was easy to craft a vision since it was
validated by all our key constituencies. Everyone has been
as Customer Becomes Focal Point
MAACO-VER
Complete
MAACO-VER
Complete
very excited and supportive of our direction and I cant wait to see
where MAACO will be in ve years.
One of the biggest hurdles Costa had to clear was a negative public
perception attached to MAACO.
Historically, we had positioned the brand around a negative
event, an accident, he said. We repositioned everything around a
positive perception and went completely away from the advertising
you remember, Uh Oh, Better Get MAACO! We completely changed
the image and re-launched the brand.
Costa says during the companys major rebranding process more than
18 months ago, MAACO ofcials capitalized on the positive side of its
business and the aspiration of turning the vehicle you drive back into
the vehicle you love.
We conducted extensive consumer research before launching the
repositioning and immediately knew we had a winner with consumers,
Costa says. This was the rst time in 42 years that MAACO
positioned itself emotionally with consumers. We ensured all
brand communications were uplifting, aspirational, had an Americana
sentiment, and ultimately drove sales. Our advertising featured young
people, families, women, and the everyday cars that get them from
point A to point B. It has been incredibly well received by consumers
and our sales are a reection of that.
In April 2013 MAACO, which is part of the Driven Brands family of
automotive brands, launched a completely new image and branding
campaign. The new image work is designed to reinvent the consumer
relationship by adding the positive, emotional benets of car owner-
ship through the essence of transformation the MAACOVER to
the brands strong value proposition.
The campaign kicked off with the concept of a #MAACOVER,
and is rooted in social interaction via Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr,
and Facebook to create a new type of conversation with MAACO
customers. In a category traditionally known for pushing information
out, MAACO wanted to turn industry communications on its ear by
inviting the customer in with its use of the hashtag and a host of social
initiatives that encourages dialogue directly with the brand.
We wanted to show that MAACO can turn the car they drive back
into the car they love, Costa explained. We gave a positive spin to
a negative event.
Costa explained that every key metric has moved in a positive
direction since the rebranding. Having an in-house call center has
greatly improved repair issues for customers.
We rolled out a Customer First vision, Costa said. Every training
activity we do revolves around satisfying customer concerns. We
try and solve everything as smoothly as we can. We record some
interactions for training and coaching purposes. Weve transformed
from an operations-driven company to a customer-driven company.
Im not saying were there, but were making a lot of progress.
Whats more, Costa says email communications have vastly improved.
Email communication has improved with the increased data collection,
he explained. We now require all estimates to capture an email so
we can establish a relationship with new and existing clients. This
allows us to make communications smarter and more personalized.
Now we can track engagement, we can perform A-B testing with
different offers, and we can segment consumers depending on our
business objectives.
MAACO also uses email collection to capture and retain retail estimates.
We have the ability to track where a consumer is in his/her purchase
consideration and follow up with them with the right offers that
incentivize based on the services they need, Costa explains. We have
also incorporated promotions into our social media platforms. This
has increased engagement with consumers and we have propelled the
number of followers we have on social media.
Costa says in his industry, MAACO constantly battles for the
No. 1 spot.
You build from the ground up, he says. We have a shop in Colorado
that does $5 million a year in sales and they also conduct training
classes at the shop. Some of our key metrics revolve around how fast
repairs take and how many mechanics are involved in a specic repair.
MAACOs average repair costs $1,000, Costa says.
A Franchise Advisory Council, comprising about 20 representatives,
meets multiple times throughout the year to discuss various aspects
of the customer lifecycle, Costa says.
We value their voice, he says. Its nice to spend time with the
people who know the business better, the franchisees.
Employee engagement has reached an all-time high, Costa says.
A lot of our employees believe that MAACO is well positioned with
our new brand road map to achieve our goals of doubling the size of
the company in ve years, he explains. We want to be a billion dollar
brand with close to 1,000 locations by 2018. L
Uh Oh, Better Get MAACO!
We completely changed the image and re-launched the brand.
This was the rst time in 42 years that MAACO
positioned itself emotionally with consumers. We
ensured all brand communications were uplifting,
aspirational, had an Americana sentiment, and
ultimately drove sales.
-Jose R. Costa, President | Maaco
FEATURES
c u s t ome r e x pe r i e n c e awar ds
X C
The ceremony will celebrate todays top
companies who deliver exceptional customer
experiences to consumers through innovative
services and offerings. We received entries from
companies around the world, and presented
them anonymously to a jury of industry experts
for an unbiased judging. The winners have been
chosen, and we are thrilled to be honoring
these leading organizations at the Loyalty360
CX Awards.
In preparation for the ceremony, we want
to give you a sneak peek into our entries,
and briey showcase some of the industry
techniques that our award winners are utilizing
in the realm of customer experience excellence.
Here are some ways that our award winners are
moving the needle in loyalty:
Using customer data to truly develop
customer relationships
Breaking down silos within organizations so
proper entities can access customer
feedback and act on it
Understanding interactions at every stage of
the customer journey
Using customer data to fuel best employee
hiring, company culture, and
internal incentives
Providing intuitive and unique digital and
mobile experiences
For many companies, acting on data can be like
a giant game of Tetris: data is always coming in,
but how do you make sure it is being used most
efciently? Among our winners, there were few
qualifying strategies more often stated than the
importance of utilizing customer feedback data
to shape better experiences.
For a consumer, there is nothing more frustrating
than feeling like an organization cant hear
your voice. Our winners passed in ying colors
in voice of the customer strategies. In order
to truly provide stellar experiences by serving
customer needs, organizations must open their
internal oodgates and allow communication
and feedback to ow to the proper entities.
Our winners have shown that the best customer
experiences add meaningful interactions not
only at the point of sale, but also before and
after the transaction. The value of creating
engagement at these moments means that
consumers will be more likely to think of your
company rst, and not just when theyre making
a purchase.
Whether a company is a mighty redwood or
a young sapling, great customer experiences
can really only grow from one place: the roots.
Our CX Award winners are adamant that best
employee hiring practices, company culture,
and internal incentives, when combined and
nurtured, will sprout incredible returns for the
customer experience. When you elevate your
employee experience, they will naturally be
more inclined to pay-it-forward.
In the past, there was only one thing that
companies had to worry about in consumers
pockets their wallets. Those same consumers
are now equally as likely to reach for their
phone, so it is no surprise that the realm of
mobile and digital has become an immensely
important consumer touch point. By now, many
companies have adapted responsive web layouts
for phones and tablets, and created mobile
apps that allow direct access to a companys
products or services. Our winners understand
that in this mobile engagement inundation, only
the cream will rise to the top. Companies who
can turn a digital interaction into a profound
encounter will see amazing results from their
customer experience efforts.
To hear from our award winners who will be sharing
their company results and actionable insights, join us
at the inaugural Loyalty360 CX Awards during the 2014
Engagement & Experience Expo, November 10-12 in
Dallas, Texas.
Loyalty360 CX Awards:
How Sweet it is
Its good to be appreciated, isnt it?
This fall at Engagement &
Experience Expo, Loyalty360
is showing appreciation for the
companies that appreciate you
at the inaugural Loyalty360 CX
(Customer Experience) Awards.
Michael Guarente
Loyalty360
2014
PLATINUM
Best Customer Insight Strategy
PRESENTED TO
Inaugural
cust omer exper i ence awards
X C
LOYALTY FORUM: TRENDING NOW
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE.
Of course, the customer experience is at the heart of loyalty, but it is getting pushed
to new heights all the time. There has been a recent focus on connecting with customers
at every stage of their experienceeverything from research, point of purchase, to
follow-upand utilizing various channels to ensure that any available touch point
offers an interaction. The overall experience is highly valued by customers, and more
and more they are expecting to receive rewards for non-dollar based activities and
interactions. The good news is that any type of engagement builds the relationship
and drives sales.
Whos
Leading
the
Way?
Apps to
Check Out:
What to
Look For:
WEARABLE TECH.
Tech geeks arent the only ones delving into the world of wearable tech these days.
With devices like wearable tness trackers and smart watches becoming more
common, expect to see the whole category continue to rise in popularity. And loyalty
can leverage it too some companies are already introducing wearable tech apps
that allow the user to make loyalty transactions with wearable tech devices. And
though privacy concerns exist in regards to any data-tracking, research shows that
many consumers would be willing to share personal data collected by such devices
with third-party retailers when presented with compensation such as a coupon or
discount (see By the Numbers page 16).
MOBILE COUPONING.
Digital devices, mobile apps, digital coupons none of these are new, relatively
speaking. But, the collision of digital with the in-store experience has presented an
interesting trend. A recent study from PunchTab that focused on back-to-school
shopping showed that 60% of moms use their smartphones in-store to nd coupons,
and that while in-store, moms are four times more likely to use their smartphone to
look for coupons as compared to other mobile activities. In addition, mobile coupon
apps are gaining popularity, with several free apps that are revolutionizing what it
means to clip and save.
Trending
Now
FEATURES
Jim Tierney
Loyalty360
The Advantages of a
Customer Lifecycle
Strategy
With so much discussion centered on
customer-centricity, customer engagement,
and enhancing customer experiences,
a hot industry topic related to those noble
aspirations is the concept of a Customer Lifecycle program.
C
onnie Hill, President of VeraCentra, believes that a Customer Life-
cycle and a companys attendant strategy in that area ultimately
create more loyal customers.
A Lifecycle strategy uses customer behavior data to dene the
various relationship stages a customer travels through to get to a state
of loyalty. Once the stages are dened, its about creating relevant
offers and messages to motivate customers into further engagement
and ultimately become loyal advocates.
Common lifecycle stages include: new, repeating, building preference,
loyal, reconsidering or lapsing, and gone.
Why is there so much current buzz around the Customer Lifecycle?
Understanding the customers lifecycle or path to loyalty increases the
marketers ability to produce relevant messaging and at the same time
manage marketing investments for greater return, Hill explains.
A Customer Lifecycle strategy is very methodical and forward thinking,
she explains. You need to understand a customers decision making
state at every lifecycle stage and provide meaningful offers to move
that customer to the next stage. This can be a very eye-opening
process. Marketers nd they are providing offers to the wrong
customers for the wrong reasons. For example, loyal customers
may not want a deep discount but rather an acknowledgement of
their loyal relationship with the brand. Greater investment is commonly
needed when new customers enter the lifecycle, proving ample
motivation to make that next transaction.
Napa, CA-based VeraCentra helps marketers increase value from
existing customers by providing data insights that increase loyalty,
and by developing strategies and customer programs based on
those insights. When it comes to executing programs across
multiple channels, VeraCentra provides integration services to
seamlessly connect execution tools with customer data for
automated delivery of customer communications. Hill says marketers
should use a Customer Lifecycle map as the over-arching theme
for all customer communications.
A lifecycle strategy allows the marketer to understand customers
path to loyalty, she explains. Were seeing, over and over again,
marketers totally overlooking the lifecycle process and not
understanding the customers decision state as they progress
through lifecycle.
Hill believes that email lifecycle marketing and the concept of
customer lifecycle strategy are routinely confused. Email commonly
accommodates basic onboarding programs, with thank-yous or
education communications triggered off a loyalty program sign up.
From an email marketing perspective, a lot of marketers think theyre
running a lifecycle marketing program, she says. Yet, there continues to
be a signicant number of one-and-done customers. Its not unusual
for us to see 50% or more of customers enrolled in a loyalty program
transacting only once. Much of the reason behind that is because
were not strategically thinking as to how were going to interact with
those customers and push them along the loyalty path, and instead
send them a welcome email and hope for the best.
Hill believes Customer Lifecycle programs and strategies present
a huge opportunity for marketers to increase the number of brand
loyal customers.
It all circles back to customer-centricity and customer understanding,
she says. There is a direct connection between the customer lifecycle
and customer-centricity. The lifecycle model informs marketers, in
terms of where the customer is in relationship to the brand. Its another
level of insight thats commonly not incorporated. Many marketers
prole and segment. They also look at propensities to purchase and in
what combinations, which is all great insight and particularly valuable
in category promotional efforts. But prior to executing any marketing
effort, its important for marketers to think about where the customer
is in the lifecycle.
Even if a retailer wants to implement a Customer Lifecycle program,
Hill says that there has to be one requirement upfront: company- wide
buy-in.
Lifecycle strategies allow us to think in better terms of what offers
will resonate to get them to the next stage in the lifecycle, she says.
The entire company has to be invested. The opportunity for marketers
is not only relevant communications, but retail renement. Marketing
departments are structured in silos. A lifecycle strategy brings a
fundamental model that everyone can get behind. It allows all
marketers to focus on the customer.
When companies successfully execute on a lifecycle model, its not
about email marketing, direct mail promotions, social media or
mobile apps its about all of those channels, Hill says.
The lifecycle approach is something all channels can focus on, and
the hidden opportunity for retailers is to go omnichannel and break
down silos, she explains. The way technology is with open architectures
integrating between systems and tools, its getting easier and easier.
Using data to automate your lifecycle strategy helps to break down
those silos. Automation and integration of tools is really the key to
making a lifecycle strategy hop.
It really does start with data, and a way to leverage data, Hill says.
So what qualities or traits differentiate companies who implement
successful customer lifecycles from those that do not?
Companies that are willing to invest in customer relationships, Hill
says. Companies that are willing to invest in the right tools to listen
to customers and be able to quickly respond. Willing to plan ahead is
important, along with the creation of engagement maps, and a willingness
to experiment and learn is key. These companies are totally xated
on the customer, they are agile and can easily combine channels for a
seamless experience. L
BehindtheBrand
WITH KRISTI GOLE | GLOBAL HOTEL ALLIANCE
LOYALTY FORUM: BEHIND THE BRAND
Kristi is a passionate marketing executive who extends the concept of loyalty across the entire
customer experience. She serves as the Director of Loyalty Marketing for Global Hotel Alliance,
the worlds largest alliance of independent upscale and luxury hotel brands.
PLEASE GIVE US A LITTLE BACKGROUND ON YOUR FOCUS AT
GHA AND HOW ITS EVOLVING TO ANSWER THE NEEDS OF
TODAYS CUSTOMER.
I am responsible for developing and implementing the Marketing
Strategy for the Loyalty Program of Global Hotel Alliance - GHA
Discovery. I focus on driving engagement through direct communications/
promotions/rewards, brand differentiation, marketing exposure for our
portfolio, and marketing optimization.
With continual improvements in technology, the shift to mobile, and a
large share of interactions now being served online through websites/
emails/social media/online chat, the customer experience is constantly
evolving, and we strive to not only keep up but to be innovative.
My role has adapted each year and my organizations capabilities
have grown tremendously since launching our program just 4 years
ago, through investment in technology and systems, bringing design/
production/data teams in house to move more nimbly, and
restructuring to allow for a more cohesive approach.
WHERE DO YOU SEE THE GREATEST OPPORTUNITIES?
Technology to support 1) a seamless collection of data across every
available touchpoint, 2) reporting and dened analyses across those
touchpoints from the member level to the aggregate, 3) data mining
and customer insights, 4) easy access/integration to action based on
the insights. There are a lot of agencies and systems that focus on this,
but we have had success in developing our datamart in-house. The
opportunity is to invest much moreso in this area going forward.
WHAT IS YOUR
FAVORITE WORD?
I LIKE CREATE AND I
PROBABLY OVERUSE THE PHRASE
OK, SO
WHAT IS YOUR LEAST
FAVORITE WORD?
CANT THINK OF ONE.
WHAT TURNS YOU ON
CREATIVELY, SPIRITUALLY,
OR EMOTIONALLY?
TRAVEL AND FREEDOM IN
CHOICES/PATHS/RESULTS.
WHAT TURNS YOU OFF?
NEGATIVITY AND DRIVERS
NOT USING THEIR BLINKER
OR GIVING A THANK YOU
WAVE.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE
(PG-13) CURSE WORD?
DANGIT.
YOU LOVE?
NATURE.
YOU HATE?
ALARM CLOCK.
WHAT PROFESSION OTHER
THAN YOUR OWN WOULD
YOU LIKE TO ATTEMPT?
PHOTOGRAPHY.
WHAT PROFESSION WOULD
YOU NOT LIKE TO DO?
ACCOUNTING TOO
RULES-BASED.
IF HEAVEN EXISTS, WHAT
WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR
GOD SAY WHEN YOU ARRIVE
AT THE PEARLY GATES?
WELCOME, EVERYONE IS
HERE WAITING FOR YOU.
* Inspired by James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio we asked Kristi to share her quick re response
to the questions originating from the French series, Bouillon de Culture hosted by Bernard Pivot.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
QUICK FIRE QUESTIONS*
WHAT TRENDS ARE YOU SEEING IN THE
MARKETPLACE TODAY?
1) A leveling of the eld in some ways the small/boutique/start-
up brands are increasingly appreciated and trendy, and while the
big companies have the resources, the small companies are lean
and more nimble and can change or respond to customer needs
far quicker
2) Video and real-time animation (i.e. countdown clock) are
increasingly popular forms of content as they are more
stimulating and attention-grabbing
3) While promotions and discounts took the lead for some time,
I feel it has shifted back customers are focusing more on the
product and other elements again
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE HOTEL AMENITY?
I love having a fruit plate in my room upon arrival; after an entire
day of traveling it is nice to have a fresh snack waiting for me. A
bottle of wine to enjoy during the stay is also wonderful.
IF YOU COULD PICK ONLY ONE THING, WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE
MOST INFLUENCES A GREAT CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE? AND
WHY?
An attitude can make or break an experience. If the details are
missed but you are working with a company and representatives
that care and are trying, it improves everything and might result
in more loyalty. If the details are right but delivered in a way that
makes you feel like one of the herd or unappreciated, the opposite
may happen.
IF YOU WERE NOT DOING WHAT YOU DO TODAY, HOW WOULD
YOU BE SPENDING YOUR TIME?
Living in a small town in Italy, building up the tourism ofce for
the town, enjoying long family dinners, and traveling around
Europe on weekends.
IF YOU COULD INVITE 3 PEOPLE TO DINNER (PAST OR
PRESENT) WHO WOULD THEY BE AND WHY?
A bit clich but still: Albert Einstein so fascinating in both his
genius and his aloof personality. His biography by Walter
Isaacson is my favorite book.
The Dalai Lama a man who has dedicated his life to displaying
and promoting compassion, forgiveness and self-discipline.
Will Ferrell he is really funny and would lighten up the crowd.
WE LIKE TO END THESE INTERVIEWS WITH SOME WORDS OF
WISDOM. WOULD YOU PLEASE SHARE ONE OR TWO KEY
LESSONS YOUVE LEARNED OVER THE YEARS THAT COULD
HELP THE NOVICE MARKETER?
Keep things simple. It is easy to over-complicate things, but the
more you understand something, the simpler you can explain and
approach it, and the better the results. L
Loyalty
Innovation
Products,
Advancements &
Technologies
LOYALTY FORUM: LOYALTY INNOVATION
As you may have heard, 2014 is the year the Internet
has changed forever. How has it changed? The
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN), the regulatory body that manages
the Internet namespace, has allowed for brands and
individuals to apply for new domain name extensions
(the bit to the right of the dot, such as com, net,
biz, org, etc.). Over 600 brands, including Nike,
Apple and BMW were among those who applied for
names and beginning this past February, the new
domain extensions began to hit the market, offered by
popular Domain Name registrars such as GoDaddy.
Names like .guru, .club, .photography and .email are
already gaining traction as new web addresses.
One name that has particular relevance for the Loyalty
community is .CLUB. The word club is short, easy to
remember, and adds meaning to whatever you put
before it. As the word club represents a community of
people gathering around a common interest or
passion, a web address ending in .CLUB creates the
perfect web address for a loyalty or reward program,
many of which already use the word club in describing
their program. Instead directing customers to a home
page to dig for a link, you can use www.yourbrand.
club to point directly to your Loyalty program page.
Think of it as an easy to remember, easy to market,
shortcut.
For more information please visit www.nic.club.
Vantiv Provides Financial Institutions Value
Debit card enhancements are additional benets to the cardholder that go beyond
the Visa and MasterCard core benet package. Benet enhancements help
nancial institutions strengthen their brand with specialized programs that
increase activation, usage, retention and loyalty.
Financial institutions benet with enhanced loyalty, quick and easy implementation
and increased revenue opportunity. Integrated marketing support is provided to
Vantiv clients that includes statement Inserts, take ones, posters, teller tents and a
Guide to Benets brochure.
Financial institution benets:
Cell Phone Protection provides supplemental
reimbursement for damage or theft of an
eligible cell phone as long as the monthly cell
phone bill is paid by the card.
Roadside Dispatch which can arrange a tow
operator or locksmith for cardholders.
Travel & Emergency Services for cardholders
who encounter an emergency situation away
from home.
Purchase Security which automatically protects
many of the retail purchases cardholders make
with their card.
Return Protection which provides cardholders
reimbursement on items they purchase if the
retailer will not accept the return.
Vantivs Debit Card Enhancements help strengthen brand and cardholder loyalty
while driving institution revenue with exclusive and easy to implement bundled
card program benets.
For more information visit us at www.vantiv.com.
Inuicity empowers advertisers with technology to
search, measure and collaborate with inuencers on
YouTube and across the social media landscape. The
industry-rst marketplace and platform enables
marketers to use the same scale and GRPs that they
can across other media outlets, to achieve
transformative results.
The company is helping to elevate how brands
connect with consumers by harnessing the global
reach of a new generation of inuencers. People who
have cultivated audiences across social channels,
through authentic video and rich media content. By
leveraging Inuicitys adtech platform, agencies and
brand managers can systemize and scale their
inuencer campaigns, like never before.
Inuicity is unlocking millions of high-potential
customers for brands like Kimberly-Clark, Garnier,
and Puma. Showcase your product, tell the brand
story, and drive sales.
Stellar Loyalty is the rst applications provider to
deliver breakthrough cloud-based, big data customer
loyalty solutions. The companys mission is to bring
delight and value to every consumer experience by
enabling brands to instantly recognize, engage and
reward their loyal customers across the network of
digital, physical and human interactions. Founded in
2014 and funded by InterWest Partners, Stellar
Loyalty is privately held with ofces in Foster City, CA
and Manila, Philippines.
Created for marketers and members, the Stellar
Loyalty solution offers a mobile-rst design,
invigorating the way brands engage with consumers in
the moments of truth. With Stellar Loyalty, marketers
will always be in the moment and ready to seize it.
Stellar Loyalty is the loyalty system of engagement,
enabling marketers to:
Listen to their customers in real-time and appreciate
their preferences
Engage smarter with differentiated location-aware
content to create brand advocates
Learn and improve by quickly analyzing how well
campaigns are working
Pinpoint and rene in seconds to optimize loyalty
marketing program outcomes
This summer Clutch announced a new loyalty solution for Amazon Webstore
Merchants. This solution allows Amazon Webstore merchants to use the
Clutch Customer Success (CS) platform to issue customer loyalty program
rewards and enable rewards redemption during checkout.
The full Clutch CS platform is a suite of modular solutions for loyalty, rewards,
consumer analytics, gift, social and promotional engagement and mobility
capabilities that drives customer insight, segmentation, recognition and
engagement. The platform increases customer retention as well as the value of
existing customers through effective, relevant marketing programs to optimize
desired customer response and brand goals.
Amazon Merchants can now work with Clutch to congure its loyalty program
on the Clutch CS platform and integrate it with their Amazon Webstore
account. As a result, Clutch will scan orders placed through a merchants
website and issue rewards automatically to customers for any purchase that
meets the loyalty program requirements. The Clutch integration provides
Amazon Webstore merchants with an embedded widget that allows customers
to redeem rewards as part of the checkout process, such as an order discount
based on loyalty points.
This is a win for merchants as it offers a plug-and-play solution with the ability
to track customer purchases and offer incentives to spur future purchases. The
value added comes through repeat purchases by consumers, who traditionally
do not to acknowledge which merchant they purchase from through Amazon,
who will now be more inclined to make repeat purchases in order to gain and
redeem loyalty rewards.
Seamlessly reward your audience for any trackable action using Ifeelgoods
Turnkey Marketing Platform and 100K+ reward catalog
In todays digital world, loyalty programs need to evolve from a transactional
approach to an omni-channel holistic experience. Thanks to Ifeelgoods, brands
can unlock a whole suite of new gratication opportunities for their audiences
and reward them instantly with personalized gifts. Brands like Walmart,
Gap, LOreal, Coca Cola, Samsung and 150 other clients have all leveraged
the Ifeelgoods platform to boost their consumer acquisition, retention and
loyalty campaigns.
The Ifeelgoods catalog consists of over 100K digital rewards, with content that
ranges from movies, songs, games, gift cards, apps and others, all of which
come from the most popular reward partners (iTunes, Amazon, GooglePlay,
NYTimes, etc.). Ifeelgoods gift portfolio covers every price range to reward all
levels of consumer engagement: Even a $1 song or app as a personalized reward
for completing a survey has a high perceived value when it is properly targeted.
Ifeelgoods platform is already integrated into 40+ of the most well-known
channels and applications including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Mailchimp,
Salesforce and Zendesk so that brands can seamlessly reward audiences within
their existing tools. For instance, Ifeelgoods digital rewards can be used for:
Loyalty Programs: Offer loyal consumers personalized digital gifts they can
redeem and consume instantly.
Social Media: Reward a consumer for recommending a product on Facebook,
following a brand on Twitter or posting a picture on Instagram.
CRM: Reward consumers completing an online survey, subscribing to a
newsletter, generating a lead on your website or reaching out to your customer
support team.
TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS & REWARDS
CONVENIENCE AND AVAILABILITY DRIVE ADOPTION
According to an InComm survey, 70% of consumers report being more interested in
purchasing digital gift cards now than they were as recently as 2-3 years ago. While
physical gift cards remain popular (87% of consumers indicate that want to be able
to choose between digital or physical cards), part of the reason more consumers are
interested in digital gift cards now than in years past is that they can be delivered
instantly and stored and redeemed via smartphones.
For example, eCommerce purchasing data from the InComm Digital Solutions
platform supports that both physical and digital gift cards are important to
eCommerce sales. In the rst half of December, more customers purchased physical
gift cards online than digital gift cards. However, as Christmas neared and the
likelihood decreased that orders placed online would arrive before family gatherings,
digital gift card sales rose and ultimately peaked on Christmas Eve.
Another factor driving the adoption of digital gift cards is their increasing availability at
multiple consumer touchpoints. The ubiquity of smartphones means that consumers
are no longer only able to purchase digital gift cards onlinethey can also purchase
digital gift cards from a bevy of innovative mobile apps and at brick and mortar
stores. An app called Gyft makes it easy for consumers to quickly and easily digitize
their plastic gift cards so that they dont forget them at home while also making it
easy to buy, send and redeem digital gift cards. Brick and mortar retailers can also
easily expand their inventory and offer digital gift cards to shoppers in stores without
expanding their physical inventory. Stores simply set up signage in their card malls
and direct customers to a mobile app. Customers can shop for digital gift cards and,
with a tap of the nger, select ones theyd like to purchase. They then present a
number or bar code and pay at the POS to complete the transaction.
Convenient, Available,
and Versatile
Mike Fletcher
InComm Digital Solutions
G
ift cards have long been a favorite
gift among consumers, and recent
reports show that these numbers
are on the rise. According to the National
Retail Federation, 2013 was the seventh
consecutive year in which consumers
listed gift cards as the item they most
wanted to receive. It turns out that the
gift card is also undergoing some signicant
shifts in form, distribution, and application
largely driven by the rise of digital gift
cards. Here is an overview of some of
the key trends related to digital gift cards
and a guide for how retailers can take
advantage of them.
Digital Gift Card Trends:
Mike Fletcher is General Manager at InComm Digital Solutions, the team that
provides digital and mobile e-gifting technologies for InComm.
In 2013, consumers loaded
$552 billion onto prepaid
cards. Mercator Advisory
Group estimates that this
number will increase to over
$685 billion by 2016.
GIFT CARDS: NOT JUST FOR GIVING ANYMORE
As more customers grow comfortable giving and receiving digital gift
cards, another trend is starting to emerge: more consumers are buying
digital gift cards to keep for themselves to use as personal budgeting
tools. In 2013, consumers loaded $552 billion onto prepaid cards.
Mercator Advisory Group estimates that this number will increase
to over $685 billion by 2016. At the same time, smartphones are
enabling consumers to pay for items with their phones, and coffee
retailer Starbucks is already processing an estimated 5 million mobile
transactions every week. Leveraging prepaid stored value cards via
mobile payments tools is unleashing a whole new transaction model
thats expected to forever change how consumers pay for goods.
Young and mobile-driven consumers are expected to lead widespread
adoption of digital gift cards in coming years. This consumer segment
is turning to prepaid programs as a result of both increased data and
security concerns and tighter banking regulations. Tighter banking
regulations mean that many banks are increasing ATM fees to cover
their costs and prepaid value cards help consumers bypass these
charges. Additionally, with increased concerns about online data
security, using prepaid value cards to complete transactions online
is a way for consumers to add a layer of protection.
HOW RETAILERS CAN CAPITALIZE
For every benet that digital prepaid programs offer consumers, retailers
stand to reap several more. One of the biggest benets of offering
digital gift cards is nancial: prepaid cards help reduce transaction
fees paid out to credit card companies. Instead of paying for each
transaction, retailers only pay the fee once when the consumer
purchases or reloads the card. The amount on the card can then be
used for multiple transactions without incurring any additional credit
card fees. More importantly, gift cards have the potential to do
much more for retailers than simply save money in the short term.
Retailers who leverage digital gift cards in creative ways can drive
sales and build brand loyalty.
One of the easiest initiatives retailers can implement is the integration
of digital gift cards with rewards programs. Retailers who partner with
apps like Shopkick can increase foot trafc. Shopkick helps brands
offer digital gift cards as rewards to consumers simply for walking into
a store. Retailers can also reward customers with digital gift cards for
completing an action such as lling out a survey. In this way, retailers
can incentivize customers to interact with their brand. Digital gift
cards are also a great way to reward customers for repeat business
with a retailer, and brands can turn their customers into ambassadors
by making it easy to re-gift digital gift cards with friends and family
via email.
To take things a step further, retailers should take note of the way
prepaid programs are changing entire industries and offer innovative
programs accordingly. Some carriers are using digital prepaid cards
to offer no contract wireless phone service. Another way that retailers
can offer innovative programs to consumers is by leveraging cash
payments. CVS/pharmacy has partnered with American Express
Serve to offer a cash reloading program that allows consumers to
complete many transactions that would traditionally only be possible
with a bank account, including direct deposit, bill pay, and mobile
check capture. When stores offer customers the ability to manage
their nances, they position themselves as a one-stop-shop in
consumers minds and vastly increase brand loyalty.
As smartphones continue to march toward full market penetration,
digital gift card adoption will likewise grow, leading to as yet unforeseen
applications of the technology. Retailers must continue to offer
consumers the choice between digital and physical gift cards while
also looking beyond traditional applications of stored value cards.
Companies who take steps to offer innovative digital gift card
programs to consumers now will be well-positioned to offer additional
programs in the future. L
Beacon the Newest Shining Example of
Retail Industry Technology
Krishna Mehra
Capillary Technologies
Hello Kevin,
We have a
special ofer
for you today!
WELCOME
Click to Learn More
Retail
Innovation
Reaches
New Heights
T
echnology, especially in the digital realm, is moving faster than
ever. This is no different when it comes to the retail industry, where
ongoing changes have been the norm for decades. Beginning with the
ofcial dedication to customer service that arose in the retail industries
decades ago, retailers have always looked for ways to upgrade what they
do, how they do it and how they can both interact with and gain more customers.
With the inception of mystery shopper programs, retailers began to get a
better picture of the customer as a whole, especially in-store. That knowledge
was only heightened by the development of customer loyalty programs,
offering unique insights into psychology and customer behavior of some of
retailers most valued customers.
Most recently, forward-thinking companies have adopted an approach to
customers that includes all sales and communication channels. This new omni-
channel method of communication allows retailers to connect with customers
in a comprehensive manner by collecting data from social media, email, in-store
experiences and any other customer touch points and placing that data in one
database. Omni-channel allows for better measurement, more easily managed
data and a smoother path to the register both in-store and online. The entire
approach is facilitated by technology, too; customer engagement management
solutions are allowing retailers to better manage this entire process.
Now, a new technological development is set to complement the entirety of
retail technologies that came before it: Beacon devices based on Bluetooth Low
Energy, a family of devices focused on revolutionizing the payment and POS
system for retail stores forever. An example of this is the PayPal Beacon, which
integrates directly with a PayPal app downloaded by prospective customers.
As soon as customers enter the store, their payment information is instantly
available, accessible and usable by staff to process purchase. The technology is
based on Bluetooth Low Energy (LE), a functionality supported by most current
phones and set to be supported by almost all next generation devices. Another
example is the Estimote, which provides an open Software Development Kit
(SDK) for integrating into the POS. Qualcomms Gimbal is yet another platform
based on a similar backdrop.
The major advantage for the customer and store is a continuation of the
larger trend sought after by both customer and store alike: a more seamless
and positive customer experience. Beacons could practically eliminate lines
and drastically reduces wait time for purchase one of the key pain points
shoppers still experience in stores.
A DREAM REVIVED
This is not the rst dream of a swipe less retail world. Innovators have previously
sought to develop near eld communication (NFC), a technology that allowed
for radio communication between smartphones and other devices via installed
radio chips. However, the concept failed to take off, temporarily shuttering the
idea of a seamless wireless purchase experience for customers.
The reasons for NFCs inability to enter the market at-large varied. One issue
was integration and the ecosystem development. Smartphones require an
actual hardware adaptation to create something thats NFC compliant, so do
payment devices. Another barrier and potential cause of failure was the needed
proximity for NFC to work. Customers needed to be very close to POS points for
their smartphones to integrate in an NFC framework.
Both these issues get solved under the system driving Beacons. Most new
phones support Bluetooth LE or Bluetooth Smart - a new wireless protocol
which enables identication within 50 meters of the beacon but is based on
existing Bluetooth adapters already present on most smartphones and
importantly doesnt drain the battery of your smartphone which was a
major deterrent in earlier Wi-Fi based systems. This means that establishing a
link between POS systems and in-store customers simply requires placing
customers within 50m of a beacon sensor, an easy task for most retail stores.
THE REVOLUTION IS JUST GETTING STARTED
Beacon technology is hardly commonplace; rather, the retail world is
early on in the adoption phase of the technology. On the other hand,
companies are getting involved more and more and several major POS
players can be pointed to as rst movers in the market; for instance,
the PayPal Beacon is integrated with several popular POS systems,
including Booker, Erply, Leaf, Leapset, Micros, NCR, PayPal Here, Revel,
ShopKeep, TouchBistro and Vend. PayPal is the largest and perhaps
most essential adoptee; the company is already integrated with large
retailers such as Home Depot, providing a clear path for Beacon to
enter the mainstream market. Given its size and capabilities, PayPal
will be a large part of the solution to potential, foreseeable issues
surrounding implementation of beacon technologies. Basic usage
should be easy to implement; if the POS is already supported, simple
buy, plug and play will work in almost all cases.
However, there are still challenges with adoption. As a market-leading
technology, beacon does not yet support all POS systems. Furthermore,
even for integrated systems, beacon may not work comprehensively.
PayPal will lead the curve in integration, suggesting that PayPal will
likely continue to establish integration to the point where it becomes
seamless. Yet POS systems will vary in their overall support, from
basic functionality gaps to majorly incomplete capabilities. Some may
not be able to allow capabilities surrounding "ordering your favorite
meal automatically" or "remote checkout". For this reason, adoption
may be much faster in natural t industries such as QSR and food
and may lag in apparel and other sectors.
Even if the POS is integrated, keeping the product catalog / menu and
pricing information synchronized with a third party system similar
to PayPals may require additional overhead for self-checkout. Given
that self-checkout is the most impressive advantage that comes with
this new swipe less system, any costs associated with that become a
potential barrier to implementation. In fact, the general expenditure
associated with implementation is signicant enough to serve as a
potential deterrent for some retailers if the value of the technology is
not properly demonstrated.
CONSUMER ADOPTION CHALLENGES
Beacons underlying technology, Bluetooth LE, is not yet supported on
100% of smartphones. While all major phone market players (Apple,
Google, Microsoft and Blackberry) have made the move toward
Bluetooth LE support implementation, it should take 12-18 months in
the US - one generation- before most consumers have their phones
replaced with Bluetooth LE supportive devices. For instance, Googles
Android just increased its support at the turn of the year 2014.
Overseas, adoption may take even longer.
Even after supportive technology becomes integrated into the new
generation of phones, consumers themselves still provide a gap for
retailers and phone companies interested in increasing beacon
penetration into the market. Consumers are somewhat spooked by
privacy and security concerns surrounding Bluetooth technologies,
particularly given the widespread collection of information discussed
in the news. Bluetooth technologies are often switched off by consumers
for this very reason, and may not be switched on and integrated after
being turned on, either. There is also the risk of theft, an ongoing
concern with any device that houses sensitive information.
Smart consumers may also weigh the ease of purchase in both a
positive and negative light. Less time in store is likely seen as a
benet, but making purchase too easy could lead to tremendous
increases in spending, a frightening proposition for consumers
with a love of shopping and a propensity to overlook their bank
account balance.
THE FUTURE OF BEACON
Like any new technology, beacons future rests on their likelihood of
adoption, the evolution of other similar technologies and their integration
with other systems in the space. They also will positively benet from
potential cross-functionality; beacons may be used for promotions and
discount offers, two potential uses not currently described by PayPal
in their messaging surrounding the advancements. Estimote is one
company exploring this as a potential option; others may follow suit.
One thing is certain: should beacon technology become more
pervasive, the customer experience will change entirely. From initial
discovery of a particular product to purchase and post-purchase
experience, the entire relationship between customers, the companies
they buy from and the technologies they use will become part of one
seamless process that more effectively and easily delivers what
customers need. For that reason, retailers and shoppers across the
globe should prepare for potential adaptation. L
Krishna Mehra is the Co-founder and Americas Region President at Capillary
Technologies, where he drives the product vision and strategy for the company including
creating products that address the gaping void of insights-based customer engagement
in Retail.
Personalized messages sent to
customers approaching the store
Personalized messages sent to
customers leaving the store
Beacons throughout the store send information as well
as special offers related to products to customers
Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies have accepted
for many decades that the reality of the industry is that the
customers are interacting with intermediaries like digital
merchants and retail outlets, not directly with them. The
store gets to develop the relationship with the customer and
the CPG company has to bridge a bigger gap, targeting end-
users with broad strokes like TV commercials or billboards.
Its hard to develop a sophisticated targeted marketing
campaign or a customized loyalty offering, after all, when
all of the customer data is being generated by the customer-
store relationship, not the customer-product relationship.
Stores typically have little incentive to offer detailed information
about sales and other interactions to CPG brands they
naturally prefer consumers to be loyal to the store rather
than loyal to the product brand names sold within, especially
if the store offers their own branded products.
Ultimately, it can be tricky to make a connection when theres a
middle-man between you and your customer.
Not being able to easily connect has presented a number of challenges
for the CPG industry in particular.
One of the overarching challenges is related to product development
and promotion: a limited understanding of the customer can lead to
imperfect offers and imperfect promotions.
That limited understanding is typically achieved through market
research. CPG companies had to nd alternative ways to gain
insights about their target markets. Focus groups, surveys and
coupon campaigns are costly and are all in some way imperfect
(they provide limited data; they are based on small sample sizes;
they are often not very timely etc.).
Big Data has the potential to change all of this. By analyzing millions
and millions of social media comments, CPG companies are able
to identify who purchases and uses their products. They can also
determine the proles of those consumers: what are their hobbies,
what are their favourite TV shows, what initiatives resonate with
them and are important to them?
Its been said that social media networks are the ultimate focus group.
Its instant, uncensored customer feedback at a massive scale and
the ability to harvest this data and crunch it for analysis is providing
CPG companies with a level of insight that was unimaginable just a
few decades ago.
Not only is the customer feedback nally directly accessible, social
media and other digital communications provide channels through
which the CPG companies can speak directly to individual customers,
bypassing the store entirely. This allows them to nurture relationships
with end consumers well beyond hoping they see the billboard for
the new cereal on their commute to work. This opens the door to
actual relationship-building tactics that companies in other industries
have been using for years but have traditionally been unworkable for CPG.
Which leads me to the main question I want to pose:
Can investments in Big Data capabilities make direct customer loyalty
or CRM programs achievable for CPG companies?
Historically, the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry didnt
see much potential in traditional loyalty or CRM programs; because
the retailers selling their products were the ones interacting with the
end consumer, it was hard to reach out to, establish, and then nurture
relationships with individual buyers.
Traditionally, CPG brands have few options when it comes to impacting
purchase behavior in third-party retail environments, other than relying
on costly in-store displays to grab shoppers' attention. They also miss
out on direct access to purchase data, which makes it difcult to know
which marketing levers they can pull to get more of their brands into
the shopping basket at checkout. (Punchtab)
Both CPG executives and expert industry
observers have expressed skepticism in the
past that a traditional loyalty program is a
good t for CPG.
Consider the average loyalty program pays out
under 2% for every dollar you purchase, Jason
Dubroy, VP managing director, Shopper DDB
says. Someone buying a $5 box of cereal [will
get] less than $0.10 [from the] loyalty program.
People may eventually realize the effort for them
to enter 50 pins isnt worth the value of
the program. (Strategy Online)
Big Data Enables CPG
Miklos Tomka
InfoTrellis
RETAILER
Gain an In-Depth, Personal Connection with the End User
Its true that attempts at CPG loyalty programs in the past have proved
too high-friction for consumers to really engage much with them. That
isnt the case anymore. As social media moves from being just another
advertising platform to a being potential source of data and two-way
customer communication, giving CPG brands the direct access to
consumers that was once unattainable, industry leaders are considering
the possibilities for a shift in their attitude towards loyalty.
There is an unprecedented opportunity for CPG companies to begin building
deeper and more protable relationships directly with consumers. Whereas
loyalty programs were traditionally used by companies who owned the
point-of-sale, today CPG marketers are able to leverage loyalty and analytics
software to recognize & reward loyalty in an entirely new way. (Crowdtwist)
Again, social media and other sources of big data about the customer
offer the opportunity to avoid relying on the retailer, which has long
been regarded as one of the biggest road blocks to CPG customer
analytics at the level of the individual.
The move into the loyalty space would offer up CPG [companies] more
transactional data to deal with (cutting out the middle-man retailer, Dubroy
adds). Retailers traditionally can give CPG companies about as much info
as a bouncer [does] about who is at the party, Sarna says. Loyalty is much
more like being the socialite who can wander around, who knows everyone
and what theyre thinking. (Strategy Online)
The ability to nally isolate the individual and cater to them is an
exciting and relatively new opportunity for the CPG industry.
By being able to aggregate and attribute engagement, social activity and
spend back to individuals, loyalty programs offer CPG marketers the ability
to nally identify which of their efforts are most effective at stimulating
consumer behavior and converting people along their path-to-purchase.
(Crowdtwist)

One of the challenges with mobile is that it is such a personal device and
impersonal messaging, whether it is a push message, an ad, or an offer, it
doesnt matter what it is or who it is coming from, it is not well received,
John Caron, vice president of marketing for Catalina Marketing said, We
know to how to leverage historical purchases, data and analytics to be able
to identify and drive the right campaign in order to allow that to dene the
media that you see in app or mobile web on your smartphone."
(Mobile Marketer)
Indeed, the key word here is personalization for many of the emerging
use cases that combine Big Data, loyalty and the CPG industry. How
are they crafting the proles and personas that they use to customize
messages and offers for customers? The answer to this lies in linking
internal and transactional data with external and social data; once
a company has the power to match each real-life consumer to their
online identity, they unlock a wealth of data that allows them to treat
those individuals with a high degree of personalization.
By combining consumers' digital and social proles and behaviors with real
purchase data, CPGs have the ability to understand which online behaviors
increase awareness, trial, preference and overall buy rates, while optimiz-
ing marketing effectiveness by focusing on the channels that matter most.
(Punchtab)
What does personalization mean in terms of tangible steps a business
can take? Bazaarvoice proposes:
A brand can pre-sort reviews on product pages based on information gath-
ered on the visitor. For example, a college student may see reviews rst from
other consumers identied as students. As you learn more about a shopper
via purchase history, mobile app usage, online feedback, and the interest
graph, tailor experiences to that individual. Use dynamic display and mobile
ads to serve products the shopper is likely to enjoy alongside opinions from
people with similar needs and tastes. (Bazaarvoice)
CPG companies have already
started experimenting with
social and mobile targeted
personalization of advertising
and communications.
RETAILER
Social media and other sources of big data about the
customer offer the opportunity to avoid relying on the
retailer, which has long been regarded as one of the
biggest road blocks to CPG customer analytics at
the level of the individual.
Using customer data for the purposes of microsegmented marketing
messages is a well-documented use case, but only recently has the
data needed for this level of sophistication been accessible to the
CPG industry. Its a strategy that has been proving its ROI for a few
years already.
In a recent study involving more than 300 CPG brands and 80 companies,
Nielsen reported that CPG brands can experience a return of almost $3 in
incremental sales for every dollar spent on online advertising that has been
precisely delivered using purchase-based information. When you consider
the potential impact that better sources of data can have for an industry that
spends more than 25% of the global advertising budget, the implications are
astounding. (Crowdtwist)
Beyond just more targeted advertising, the introduction of a loyalty
or CRM program that works on the same principle of personalized
offers and intelligent audience engagement has the potential to drive
increased revenue beyond any one promotion or product.
CPG companies can develop umbrella loyalty programs across their entire
family of brands, rewarding consumers when they buy and engage with
any of the brands in the portfolio. These programs can be highly effective in
increasing trial, driving preference, and boosting cross-category purchase:
a recent PunchTab survey showed that 73 percent of moms would be
interested loyalty programs for a parent company, and 59 percent of moms
would buy other products from the parent company if doing so resulted in
more loyalty points -- with 46 percent indicating they would even switch
from a competitor's product. (Punchtab)
So whats the potential payoff for pioneering CPG companies that
launch loyalty programs using all this new customer data?
Approximately 50% of people who enroll in a CPG loyalty program remain
actively engaged with that brand on a monthly basis, and they interact with
the brand 2.5x more often than the brands average consumer. Members
who enroll in a CPG brands loyalty program are more likely to open branded
emails, and are more likely to clickthrough on emails that contain a call-to-
action. On average, our CPG client partners have experienced an increase
of 109% in email open rates and a 25% increase in click-throughs for their
program members. (Crowdtwist)
The opportunity is clear; Big Data technology, enabling companies to
gather social data and accurately match it to transactional data, may
be the missing piece that makes investing in a loyalty program feasible
and advantageous for companies operating in the Consumer Packaged
Goods industry.
I argue that loyalty for CPG companies has never been intuitive or a
perfect t in the past, but it is now. In some respects, the CPG industry
has the advantage of starting late as they have no legacy systems to
deal with, they have a clean slate. Companies investing in loyalty now
will be doing it with 20+ years of established best practices in one
pocket and the incredible technology available today in the other.
Perhaps even more importantly, companies can come at this with
fresh eyes and a willingness to think above and beyond how things
have always been done, because so few CPG companies have ever
done much in the loyalty or CRM space before. Creativity, cleverness,
and the ability to make full use of the tools and information available
is a potent combination.
CPG companies are in an interesting position to potentially go from
rarely bothering with loyalty to completely revolutionizing what can
be accomplished with a loyalty or CRM program in a very short span
of time.
Whether or not they will is another question entirely. L
Miklos Tomka is VP Strategy at InfoTrellis. His passion is using Big Data technology to
enable companies to better understand the individuals they serve with special focus on
companies who were traditionally unable to achieve a connection with the individual.
Approximately 50% of people who
enroll in a CPG loyalty program remain
actively engaged with that brand
on a monthly basis, and they interact
with the brand 2.5x more often than
the brands average consumer.
50%
Big Data continued...
A
n interface, as we in the user experience (UX) world typically
dene it, is: a device or program enabling a user to commu-
nicate with a computer. But the more practical denition with
regard to journey maps and personas is: a point where two systems,
subjects, organizations, etc., meet and interact.
As with any interface, we have to know the context of use and the
user base in order to determine if a journey map and/or persona is the
appropriate tool. If it is, we have to further understand the context of
use in order for the journey map or persona to be useful, usable and
desirable to its intended user base. This user base is more than likely
your customer base, but personas and journey maps can be used
just as effectively to better understand and serve the needs of your
employees or partners.
Personas typically provide user needs, goals, work processes, past
experience and other relevant pieces of information about the users.
Journey maps often augment personas and illustrate that personas
experience at various touch points and interactions.
Often, however, organizations create these without thinking of them
as interfaces. Theyre not a user interface (UI) in a software context,
but they are interfaces in that the designers, developers and other
project team members must leverage them to make decisions
from key decisions at a product strategy level (i.e., what is the best
technology to solve the problem? What features and functionality are
appropriate?), all the way down to the specics of the elds and user
ows of a given screen.
Just like with a software interface, journey maps and personas should
be informed by, tested with and even created with the users, and
integrated within the organization to ensure:
Theyre providing the right information and that the information
drives action
They can be integrated into the design and development work ow
They are easy to use, navigate and adopt
Theres a governance strategy for the personas and journey maps
Without this understanding, personas and journey maps can fall at,
just like an interface thats crafted without a holistic understanding of
the user. Going through the process of conducting the right research,
compiling the ndings and creating the actual journey maps and
personas can be time and cost-intensive. To put forth the effort of
creating these valuable artifacts and then have them just led away
somewhere is a signicant waste of resources.
At EffectiveUI, one of our clients, Scottrade, Inc., embarked on a
comprehensive ethnographic study, interviewing 36 people in their
own environments to uncover what trading and investing meant to
their lives overall, how Scottrade ts into this, the tools they use,
where they need guidance or help and how they feel along the way.
The outcome was an incredibly extensive and thorough journey
map and set of personas that have helped the company better
understand its clients and what they needed beyond what the
companys segmentation models provided. Scottrade is now actively
working to turn what they learned into action and tailoring its tools
around its audiences.
The important part of this example, however, is that through these
artifacts, the company was able to bring the customer stories to life
for the rest of the company through the personas and journey maps.
Scottrade has been successful in socializing the artifacts throughout
the organization, and has been able to use them to drive strategic
business decisions. Well be sharing this case study alongside
Scottrade during the Engagement & Experience Expo in November.
Just like a software interface should evolve to address the ever-
changing needs and environments of its users, customer journeys
and personas must also evolve based on the needs of the teams
that rely on the information within to make both design and
business decisions. L
Contextualizing Customer Insight:
Journey Maps and Personas as Interfaces
Julia Barrett
EffectiveUI
Personas and journey maps can be essential tools to help support the design and
development of a new digital project. As we create them though, its important to
remember that these tools have to serve a purpose beyond just the delivered
document. In an ideal situation, a persona or journey map should also be an interface.
As the director of customer insight at EfectiveUI, Julia Barrett identifes the best ways to
uncover the key insights to inform design and leads the team to execute on those methods.
HEAR MORE FROM EFFECTIVEUI AT THE 4TH ANNUAL 2014
ENGAGEMENT & EXPERIENCE EXPO!
We encourage you to join Gina Bhawalkar with Scottrade
and Lys Maitland with EffectiveUI as they present:
Scottrade and Understanding the Customer Journey:
When Segmentation Isnt Enough.
Loyalty is a nicky thing.
In the last few decades, the word loyalty has gone from representing
a strong feeling of support, allegiance, and even love, to being
synonymous with points programs and cards. Yet its the original
sentiment that is most important in the relationship between a
brand and its customers.
Curiously, many brands still rely primarily on points, discounts and
rebates as their primary means of inuencing customer behavior
even brands whose positioning is not focused on price or savings.
The challenge for most of these brands is that monetary incentives
are not sustainably differentiating. Brands should be wary of engaging
in the price and discount arms race because they cannot continue to
outspend their competition and expect to remain protable.
In light of this changing landscape, marketers today wonder (and
maybe even worry): Are my consumers loyal to my brand, or just to
my loyalty program? Are my customers emotionally loyal, or do they
purchase my brand out of habit and because of the discount? Does
loyalty (the program) really achieve loyalty (the sentiment)?
As part of our fourth annual national research study, The Loyalty
Report, we endeavored to help marketers answer these questions.
Our study revealed that 29% of Members would not be loyal to the
brand if it were not for the brands loyalty program.
What does this nding mean to marketers? Is 29% a high number, or
is it a low number? Should marketers be concerned that nearly 1/3 of
their customers are loyal to the brand only because of the program,
or should the interpretation be more positivethat the program is
achieving a desired outcome among nearly 30% of customers?
A brands marketing manager would likely be proud that the program
is inuencing the behavior of nearly 1/3 of all Members (as few
marketing initiatives can boast such inuential reach). The CMO
on the other hand might likely be concerned that such a signicant
portion of the brands customer base is only loyal to the brand
because of the programespecially for brands whose loyalty program
value proposition is anchored in discounts. Yet this is the price and
discount arms race that some brands could nd themselves in should
a more attractive offer be made available by a competitor.
We sought to reveal the extent to which love of a brand and love of a
program factor into brand loyalty. In general terms, 26% of Members
agree, I love the program and 29% agree, I love the brand.

The Love Matrix, the 2x2 matrix created by pivoting brand love and
program love, reveals some interesting insights related to brand loyalty
and hints at effective strategies for marketers.
There are a number of brands for which the percent of Members who
love the brand is higher than the percent of Members who love the
program (e.g., Hilton, Kroger). This is a result of either a strong brand
with an underperforming program, or a strong program that is driving
even higher brand love.

BEST PRACTICES
BRAND LOYALTY 29% OF CUSTOMERS AGREE,
I would not be loyal to the brand,
if it werent for the program.
Scott Robinson
Bond Brand Loyalty
26% 29%
...of Members
Love the program.
...of Members
Love the brand.
Program needs
brands support.
Program and brand
in sync.
Re-tool program to fix
whats broken about
the brand.
LOVE OF PROGRAM
The Love Matrix: Love of Brand vs. Program (Members Only)
L
O
V
E

O
F

B
R
A
N
D
Use program to build
brand loyalty.
LOVE OF PROGRAM
L
O
V
E

O
F

B
R
A
N
DProgram needs
brands support.
Use program to build
brand loyalty.
Nordstrom
Best Buy
Kroger
Safeway
Hertz
{
The Love Matrix: Loyalty to
the Brand, or (just) to the
Programs Discount?
Brands in the top left quadrant of The Love Matrix (low program love,
high brand love) need to ensure program Members get more of the
brands goodnessthe promises, perceptions, and truths that make
the brand so compellingas part of their program experience. In other
words, the program needs to do a better job of aligning with the brand.
Brand alignment, the proper relation of the program components and
experiences with the attributes embodied by the brand, is a sound
design approach. In fact, brand aligned programs deliver 3X higher
customer satisfaction, 6X higher likelihood to recommend, and 8X
higher propensity to purchase again.

Meanwhile, there are brands for which the percent of Members who
love the brand is lower than the percent who love the program (e.g.,
Best Buy, TGIFridays). What does this suggest: simply a stronger program,
and/or perhaps a weaker brand? Or, at the very least, a program that is
building only program love but not building brand love?
Brands in the bottom right quadrant of The Love Matrix (low brand
love, high program love) must do a better job of converting a Members
love of the program into a Members love for the brand.
Fostering program love is a logical pursuit for marketers; it is well
published that program loyalty is effective in achieving desired
business results for brands. However, program loyalty is short-term
thinking, especially for brands whose program value proposition is an
undifferentiating discount or monetary incentive.
Competing Brands Scenario
Consider the competitive dynamic between brands Kroger and
Safeway, both of which operate customer loyalty programs anchored
in discounts. Members in Krogers Fuel program receive discounts on
fuel purchases, in exchange for grocery purchases at Kroger. Similarly,
Safeways customers earn fuel discounts for grocery purchases
through the Rewards Points program. In The Loyalty Report 2014,
though Kroger earns a slightly higher program love rating than
Safeway, Kroger has established a signicantly higher brand love
score. As such, and though there are factors in the typical grocery
consumers purchase consideration set beyond the loyalty program,
Krogers higher brand love among Members serves as an effective
defense against any additional discounts offered by Safeway. Love for
the Kroger brand serves to protect its customers against defection to
competitor Safeway.
The higher order objective for brands is brand love, as brand love
is what cements Member loyalty to the brand, and is the ultimate
defense against competitive threats.
Yet this may all seem easier said than done. How can marketers succeed
in fostering higher brand love? A loyalty program alone cannot x a
broken brand, but it can help x what is broken about a brand. One
approach to achieving higher brand love that is gaining increasing
endorsement among loyalty marketers, is delivering a stronger
customer experience specically (and only) for program Members.
A Loyalty Program cant x a broken brand, but it
can help x whats broken about your brand.
The Loyalty Report reveals some interesting clues in support of
the efcacy of this approach: brand love strongly correlates with the
elements associated with strong customer experience. Members
who state high brand love also tend to state feeling delighted, feeling
special, feeling recognized, feeling inspired by, and condent with,
their brand experiences.

LOVE OF PROGRAM
BRAND ALIGNMENT
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE L
O
V
E

O
F

B
R
A
N
D
Loyalty Programs can galvanize brand love
...but must also transfer that equity into the brand.
{
Brand Love
1.00
Delighted Special/
Recognized
Inspired Confident
Brand Love correlates with
elements of Customer Experience
.60
.79
.69
.61
BEST PRACTICES
Scott Robinson leads Bond Brand Loyalty consulting & solutions discipline and is our
thought leader for consumer loyalty strategy engagements. His focus is enabling clients
with the best possible solutions for their specifc objectives and environments, and
ensuring Bond Brand Loyalty maintains market leadership in terms of loyalty and
CRM innovation, technique and approach.
The importance of customer experience is also underscored by
Forrester in their publication The Business Impact of Customer
Experience. Forrester asserts, As your customers become ever-more
empowered through always-on connectivity, a focus on customers
matters more than any other strategic imperative. Companies are
waking up to the fact that customers perceptions have a profound
impact on business metrics ranging from brand equity and customer
loyalty to increased revenue and cost savings. For businesses to
succeed, they need to get serious about the way they dene,
implement, and manage the customer experience.
Forresters report also concludes, Customer experience correlates to
loyalty [there is] a high correlation between customer experience
and consumers loyalty to a company. Firms with high Customer Expe-
rience Index (CXi) scores have more customers who purchase again,
dont switch to competitors, and recommend the company.
Loyalty marketers seeking to apply the principles of good customer
experience to their loyalty program may face contrarian points of view
regarding where and how to apply customer experience principles.
The traditional thinking is that customer experience benets should be
for all customers of a brand, not just for a select group of customers
(i.e., Loyalty Program Members). On the contrary, and especially for
brands with constrained resources, brands should be sure to get the
customer experience especially right for a few customers (i.e.,
Members), rather than getting it almost right for all customers.
So, back to the question, Are customers loyal to the brand or to
the program? The answer is, yes, to both, but it depends. Most
importantly, its time for brands to look beyond points to establish
deep, meaningful relationshipseven bondswith their customers, in
ways that are engaging, emotionally rich, and brand-aligned to deliver
exceptional customer experiences. Brand alignment is one key to
fostering greater program love, and customer experience is a powerful
approach to fostering higher brand love.
Key Takeaways for Marketers
1. Widely loved programs must ensure equity is transferred to
the brand.
2. Make sure bad programs dont do good brands harm.
3. Loyalty programs cant x a broken brand, but can help x whats
broken about the brand.
4. Customer Experience holds high potential as the gateway to
brand love.
So, whats love got to do with it? Everything. L
Customer experience is
the gateway to brand love.
{
The Love Matrix continued...
P
R
O
G
R
A
M
B
R
A
N
D
*SOURCE: THE 2014 BOND LOYALTY REPORT
of customers wouldnt be
loyal to your brand without
a loyalty program.
*
THAT COULD BE GOOD OR BAD,
DEPENDING ON WHETHER
YOURE A CMO OR A LOYALTY
PROGRAM OWNER.
29
%
CREATIVE SPECIFICATIONS
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be deleted from your systems and destroyed upon completon of this job order. You warrant and represent that you have secured the necessary licenses for the
use of Bond Brand Loyalty Licensed fonts in order to execute our job order and will abide by the terms thereof.
Bond Brand Loyalty | 6900 Maritz Drive, Mississauga, Ontario L5W 1L8
DV-SLUG1 | JUNE 2/14
Download the 2014 Loyalty Report at
bondbrandloyalty.com to learn more
or give us a call at 1 844 277 2663
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BUILDING THE CASE FOR AN INTEGRATED CX
LOYALTY PROGRAM
Traditionally, businesses tend to be product-centric, focusing on
promoting the value that specic products provide. However, in
this digital era, it is critical that companies take a customer-centric
approach and organize around customer needs. The Harvard Business
Review found that focusing business activities on a holistic customer
journey (as opposed to developing individual touchpoints separately)
is 30-40% more strongly correlated with customer satisfaction, and
20-30% more strongly correlated with business outcomes such as
revenue, repeat purchase, reduced customer churn and positive word
of mouth
5
- goals that are shared with loyalty programs. For many
companies, this customer-centric approach requires a drastic shift in
business strategy and an integrated approach to both CX and loyalty.
CX/Loyalty
Laurie Meek and Paul Conder
Lenati
As the battle for customers escalates, companies have turned to
traditional marketing tactics such as special offers and promotions
to lure customers away from the competition. However, acquiring
customers is only the rst step in a hopefully long and lucrative
relationship; the real challenge is not merely to acquire a customer,
but to sustain that relationship over their lifetime. Many companies
rely on their loyalty programs to drive this customer lifetime value,
as evidenced by a 27% increase in the number of US loyalty
programs from 2010 to 2012
1
. However, customers are ckle in
the loyalty arena as well. If a loyalty program isnt tailored to a
customers specic wants and needs, and achievement of benets
is not timely, customers quickly become inactive members. In
this day and age of erce competition, a loyalty program alone
is not enough.
Many companies are increasing their focus on customer experience
(CX) as a source of sustainable competitive advantage. Harvard
Business Review denes customer experience as the internal
and subjective response customers have to any direct or indirect
contact with a company
2
. At its core, CX is more than just a set of
singular touchpoints in a customer journey it is creating human
moments throughout the end-to-end experience. And this directly
impacts the bottom line as evidenced by a Forrester study, which
states that a better CX can deliver more than $1B in revenue growth
for large businesses
3
.
When properly executed, a positive
customer experience engages customers
on an emotional level, increasing their
behavioral and emotional loyalty.
CONNECTION
Loyalty Measure Potential Financial Benets
Willingness to repurchase has
a 0.71 correlation to CX, indicating
a strong likelihood for repeat
purchase when accompanied by a
strong customer experience.
Revenue benet ranges from
$39M in consumer electronics
manufacturers to a maximum of
$1.3B for wireless service providers.
Likelihood to switch to competitor
has a negative 0.42 correlation
to CX, indicating that customers
stay with their current company
when accompanied by a strong
Retained revenue (saved from
churn) ranges from $30M for
investment rms to a high of $1.7B
for wireless service providers.
Likelihood to recommend has a
0.64 correlation to CX, indicating
likelihood for positive word of
mouth when accompanied by a
strong customer experience.
Incremental sales ranges from
$2M for investment rms to
$176M for airlines.
According to Forresters report The Business Impact of Customer Experience, 2013, a
positive CX drives customer loyalty. The report reviews key loyalty measures, and calculates
correlated nancial benets as demonstrated in the table above
4
.
BEST PRACTICES
The
It has been proven time and again how valuable loyal customers are in
driving favorable business outcomes. For example, the present value of
an Amazon Prime lifetime customer is 149% higher than the value of a
non-Prime member. Starbucks attributes a 9% increase in same-store
sales for 2013 Quarter 3 to its loyalty program and mobile capabilities
6
.
However, if not developed around a holistic customer experience, loyalty
programs tend to fall at. Lenatis loyalty expert, Clay Walton-House,
states that Relying on traditional loyalty program tactics can result in
low engagement rates and a sub-par lift in retention
7
.To capture long-
term customer loyalty, the program must offer a seamless customer
experience, which manages the core product / service, brand touchpoints,
and the CRM / loyalty experience across the customer lifecycle.
HEAR MORE FROM LENATI AT THE 4TH ANNUAL
2014 ENGAGEMENT & EXPERIENCE EXPO!
We encourage you to join Alecia Craft with Starbucks and
Paul Conder with Lenati as they present:
Join Paul Conder as he presents an insightful workshop which
expands on points made in this printed article.
Through our combined work in CX and loyalty, we have uncovered three key steps
to achieving a holistic CX loyalty strategy.
Step 1: Align efforts around painpoints or opportunities in the customer journey; then
develop the strategy & roadmap. The rst step to achieving a holistic strategy
is to view the business from the customers perspective. Companies must
understand not only the specic touchpoints, but the holistic end-to-end
journey a customer follows. Additionally, companies must understand the
unique needs and wants of customers in order to tailor specic experiences.
Armed with data from CRM, Voice of the Customer, observational research,
sales stats and other sources, companies can formulate a CX strategy
around the customer aligned to their patterns and expectations - and the
companys brand.
Step 2: Operationalize the strategy. Bridging the gap between theory and practice is
critical. Developing the strategy is only half the battle. If a company fails
to develop a feasible and actionable plan, then the customer experience
will fall short. DHL provides a great example of a company that was able to
successfully operationalize their CX strategy, thereby increasing customer
loyalty and driving increased prot. DHL integrated formerly stand-alone
business units, and developed services and solutions unique to each industry
vertical to address specic customer concerns. Additionally, they created a
new portal, MyDHL, to facilitate the customer experience, which helps its
customers connect quickly and easily with international markets
8
. With this
strategy, they increased prot from operating activities in the rst half of 2013
by 7.8%
9
.
Step 3: Measure what matters. Finally, once the CX loyalty program is designed and
implemented, the results must be measured to monitor progress and help
continuously improve the program. This is a critically important step, as
measuring the incorrect factors can derail the business strategy. Metrics
should focus on the customer as the focal point, and should incorporate these
four components
10
:
Connected: Connection to the overall health of a business.
Actionable: Ability to control outcomes.
Predictive: Focused on measuring leading indicators.
Sustained: Leverage tools to keep these metrics front of mind for faster
identication and resolution of issues.
Following these steps, companies are able to connect with the customer in a
meaningful manner, and deliver tailored experiences. This sets them up to capture
long term customer loyalty, and optimizes their ability to reap nancial benets
from increased willingness to repurchase, reduced churn, and increased likelihood
to recommend.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
1. A loyalty program alone is not enough for a sustained market advantage.
2. A superior CX drives customer retention, which in turn increases ability to achieve
business objectives.
3. To develop a successful integrated CX loyalty program, companies must transform
their organization to be customer-centric. L
REFERENCES and FURTHER READING
1 Customer Loyalty Programs Stats, Facts and Tips
for 2014
Sally Burnett, Customer Insights Group
2 Understanding Customer Experience
Harvard Business Review, By Christopher Meyer
and Andrew Schwager.
February 2007.
3 Make the Business Case
Maxie Schmidt-Subramanian,
Forrester blog, 2014.
4 The Business Impact of Customer Experience
Maxie Schmidt-Subramanian
June 10, 2013.
5 The Truth About Customer Experience
Alex Rawson, Ewan Duncan, and Conor Jones
HBR, Sept. 2013.
6 Thanks to Loyalty Program and Mobile Capabilities
Starbucks Registers Record Q3
Jim Tierney, Loyalty360.org
August 13 2013.
7 Loyalty Program Design Methodology
Clay Walton-House, Lenati LLC
April 2014.
8 The Sales funnel is Dead
Ernan Roman, Ernan Roman Direct Marketing
September 17, 2013.
9 DHL Launches MyDHL to Enhance Customer Experience
Press Release, 07/04/2012
www.dhl.com/en/press/releases/
10 The Customer Experience Edge
By Reza Soudagar, Vinay Iyer and Volker G. Hildebrand
2012.
Laurie Meek is a highly driven professional with 7 years of experience in client service, including
marketing and communications, market research, data collection and analysis, process improvement and
business operations. Laurie has worked with clients spanning retail, federal health, acquisition, technology
and professional services.
Paul Conder leads the Customer Experience Practice at Lenati LLC, a Seattle-based Marketing and Sales
Consultancy. Paul has a twenty year track record leading multidisciplinary teams, bridging the felds of
experience design, interior design, product design and retail strategy.
Workshop
The CX Loyalty Connection
How Starbucks Builds a Better
Customer Experience - in the Cafe,
on your Phone and in your Car.
CHECK OUT THE EXPO SESSION HIGHLIGHTS
FOUND ON PAGE 64 FOR MORE INFORMATION
BEST PRACTICES
DONT SERVE STEAK TO A VEGETARIAN
Details are the key to any successful relationship. No friendship
would work if you only remembered things that had happened
during the current conversation. People form bonds over the course
of several activities: phone calls, text messages and emails. Likewise, organizations
need an omnichannel approach for capturing customer details.
A recent study by the Aberdeen Group found that fragmented views of customers
interactions and histories was the #3 ranked pressure facing organizations today.
Not only should you remember these details, but you should learn from previous
interactions to personalize the present conversation. If a friend mentions that they
are a vegetarian, an attentive host will be sure to include vegetarian options at the
next gathering. Organizations need to leverage contextual data from interactions
across all channels to create a personalized experience in the current interaction.
A utility company's contact center managers used its omnichannel customer service
system to provide a single view of the customer to agents handling calls. By making
this change, agents now save at least 30 seconds on 60 percent of inbound calls
where the customer is successfully matched.
Use Customer Experience Management
to Host the Best Party in Town
Kelly Koelliker
KANA, A Verint Company
The dynamics between buyers and sellers have
certainly changed over the years. Phrases like
efcient and cost-effective have been replaced with
delighting and building meaningful relationships.
Rather than just being seen as a vendor, organizations are
looking to become a trusted advisor, a partner, even
a friend.
So essentially, Customer Experience Management (CEM)
programs aim to position an organization as the host of
a great party, where their customers are cheerful guests.
When guests enjoy the party, not only will they attend
the next soiree, but theyll be sure to invite some friends.
These parallels are quite apt, and the following ve
tactics show how being a great party host can ensure
your CEM success, building meaningful relationships
with your customers.
ONE TWO
THREE FOUR
FIVE
LET YOUR GUESTS MINGLE
The host of a party can only do so much. The
success or failure of a party is ultimately determined
by the guests themselves. True brand advocates like to
feel like part of a community with shared experiences. By providing
an outlet for your customers to share reviews, feedback and other
comments, you can foster this community and let your customers
sell your product for you. According to a 2014 Bazaarvoice study, the
volume of reviews as well as the average rating correlate closely with
purchase conversions. Further, a full 84% of millennials surveyed say
consumer-written content has an impact on their purchase decision
i
.
CLEAN UP SPILLS
Mistakes happen. Drinks are spilled, products
are defective, service is disrupted. While you cant
always prevent things from going wrong, the speed and
manner in which you address the problem will leave an impact on your
customers. By handling issues with accuracy, efciency and empathy,
you can turn a negative experience into a positive one.
Moreover, the best party hosts will see the glass teetering near the
edge of the table, and move it before it falls. Try to leverage customer
analytics to understand your customer journeys and predict when help
is needed.
PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO VIPS
While youd like to engage with every single party
guest, it sometimes just isnt feasible. VIP guests,
those with the most inuence and impact on your
success will undoubtedly receive a signicant portion of your
attention. Likewise, it sometimes isnt cost effective to try to
establish deep, meaningful relationships with every single customer.
According to the Aberdeen Group, best-in-class companies segment
their customer base by protability, paying special attention to those
with most revenue potential.
Theres one other special group of people that cant be ignored by
party hosts or Fortune 500 companies. People who are particularly
dissatised can quickly ruin a party or a companys reputation. It is
critical for any CEM program to have a process in place to immedi-
ately identify cases of dissatisfaction and escalate them appropriately.
TAKE REQUESTS
How do you know if your guests prefer country
music or dance beats? Pigs in a blanket or artisanal
cheese? The best way to know what someone wants is
simple ask them! Organizations struggle to adapt to the changing
wants and needs of their customers. By listening to the Voice of the
Customer, both through unstructured channels as well as a formal
feedback program, you can quickly capture customer sentiment and
identify trends and emerging topics of interest. Innovation in line with
customer expectations is a critical element of maintaining long-term
customer relationships, as your customers will only keep coming back
to you if you continue to provide what they are looking for.
Putting together a great party isnt easy, especially if your guest list is
in the millions. But the results are worth it. By engaging with your
customers in a deeper, more meaningful way, your bottom line will
benet from increases in loyalty, retention, wallet share and referrals. L
Specializing in helping organizations create customer experiences that are complete,
consistent, contextual and in full support of marketing eforts, Kelly Koelliker is director
of Product Marketing for KANA, A Verint Company.
i Internet Retailer Top 25 Case Study and Social Trends Report 2013, Bazaarvoice, March 2014 and July 2013
ii Next-Generation Customer Experience Management, Omer Minkara and Aly Pinder, Aberdeen Group, March 2013
ONE TWO
THREE FOUR
FIVE
ONE TWO
THREE FOUR
FIVE
ONE TWO
THREE FOUR
FIVE
ONE TWO
THREE FOUR
FIVE
62% of Best-in-Class
companies segment
their customer base
by protability
ii
.
BEST PRACTICES
How Behavioral
Economics Leads
to Intimate
Brand Engagement
Christian Goy
Behavioral Science Lab
For example, Hollister, an American lifestyle brand created by
Abercrombie and Fitch, created an interactive destination for consumers
to use their voice to unlock a special promotion. They announced
the hashtag #InHollister to release the brands special deal for the day.
With these promotional products, Hollister successfully drove a more
than 600% increase in mentions, increased online sales by 45% from
the average day, drove more than 44% of the total sales volume and
sold 98% of their inventory through the life of the campaign
(Rickel, 2013).
When Porsche launched the Panamera, they were looking for a way
to connect with hardcore motorsport enthusiasts in the 2534 male
demographic. They decided the answer was gaming, and offered
Xbox LIVE members exclusive free content. Throughout their online
experience, consumers were urged to nd the free content and
visit the Porsche website. As a result, 75% of Xbox LIVE members
responded to the call to action, 39% visited the Porsche website,
and 19% (205,500 potential buyers) ended up at a nearby Porsche
dealerships (StarupFM).
Both Hollister and Porsches so-called engagement tactics seem to
have struck gold in their respective campaign initiatives. Many would
even argue that online and social engagement in this Participation
Age seem to be the holy grail in converting brand lurkers to brand
advocates, and nally to brand enthusiasts. But the question persists
did Hollister and Porsche actually create brand engagement or just
brand-related behavior?
In recent weeks, several studies have concluded that although the
Internet has given us an ocean of data, it turns out that most of it is
pretty useless, as Jordan Weissmann elucidates in his article We
Have No Idea If Online Ads Work. The reality is that marketers are
struggling to understand what drives true brand engagement.
There can be measurable brand-related behavior without actual
brand engagement, says Dr. Tim Gohmann, chief science ofcer
at the Behavioral Science Lab. He explains, Not every measurable
brand-related behavior is driven by true brand engagement.
Consumers are no longer just sitting back
receiving brand messages; they are leaning forward and actively engaging
with them. Brands have moved from noise operators to enticement factories. According to Google, in its latest study with AdAge, more
than 2 billion consumers go online regularly, thanks to exponential growth in connectivity and third-screen devices like smartphones and
tablets. In this Participation Age, consumers control if, when, where and how they engage with brands. But are they truly engaged?
As marketers, we need to understand that consumers are undoubtedly
complex creatures. And that in this age of the consumer, as David
M. Cooperstein, VP-Research Director at Forrester Research, phrases
it, The only sustainable competitive advantage is knowledge of and
engagement with customers.
Thats why understanding consumers brand engagement, from a
behavioral-economics point of view, becomes so important.
If we as marketers want to engage consumers and convert shoppers
to buyers, it is not only necessary to understand their online or social
behavior, we need to understand the full complexity of the consumers
requirements and brand experience. Brand engagement is that state
in which the brand delivers nearly perfectly against the buyers
expectations cognitive, social, physical, economic and environmental
thereby creating a lasting and strong afnity for the brand.
Consumers dont experience brands in isolation; everything they
encounter plays a role in their decision on whether or not to engage
with a brand over time. Take, for example, McDonalds and Starbucks.
Remember the rst time you encountered Starbucks, the corner store
you passed every morning for weeks, with your McDonalds coffee
in hand, as you walked to work? One morning, you decided to skip
your McDonalds coffee and walk into the glass-paned storefront.
The price, though an initial shock in comparison to your beloved
McDonalds coffee, didnt keep you from buying a hazelnut grande
latte, which after further inspection of the smell and taste, you actually
enjoyed as you moved on with your day.
The next morning, after getting off the subway, you debated, Should I
get Starbucks again? In your mind, youre going through the decision-
making process that takes into account the quality of the coffee
(Starbucks vs. McDonalds), the prices at the two outlets, the cost of
walking a few more blocks to get to Starbucks, the image of yourself
holding the branded coffee, the smell, the interior, etc. In the end,
you decide you will buy the expensive Starbucks for the second and
then third time, not for the price but for all the other elements that
captivated you and began the brand-engagement process.
What is happening here is that other elements, besides drinking
coffee, are playing their specic roles in deciding which product to
purchase. This example uses behavioral economics in hindsight. For
brands, however, it is critical to understand which elements will play
a roll in the consumers decision process. For Porsche, the online
campaign is as vital in engagement success as the conversation the
sales staff has with consumers in the store, how consumers experience
the features in the car, or how the car actually feels in the real world.
For Hollister, the moment of further engagement is when the newly
purchased blouse is removed from the dryer, worn several times and
then put in the closet as the owners favorite item, all because of the
social campaign that started with a hashtag.
Brand engagement doesnt occur with a single stimulus or simple
enticement tactic. It requires that every element of the behavioral-
economics decision process have a positive brand impact. Only then
can marketers expect true brand engagement. L
Christian Goy is a co-founder of the Behavior Science Lab, which utilizes highly
intuitive methods of consumer research to develop a greater understanding of human
decision processes.
There can be measurable brand-related behavior without actual brand
engagement, says Dr. Tim Gohmann, Chief Science Ofcer at the Behavioral
Science Lab. He explains, Not every measurable brand-related behavior is
driven by true brand engagement.
BEST PRACTICES
Great Customer Experiences
Syed Hasan
ResponseTek
S
tories of poor customer service, or even alleged poor customer
service as is the case in the KFC story, cause outrage and ill
will toward the offending company. KFC acted fast to rectify
the situation and restore good will, vowing to investigate the
incident (which eventually discredited the account), and pledging
$30,000 toward the girls medical costs (which was not affected
by the outcome of the investigation). This sum may be pocket
change for a large corporation, but other incidences of poor
customer service could prove nancially devastating to businesses
with smaller bank accounts.
Whether an organization is large or small, the key question each
should answer every day is whether the customers they interacted
with had a good experience. Few have adopted an all-inclusive
approach to customer experience data collection. This lack of
information forces companies to make decisions based on an
incomplete, and often misleading view of customer feedback.
Without the right information, companies could be accused of
neglecting their customers concerns or of feigning support without
any intention of following through with signicant action.
Organizations are beginning to recognize that assuming everyone is
happy until a customer complains is not an effective business model.
Businesses now have the ability and technology to proactively ask for
feedback immediately following an interaction, which will provide real-
time, accurate information. Companies need to start providing real,
end-to-end customer service.
Organizations can ensure that they are providing the service-oriented
experiences that customers expect by employing a comprehensive
approach to Customer Experience Management (CEM).
The success of a holistic CEM program requires signicant organiza-
tional commitment, investment in a CEM platform and overcoming
several challenging barriers, the most important being:
Tailoring insights to be relevant for job roles
Effectively driving improvements using customer experience data
Timely distribution of customer feedback
Identifying the benets of a CEM program
Customer Experience Management Pays Off
CEM programs are often considered a cost center, which makes
management reluctant to invest in them. The bottom line, however,
is that establishing a customer-centric organization that can listen
and quickly react to customer concerns will boost a business image
and reputation. In addition, by improving its services in areas where
customers are dissatised, businesses can reduce churn, increase cus-
tomer retention and improve revenue. For example, a major European
telecom implemented call center improvements driven by a CEM pro-
gram, which resulted in a three percent churn reduction with a newly
implemented callback process.
CEM Information For All Levels
Employees at all levels of an organization need to be able to answer:
Did my customer have a good experience today? Therefore, the
customers voice must be heard across the entire organization.
Even so, it is important to remember, the information relevant for
the executive team wont necessarily be the same as whats relevant
to your frontline employees.
For frontline employees, granular data delivered on a daily or weekly
basis will result in immediately actionable information. Managers will
gain valuable insight into their teams scorecards and will be able to
use specic examples and verbatim comments to pinpoint key areas
to target for training and coaching, as well as to reward high achiev-
ers. And the executive team will be most interested in high-level
aggregates of information and average scores that focus on specic
timeframes and regions.
The benets of creating a transparent environment, one in which
store manager and sales reps are empowered to drive change, can be
signicant. The diagram on page 57 highlights the difference in the
sales reps customer experience scores provided by customers who
have purchased a handset (sample size ~1,000,000 surveys for the
time period indicated) in an integrated telecoms retail store.
Surveys are completed within 24-48 hours of purchase. The sample
looks at two timeframes - Q1 2011 and Q4 2011. The improvements
across the year demonstrate the huge inuence a CEM program can
have on the customer experience when the information is not only dis-
seminated to the front lines, but where the organization is supporting
the program effectively.
Four Hurdles to
The recent public relations debacle that KFC experienced provides a painful example
of just how important customer service can be. A story surfaced that an employee
asked a three-year-old girl and her grandmother to leave the restaurant because the
girls facial wounds sustained by a dog attack were disturbing other diners.
Though the story was later called a hoax after investigations by KFC indicated no
employee had approached the girl or her grandmother, the public relations damage
was already done. In our socially networked world, word of this incident spread
quickly and eventually made national morning news program headlines.
Disseminating Data In A Timely Manner
Once upon a time, companies had no access to current data; they
had to wait for months to view customer satisfaction information, at
which point it was obsolete. Getting the right information to the right
person at the right time is a key hurdle for organizations to overcome.
The timeliness of this information is imperative to immediately target
operational areas for customer experience improvements. However,
as previously discussed, the format may vary based on the employees
role.
The appropriate people will get the customer insights they need in
a timely manner by using a CEM platform that can automate the
distribution of data and allow the conguration of alerts. Negative
survey responses can be agged for immediate attention, automati-
cally notifying the appropriate manager. Dashboards to higher-level
executives can identify business areas that are showing improvement
or need additional support.
The following case study illustrates how essential the timely distribution
of data is. It looks at the impact that resolving issues quickly can have
on the individual customers willingness to recommend a service, as
seen by a top North American airline. Each customer in the below
sample provided feedback about their experience that classied them
as a detractor (rating 0-6 of 11 points) on the NPS (net promoter
score) scale. Each customer within the sample was called back by the
organization within 48 hours of completing his or her survey. Following
the call-back, the customer was surveyed again to ask about their
willingness to recommend.
The table on the left indicates the customers original rating and the
chart on the right showcases their rating after having their issue
responded to by the organization.
Satisfaction Scores for Sales Reps
(Q1 2011 v. Q4 2011)
0 35%
11%
11%
10%
7%
18%
% of Volume
8%
0%
0%
0%
0%
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
0 22%
5%
5%
5%
4%
6%
6%
12%
% of Volume
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
10%
11%
13%
Initial customer NPS rating
(isolation of detractors)
Same customer set, between 24 and 48 hours
later, after response provided by organisation
The impact resulted in a decrease of truly at risk customers (rating of 0-3) from
67 percent of the sample to 37 percent in a 48-hour period.
300
250
200
150
100
50
50% 55% 60% 65% 70% 75% 80% 85% 90% 95% 100%
0
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

S
a
l
e
s

R
e
p
s
Experience Score
Below 80%
Q1: 15.9%
Q4: 3.4%
Above 90%
Q1: 30.0%
Q4: 67.6%
Q4 2011 Q1 2011
58 Loyalty Management LOYALTY360.ORG 58 Loyalty Management LOYALTY360.ORG
BEST PRACTICES
Syed Hasan is president and CEO, ResponseTek. Syed is a proven
leader with a wealth of experience in managing success.
Making Good Use of Customer Experience Information
Suppose that objections have been overcome and a CEM program has been
adopted and working hard to gather and report on customer data. Now what?
The next step is deciding what to do with this information and how to turn it
into actionable intelligence.
Looking Onward
There are four primary hurdles that companies must
clear in order to adopt a holistic CEM solution:
First, the organization must grasp the benets of
a CEM program in order to fully commit to the
program and deliver top service and quality to
its customers.
Second, everyone from executives to frontline
employees need information that is relevant to their
needs so that they can improve their service and,
therefore, their customers experiences.
Third, using a platform that can provide automation
and precongured alerts, customer experience
information must be distributed in a timely and
relevant fashion.
Fourth, the organization needs to understand how to
leverage customer experience information and how
to act on it.
Companies can no longer consider customer
experience management as an afterthought. In this
increasingly connected and social world, one negative
customer experience can cause serious damage to
the bottom line. When considering a CEM program, it
is important to understand the key hurdles described
above, and how to overcome them in order to deliver
the best possible customer experience. L
1. Find Room for Improvement
Review satisfaction levels to determine in what areas your customers are unsatised.
Observing the customer experience and satisfaction scores across various solutions,
such as Purchase Experience, Contact Center Experience or Online Channel Experi-
ence, and then drill down further to see details on those various experiences to get an
idea of which metrics are most important for your organization to improve on.
2. Determine Which Metrics Are Key Drivers
Once youve found room for improvement, determine what impact these factors will
have on key drivers. To nd this, conduct correlation analysis to see which metrics
have an impact on customers. From that point, it should become clear where to focus
your improvement strategies.
3. Institute Specic Training As Needed
It is important to identify any signicant outliers within your CEM reporting in order
to ensure consistent delivery of your CEM solution. These areas can be efciently
targeted through micro-training specic employees to improve areas of low scoring.
Satisfaction
Levels
Identify which
metrics have
room for
improvement
86%
34%
71%
25%
Impact on
Key Drivers
Conduct Correlation
analysis to see
which metrics
impact customers
Coinsistency
of Delivery
High standard
deviations
have outliers
that can
be effectively
targeted
Satisfaction
Levels
Identify which
metrics have
room for
improvement
86%
34%
71%
25%
Impact on
Key Drivers
Conduct Correlation
analysis to see
which metrics
impact customers
Coinsistency
of Delivery
High standard
deviations
have outliers
that can
be effectively
targeted
Satisfaction
Levels
Identify which
metrics have
room for
improvement
86%
34%
71%
25%
Impact on
Key Drivers
Conduct Correlation
analysis to see
which metrics
impact customers
Coinsistency
of Delivery
High standard
deviations
have outliers
that can
be effectively
targeted
Four Hurdles to Great Customer Experiences continued...
Companies can no longer consider
customer experience management
as an afterthought.
e
www.rymaxinc.com/L360 1.866.879.2581
Copyright 2014 Rymax Marketing Services, Inc. All rights reserved.
Incentive Solutions Delivered. Worldwide.
Rymax Marketing Services industry leading partnership with 300
aspirational brands, knowledge of current market trends and proven
demographic and segmentation strategies gives you the tools to quickly
grow your business relationships. We deliver personalized experiences
that will grow employee loyalty and convert customers to advocates.
These and thousands of other brand name rewards are available exclusively through Rymax:
Loyalty is metamorphosing into the platform to drive customer
engagement. A well designed loyalty platform connects in real-time
across all customer touchpoints and leverages rules-based decisions
to target content in order to optimize the customer experience.
These platforms also have strong data management inherent in their
design to support Master Data Management (MDM) as well as
Consumer Data Integration (CDI). Combined, these features deliver
a robust marketing infrastructure to enrich the consumer experience
for members as well as non-members. This structure also enables
identifying, engaging and listening to learn more about the customers
perception and support for the brand. Now, we can more easily identify
brand loyalists and more importantly, brand advocates.
Advocates are loyalists willing to speak up about the brands they
love. Brand advocates can help combat and subdue any negative chatter
that might be circulating. While marketers may be paying more
attention to them now, advocates arent a new phenomenon. Around
2005, Best Buy added a discussion board to the RewardZone
portal.
Executives were a little apprehensive about potential negative posts
to the board. A group of Blue Shirts were trained to intervene when
the chatter turned negative. It turned out the Blue Shirts were rarely,
if ever, needed. Best Buys advocates moderated the discussions,
provided information and more often than not, addressed any
complaint or issue brought up in a chat.
More recently, Kraft operated the First Taste
program in Canada with

a different approach. First Taste allows consumers to register at Krafts
website to receive a sample pack of products, recipes and coupons.
First Taste had a successful track record, although the program
started to lose its luster. Sample kit orders were declining and Kraft
had to send reminders over several weeks before the inventory of
the promotional kits were gone.
A new plan, leveraging Krafts advocates was developed to focus
on getting the advocates engaged in the program, giving them the
opportunity to spread the word. The result? The inventory of kits
was gone in four days and Kraft invested less in marketing campaigns
just to get kit orders.
In a research effort conducted by Wylei Research, on behalf of Epsilon,
it was determined that peer-to-peer conversations are a highly-trusted
method of product marketing, as customers rarely question the validity
of a friend or family members recommendation. Consumers nd that
personal endorsements from brand advocates are reliable because
they are usually devoid of prot-driven biases that plague most other
marketing channels. Best Buy and Kraft are strong examples of what
the power of brand advocates can achieve.
Think about your loyalty infrastructure and its potential to drive
advocacy beyond loyalty. Get your loyalists talking and transform
them into highly-vocal brand advocates. Give followers the
opportunity to speak-up about your products and services. Launch
your advocates like a marketing campaign, because they are one of the
most highly-trusted (and free!) methods of advertising.
EPSILONS POINT OF VIEW IN DEFINING LOYALIST AND
BRAND ADVOCATE:
Epsilon denes a loyalist as a consumer who stays true to a brand in
spite of economic conditions and trending competitors. The emotional
bond between the consumer and brand stays strong and improves
over the lifetime of the relationship, through consistent reciprocal
communication and positive experiences with the brand, products
and/or services it offers.
Epsilon denes a brand advocate as a consumer who has transitioned
from a loyalist into a spokesperson for the brand. An advocate
communicates the value proposition of the brands product or
service through conversations, email, blog posts and comments/
reviews on web portals as well as via social channels. The advocate
shares his/her positive opinions which naturally helps to lter
and manage the feedback loop from consumers, both positive and
negative feedback. L
BEST PRACTICES
John Bartold
Loyalty Solutions, Epsilon
With over 20 years of loyalty experience, John has a deep understanding of the loyalty
marketing arena. He specializes in developing marketing initiatives to build
relationships and alter customer behavior to achieve increased proftability and reduced
churn. He serves as a faculty member for the Loyalty Marketing Workshop ofered by the
DMA and is a contributing editor to COLLOQUY, a magazine and website that
reports on loyalty-marketing programs across all industries around the globe.
HEAR MORE FROM EPSILON AT THE 4TH ANNUAL 2014
ENGAGEMENT & EXPERIENCE EXPO!
We encourage you to join Andrew Frawley with Epsilon
and author of Igniting Customer Connections: Fire Up Your
Companys Growth By Multiplying Customer Experience
& Engagement as he presents: Multiplying the Power of
Experience and Engagement.
Loyalty Powers
Consumer
Advocacy
November 10-12 | Renaissance Dallas Hotel | Dallas, Texas
2 0
1 4
starbucks
scottrade at&t
express
ruum
the fall show to attend in 2014

Hear from these brands and more as they share their success stories
about optimizing the customer experience at all touch-points and
increasing the impact of engagement throughout the customer lifecycle.
registernow!
engagementexpo.com
Loyaltyreads
LOYALTY FORUM: LOYALTY READS
The Power of Service: Service Through the Eyes of Customers
J.E. Karp
Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce | January, 2014
The Digital Marketer: Ten New Skills You Must Learn to Stay
Relevant and Customer-Centric
Larry Weber and Lisa Leslie Henderson
Wiley | April, 2014
J. E. Karp, the author of the original
McDonalds HandsOn Business
Training Program has done it again!
Embedded within the original
McDonalds training program Karp
developed the concept of promote
from within - this time, through an
engaging storyline, she moves to a
whole new level getting to the core of
what it takes to build successful
personal and professional relationships.
This time Karp deals with the power of developing relationships and how
a simple transaction in a store, or a multi-million dollar deal, hinges on the
trust developed in the relationships developed between the people
involved regardless of the interaction. Whether we are dealing with
friends, lovers, clients or family, we have to be conscious of the relation-
ship and keep working on it. For example, Chapter 20 begins with a quote
from Dr. Maya Angelou, Ive learned, the quote begins, that people
will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will
never forget how you made them feel.
Karps genius helps us understand the ins and outs of developing
personal and business relationships and how our success is dependent
on those relationships.
Digital marketing guru Larry Weber and
business writer and consultant Lisa
Leslie Henderson explain the latest
digital tools and trends used in todays
marketing initiatives.
The Digital Marketer explains:
The ins and outs of this brave new
world of digital marketing
The specic techniques needed to achieve high customer engagement
The modern innovations that help you outperform the competition
The best targeting and positioning practices for todays digital era
How customer insights derived from big and small data and analytics,
combined with software, design, and creativity can create the
customer experience differential
With the authors decades of combined experience lling its pages, The
Digital Marketer gives every marketer the tools they need to reinvent their
marketing function and business practices. It helps businesses learn to
adapt to a customer-centric era and teaches specic techniques for
engaging customers effectively through technology. The book is an
essential read for businesses of all sizes wanting to learn how to engage
with customers in meaningful, protable, and mutually benecial ways.
The Customer Experience Revolution: How Companies Like Apple, Amazon,
and Starbucks Have Changed Business Forever
Jeofrey Bean and Sean Van Tyne
Raphel Marketing | December, 2011
The customer experience revolution has begun!
Businesses that provide an extraordinary customer
experience are more protable and longer lasting
than competitors.
In their book, The Customer Experience Revolution: How
Companies like Apple, Amazon, and Starbucks Have
Changed Business Forever, authors Jeofrey Bean
and Sean Van Tyne uncover valuable insights about
leadership and decision-making at large and small
Experience Makers, where focus surpasses
products, services, and price toward purpose-built
Customer experience goes beyond marketing, customer
service, customer satisfaction, and product development.
We know from the data that people will pay for it, says
Gary Tucker of J.D. Power and Associates.
The key elements of customer experience are captured
through engaging interviews with the business leaders.
The book shows how Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz
spearheaded a customer experience strategy using social
media to build customer loyalty. Learn more about the
leadership qualities of Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey of Twitter
and Square, Jeff Bezos and more.
The authors found twelve essential leadership qualities
common to the best in total customer experience
management. The Customer Experience Revolution
shows why every business needs to make customer
experience an integral part of its business strategy.
Hooked On Customers: The Five Habits of Legendary Customer-Centric Companies
Robert G. Thompson
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform | April, 2014
Talk is cheap. A clich, perhaps, but the
idea that what we do is more important
than what we say is a fundamental truth. It
applies in our personal lives and can extend
into our professional work, too. Learning to
let your actions do the talking can be revolu-
tionary to a company that struggles to
create enduring customer relationships.
Hooked on Customers is an insightful, highly
informative book that propels businesses into action. It explores successful
customer-centric businesses, examines the ways they execute their strate-
gies, and provides practical recommendations for business leaders to more
effectively outperform their competition.
Combining his own professional experiences working as a CEO with his
extensive research and expertise as an international authority on customer-
centricity, author Robert Thompson has identied the ve routine organi-
zational habits successful customer-centric businesses use when execut-
ing strategy. Legendary leading customer-centric businesses:
LISTEN to their customers values and feedback.
THINK about the implications of fact-based decisions on customers
EMPOWER employees with the freedom they need to please customers
CREATE new value for customers, without being asked
DELIGHT customers by exceeding their expectations
Crucial to Thompsons discussion of these habits is the premise that there
are no quick xes. Customer-centricity takes time, determination, and
company-wide commitment. It must be maintained and constantly
pursued to ensure that it becomes part of the fabric of a business.
In the end, the results are well worth it. Hooked on Customers helps leaders
understand, adopt, and implement the ve crucial habits that enable
companies to not only survive in highly competitive, overcrowded markets
but to dominate them, creating a legacy of success and inspiration along
the way.
Velocity Selling: How to Attract, Engage and Empower Buyers to Buy
Bob Urichuck, Foreward by Brian S Tracy
Morgan James Publishing | May, 2014
Build for Change: Revolutionizing Customer Engagement through Continuous Digital Innovation
Alan Treer
Wiley | June, 2014
Todays economy has yielded a new kind of buyer, one that
is fully aware of the sales ploys of oldone who can buy
whenever they want and without a salesperson confront-
ing them and taking up their valuable time.
To regain control and succeed in sales today, salespeople
need to do the opposite of selling. They need to facilitate
the buying process by attracting, engaging and empower-
ing buyers to buy (from them), the premise of Velocity
Selling: How to Attract, Engage & Empower Buyers to Buy.
The focus is placed on the buyers needs, desires and
budgets, uncovered by applying the fundamentals of
communications and human interaction, then qualied to
determine if there is an opportunity for the salesperson to
do business or not.
Velocity Selling reveals the A, B, C, and D of becoming
buyer-focused, with a step-by-step process to build stronger
relationships based on trust:
Attitude: belief in yourself, your organization and the buyer
Behavior: effective habits toward yourself, your
organization, and the buyer
Competencies: a systematic approach to engaging and
empower buyers to buy, if they are qualied
Disciplines: practices that need to be maintained for
continuous success
The non-traditional buyer-focused system builds stronger
buyer relationships, faster sales cycles, higher margins
and improved closing ratios, more satised customers and
more referrals.
Is your company prepared for the Gen D future, or is it
heading toward life support? A lot of companies across
the globe are going to die over the next few years, not
because of macroeconomic stress, but because there is
an emerging generation that is radically changing the
rules of customer engagement. In Build For Change,
Pegasystems CEO Alan Treer shows exactly what
companies can do to turn the coming customerpocalypse
into one of the biggest business opportunities of the
decade. The newest generation of consumers is turning
customer relationship management on its head. Build
For Change highlights the revolutionary changes to
business, marketing, and technology practices that are
needed to survive and thrive in these unforgiving times.
Readers will learn how businesses are increasingly rely-
ing on new forms of customer engagement, and
how one customers experiencewhether good or bad
can alter a companys reputation with the click of a
mouse. With practical insight from a leader in customer
engagement, this book serves as a timely wakeup call to
companies that have not yet embraced the digital future.
Consumers have more options than ever before,
and ensuring customer loyalty in the modern market
means knowing exactly what the customer wants
and how to deliver it brilliantly. Build For Change
provides actionable guidance for engaging this new
connected consumer.
2 0
1 4
Alecia Craft, Starbucks Director, Innovation, Testing and
Drive Thru for Global Operations - and Paul Conder,
Principal and Customer Experience lead at Lenati LLC -
will discuss how to create a holistic customer experience
in all aspects of your business; connecting creative,
customer insights, analytics, measurement and testing
with sales results. In an interactive and visually dynamic
seminar, Alecia and Paul will draw on four years of learn-
ings. They will pull back the curtain on how Starbucks
approaches Customer Experience, and share actionable
tactics you can employ today to build a better connection
with your customers - including:
How to use big data visualization techniques to nd
customer patterns.
How to combine customer insights with sales and
performance data to guide the design of an improved
customer journey.
Cost-effective methods of prototyping customer
experience concepts.
Predicting nancial impact of a customer experience
initiative.
The connections between CX strategy and Customer Loyalty.
Is the realization of omnichannel customers keeping you up at night? Jim Kaniaris, VP of Customer Experience at
fashion retail icon Express, knows how youre feeling. During this deep-dive conversation led by Lonnie Mayne,
President of InMomment, learn how Jim and Express are approaching this new customer, developing an omni-channel
strategy, and how Express is keeping these critical customers engaged across every touchpoint. This discussion
will also address:
Balancing innovation with customer needs and wants
Clearly recognize customer pain points
How much personalization do your customers want?
Millennials - know your customer base. Do you need a primary customer?
Ease of engaging and transacting with your business - it cant just be about convenience
Getting aspirational customer inputs and checking for customer reactions
Dening a customer journey
speakers:
Alecia Craft
Director, Innovation,Testing
and Drive Thru
for Global Operations
Starbucks
Paul Conder,
Principal, Customer
Experience Practice
Lenati LLC
Jim Kaniaris,
VP of Customer Experience
Express
Lonnie Mayne
President
InMomment
Christa Berry
Director, Brand & Marketing
United Way
Christian Goy
Co-Founder & Managing Director
The Behavioral Science Lab
How Starbucks Builds a Better Customer Experience - in the Cafe, on your Phone and in your Car
Express on the Role of Customers in Omnichannel Strategy
Brand engagement doesnt happen from a single stimulus
or simple engagement tactic. In order to create intimate
brand satisfaction, every element a customer experiences
needs to generate a positive, lasting experience. But
what if you dont know those experiences? What if you
dont know what each individual consumer needs from
you, as a brand, to feel a strong afliation? This session
will elucidate how understanding a consumers brand
engagement, from a behavioral economics point of
view, becomes so important.
Christian Goy, Co-Founder & Managing Director of The
Behavioral Science Lab, and Christa Berry, Director,
Brand & Marketing for United Way for Greater Austin,
will walk through how a behavioral economics tool
combining deep and big data was used to help United
Way solve their lack of understanding why and how
people engage with them. The end result was a better
understanding of what really inuences the decision
processes used by donors so that prospective donors
could be effectively engaged and persuaded to give to
this charity.
Key takeaways/objectives:
Applying behavioral economics principles leads to better
brand engagement
Understanding consumers decision process creates
stronger messaging and product offering
Applying choice architecture can help transform brand
lurkers to brand enthusiasts
Increasing Brand Engagement Through Behavioral Economics
Session Preview | 2014
By nature, Scottrade, Inc., a leading investing services
rm clearly focused on numbers, had ample data and
information on its clients from a UX and marketing
research standpoint. As the company worked to
enhance its strategic vision for client experience and
add new services and solutions, company leaders knew
they needed to not only bring all of their customer
research together, but also ll in some gaps to gain a
deeper understanding and get a full picture of its
audience both current clients and potential clients
they are looking to attract. Working in close collaboration
with user experience agency EffectiveUI, Scottrade
embarked on a comprehensive ethnographic study,
interviewing 36 people in their own environments to
uncover what trading and investing meant to their lives
overall, how Scottrade ts into this, the tools they use,
where they need guidance or help and how they feel
along the way.
Scottrade came away with a better understanding of
its clients and what they needed beyond what the
companys segmentation models provided. Scottrade
is now actively working to turn what they learned into
action and tailoring its tools around its audiences.
This session will provide the following tips to customer
experience professionals who also want to really know
their customers:
How to start the process of embarking on a large research
project, including how to make sure stakeholders are
on board
How to combine ethnographic research with quantitative
research for the best understanding
How to bring participant stories from the research to life for
team members who were not involved in the interviews
How to effectively socialize personas and journey maps
throughout an organization
Using personas and journey maps to drive actual business
decisions and initiatives
Taking the next step in monitoring and addressing the
customer pain points uncovered in the journey
mapping process
Gina Bhawalkar
Assistant Vice President, User
Experience & Accessibility
Scottrade
Lys Maitland
Senior User Experience Designer
EffectiveUI
Scottrade and Understanding the Customer Journey: When Segmentation Isnt Enough
Most every organization understands how important
it is to be customer centric. But actually embedding
the customer experience into the fabric of an
organization, ensuring that is a priority and driving
force, is another story.
Learn how to set the stage for your organization to
become more customer centric with a presentation by
Diane Magers, who can share both her experiences at
AT&T as well as her wealth of knowledge gained from
nearly 30 years in customer experience.
Magers will share insights on creating the customer
centered mind shift including:
Communication and Engagement
Customer Conversational Intelligence
Insights & Action planning
Aligning executive, mid-level management and
working teams
Making measure and metrics really work
Diane Magers
Customer Experience Executive
AT&T
How to Enable Change in Customer (and Associate) Centricity
Engagement & Experience 2014 SPONSORS & EXHIBITORS
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Brad Marg
COO
Clutch
The key to customer engagement is treating every
customer as a VIP and motivating them through
targeted messaging, preferred services and rewards
to eventually become a true VIP. After purchasing
the 77 Kids brand from American Eagle Outtters and
forming Ruum American Kids Wear, the founder of The
Childrens Place was challenged to establish a unique
brand in the high-fashion, high-value market for kids.
The team at Ruum realized growing the new business,
and becoming a high-value brand, would best be
accomplished by creating a fully engaged group of
brand evangelists. A loyalty program was designed to
make customers feel as if they were a VIP through
messaging and rewards during each and every visit.
The program analytics showed that a consumer
becomes a lifetime customer after their fourth visit.
In response to those ndings, the continual rewards
program was paired with targeted messaging programs
aimed at incentivizing three-time customers to return
for a fourth visit.
In this session, Brad Marg, will share how to implement an
engagement program that:
Effectively enrolls customers to drive 70% of purchases
being made by members
Motivates members with benets to make up 90% of
all revenues
Creates brand advocates out of members and end
consumers kids in Ruums case
Attendees will come away with a better understanding of
how to use loyalty programs as a platform for driving
consumer behavior and engaging top customers.
Workshop
The Importance of Engaging Your Most Loyal Customers
Andrew Frawley | President
Epsilon
The combination of experience and engagement is not a 1+1 proposition. The elements of experience and
engagement multiply exponentially - in a way that's more transformational than incremental. So how can
brands connect how consumers feel (their experience) and what they do (their engagement) to drive
loyalty? During this session, Andrew Frawley, President of Epsilon and author of Igniting Customer
Connections (in stores on October 27, 2014), will provide actionable business ideas and share examples
of how modern brands are rising to the challenge.
Igniting Customer Connections: Fire Up Your Companys Growth
By Multiplying Customer Experience & Engagement
Andrew Frawley
Wiley; 1 edition | October 27, 2014
A new data-driven approach to building customer relationships that fuel sustainable
business growth
Igniting Customer Connections explores how organizations of all sizes can build powerful
and protable customer relationships in a today's increasingly complex, fast-paced, and
fragmented marketplace. Written by the president of one of the world's largest marketing
rms, the book provides expert insights about connecting with customers effectively
across all channels and over time. The central premise is a refreshingly different, evidence-
based approach called Return On Experience and Engagement, or ROE2, which delivers a
new way to inspire and measure customer connectionsand improve business results.
Showcase Session
Multiplying the Power of Experience and Engagement
Paul Conder
Principal, Customer Experience
Practice
Lenati LLC
In the elds of Customer Experience and Loyalty,
professionals often express the value they bring a
team in terms of customer engagement over time.
Both disciplines aim to develop a deep, long-term
relationship with the customer and in turn increase
overall spend. Both areas of study rely on customer
research, segmentation, analytics and a deep
understanding of the customers patterns, preferences
and overall journey across physical and digital channels.
Paul Conder, Lenatis Customer Experience Lead, argues
that its time to build a bridge between CX and Loyalty.
In this workshop session, Paul will guide participants
through examples from Lenatis CX and Loyalty
practices to explore how these two elds overlap
and how they can work together to foster a more
meaningful and protable relationship with the
customer.
In this session, participants will learn:
How to leverage cross-channel customer insights to build
a more complete view of customer patterns, journey
and lifecycle.
How to frame up both customer engagement and customer
journey models to act as the basis for an integrated CX
Loyalty strategy.
How to measure the impacts of an integrated CX Loyalty
program, and use those metrics to inform future initiatives.
Through this deep-dive session, attendees will leave with
a better understanding of how to create a more meaningful,
lasting and relevant customer experience, and how that can
deliver long-term impact to a companys bottom line.
Workshop
The CX Loyalty Connection
Customer Experience is more than just a buzz word
- its a critical leg of the journey to customer loyalty.
Brands are grappling to understand the new technolo-
gies and proper frameworks that should be utilized to
enhance the customer experience in a way that leads
to customer loyalty and nancial success. At the same
time, consumers are acting, thinking and engaging in
new and different ways. How can you predict customer
performance in such a nascent environment?
Based on disparate research conducted by Gallup
and Loyalty360, Jordan Katz, Senior Management
Consultant, Gallup and Mark Johnson, CEO,
Loyalty360, will discuss the present and future
implications regarding alignment or misalignment
of customer experience strategies in the market today.
By bringing together Gallups insights on customers
and Loyalty360s insights on customer experience
strategies, the organizations have created a synergistic
perspective on the current and future state of customer
experience, and what it means for creating emotional
connections with customers that will drive
nancial results.
The session will unveil Loyalty360s CX Landscape: The
State of the Industry, a report created to provide the
denitive and universal view on the state of customer
experience. Inuenced by and created for customer
experience professionals, CX Landscape will delve
into CX budgets, metrics, performance benchmarks,
challenges, innovations and more.
Gallup will provide an in-depth look at how customers
feel they are experiencing your brand, their behaviors,
attitudes, wants and needs in a changing marketplace.
The predictive drivers of impactful customer experiences
will be examined, giving marketing leaders practical
advice on how they can accelerate the engagement,
and thus nancial performance, of their own customers.
The collaboration between Gallup and Loyalty360 will
provide a holistic perspective on customer experience
that you wont want to miss.
speakers:
Jordan Katz
Senior Managing Consultant
Gallup
Mark Johnson
CEO & CMO
Loyalty360
The Customer Experience: Creating Emotional Connections that Drive Financial Results
A Joint Perspective by Gallup and Loyalty360
Session Preview | 2014
MEDIA PARTNER
2014
visit engagementexpo.com
For More Session Information and the Full Agenda
4120 Dumont St
Cincinnati, OH 45226
engagementexpo.com
for Event Updates and Registration
Customer Experience | Customer Engagement | Customer Data | Customer Intelligence
Emerging Technologies | Social Media | Mobile | ROI | Voice of the Customer
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Exhibiting and Sponsorship Opportunities Are Now Available!
Contact Erin Raese for more information | erinraese@loyalty360.org

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