Think about rewards programs that you are enrolled in. Best Buy? CVS? The café in your building? What attracts you to the program? It is your loyalty toward the brand or is it because of the discount or free offer you might receive? For instance, if you have a CVS reward card, does that mean you’re totally loyal to them or would you shop at Walgreens for similar products?
Customer engagement is primarily emotional, so if reward programs are designed as a rational means for creating customer loyalty, does this mean that these customers are actually engaged? It really makes you wonder about the relationship between membership in a rewards program and customer engagement.
With reward and loyalty programs becoming more of a staple of the customer experience in many industries, it’s necessary to utilize demographic, behavioral, life-stage approaches to find out the value these programs bring to a company, if any. Do these programs work or are there more effective and cost-efficient ways to cultivate an engaged customer base? Are companies just providing these programs because ‘everyone else is doing it?’
If you are a company with a rewards program, are you surveying your rewards program members to understand their motivations for joining the rewards program? How are you measuring their impact on your bottom line?
I would love to hear what your thoughts are, from the customer (what programs do you belong to and what motivated you to join?) or company perspective.