This document discusses rethinking rewards programs in the new engagement economy. It notes that while over 7 loyalty programs, only 16% of consumers redeem rewards. It also discusses how consumers have changed with new generations and more digital devices. Reward programs need to leverage big data from social media and behaviors to provide personalized experiences. Both traditional tangible rewards and virtual rewards have upside and downsides. Virtual rewards have low costs but also low intrinsic value unless linked to intrinsic behaviors. The document provides examples of best uses for virtual rewards and an example of a program that saw participation and engagement double using these strategies.
Why worry about rewards and engagement?
3% of Members enrolled in loyalty programs stopped actively participating in at least one loyalty program in the past year. This number is disconcerting for program operators, yet of even greater concern is that only 7% of these defecting customers actively defect – meaning formally request leaving a program.
The challenge is, those traditional models having started to show some signs of fatigue. We see this already in many loyalty programs, evidenced by this very common engagement curve.
- high enrollment, followed by a steep drop off in engagement for many members (60% or more)
Traditional Awards can be defined as the tangible awards in a consumer loyalty program for which people redeem.
After accumulating a number of points they get to spend it on REAL stuff – like merchandise and gift cards
For decades now, the methodology for determining what the actual awards are in a program been very tactical and not very strategic – the tangible awards have actually been almost an afterthought.
Basically award strategy has pretty much worked like this..
someone - picks out a limited selection of merchandise, retail and travel gift cards,
Over time additional awards are added like online travel
then a competitor adds charitable awards – so you do.
Then you see magazines in another program, so you add that.
And before you know it…. You have
something like this! Kind of a HODGEPOGE of rewards.
Most programs just keep throwing new awards at consumers because they don’t really know what else to do
And you usually the consumers just get confused. They can’t find things, it’s tough to navigate
Some tangible award collections get a little more strategic …
You might have a different selection for different segments and it would work like this:
you think about the people in a segment – let’s say high net worth or “premier” customers. And try to envision what they want. Burberry and Coach bags, and high end trip to places like Africa. You source, and fulfill the awards
But you never real know if you’ve hit the mark except for the occasional survey
Well, guess what- the world has changed (but our awards strategy has not!)
What if you could actually understand what your customers want?
We used to “guess” what people wanted beccause we didn’t have enough data… Guess what we have now?
You got it ! There’s this thing called Big Data – maybe you’ve heard of it?
The amount of data out there is staggering!
750 million people facebook users post 90 pieces of content per month
There are over 140 million tweets per day
And my favorite – there are more videos posted on You Tube in 60 days then there is content that network television created in 60 YEARS.
It’s mind boggling!
And people have changed too.
People’s expectations have changed too.
People wanted personalized experiences
They want relevant awards - don’t show me stuff I don’t want!“
They also want to have a great shopping experience whether they are on their phone, tablet or laptop. “
Let’s face it…
consumers are in the driver’s seat – they want what they want, when they want it! And they want their shopping and buying experience to be just as good on their reward programs as it is on any online retail site.
So, how can we take all this big data and what we know about consumers and make the tangible award experience more strategic and targeted.?
Well, we can start by listening to what consumers are saying.
Yes, people are talking online all day about what they want and don’t want. We just have to listen.
We’re working with one of Maritz’ research companies – Evolve24 to find out what people really want.
Evolve is social media intelligence company. They not only monitor conversations and other digital content, but they have patent pending processes that also captures
sentiment – are conversations positive or negative
Volume and velocity – how much is being said, and how fast is it spreading
And emotion – how strongly do people feel about what they’re talking about
We talked earlier about important emotions are in human beings. What we’ve found out that the online conversations that have very little emotion aren’t very important. What you need to pay attention to are conversations that have very strong emotions tied to them
You need to pay attention to things people LOVE and things people HATE.
Let’s go back to the high net work segment we were talking about before.
Show lifestyle shots of affluent women having a girls night out… This will capture their emotions. And you can feature a special girls night out in New York City and the latest designer jewelry.
Ongoing monitoring will enable us to really keep our finger on the pulse of what people are saying and adjust the award collection based on what we learn.
Next slide –
Another way to use this big data is use behavioral data
Barry and I are on the same program but
Barry would I phone
The future of delivering effective tangible awards
Is using DATA and Analytics to provide meaningful and relevant awards to your consumers.
In addition to using social media monitoring to capture what your people are saying,
You need to add other tools to understanding what your consumers are viewing, what they’re buying and what targeted communications they’re responding to – just like you’re doing in other aspects of the consumer loyalty program.
If you follow this model, you’ll start to actually see the individuals in your program and will be better able to engage them.
If you don’t capture their emotions and their wants at the right time, and you don’t give them what they want WHEN they want it, you won’t capture their loyalty.
Why are we even looking at virtual rewards
- Shift to social and online behavior – explosion of new touch points
So many new touch points, you need a cost effective way to reward behavior that doesn’t have an explicit dollar value attached
A similar survey was performed by Make Their Day in 2007, in which 57 percent of respondents reported that their meaningful recognition had no dollar value—today, that number has jumped to 70 percent.
So, why not just use them instead of traditional tangible rewards.
– so focus them on the intrinsic end of the continuum
All engagement outcomes improved (one remained same)
Four of 7 engagement outcomes are up significantly
e.g. I feel motivated to go beyond my formal responsibilities up from 3.9 to 4.2