BRotD - Entry 0205 Traditional Loyalty Impacted by Digital Era

Best Reading of the Day (BRotD)

It has been my hypothesis that the modern digital world provides opportunities to disrupt the traditional loyalty method, the plastic card loyalty we all seem to use at our local supermarket.  Starbucks is essentially doing it now, and Dunkin' Donuts has followed.  Wal-Mart is putting in place a de facto loyalty without a loyalty through technology.  Publix supermarkets has a strong loyalty program without a card.

Looks like the data is beginning to support my hypothesis, rather than disprove it.

http://www.chainstoreage.com/article/capgemini-report-finds-loyalty-programs-lacking-digital-age

Here is a snippet from that piece:

U.S. companies spend $2 billion on loyalty programs, but the investment isn’t yielding the type of increased engagement which drove implementation of the programs, according to a new report from Capgemini Consulting. For example, the firm found that the average U.S. household is a member of 21 loyalty programs, but only actively uses 44% of them.

The study, “Fixing the Cracks: Reinventing Loyalty Programs for the Digital Age,” finds loyalty program participants dissatisfaction tends to be voiced and amplified via social media. Looking only at the retail industry, 93% of the sentiment expressed on social media was negative, according to Capgemini.

The entire report can be downloaded from Capgemini:

https://www.capgemini-consulting.com/reinventing-loyalty-programs

With the growing personalization capabilities we are seeing develop it may soon be the case that the traditional plastic loyalty card disappears, while the retailer is able to gather more data than ever behind the scenes.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant