How are you?
How have you coped during this topsy turvy year?
Have you managed to get to know your members even deeper than ever before?
Have you managed to influence some of their behaviours and beliefs (remember the definition of loyalty I provided you?).
Have you still delivered to the expectations your business has set for you and perhaps even exceeded some?
What are your plans for 2021?
I’d love to hear back from you
Yours forever
Adam Posner
____________________________________________________________________
Dear Adam
Thanks for your letter and concern about how we have managed this year.
Mmmmm….yes, it has been a challenging time and yet we are seeking out opportunities for improvement at the same time.
Like many others we had a period of shock. We were not quite sure how to react or communicate with our members.
Initially we chose the path of less sell and more share. It was a bit of wake-up call out of our sell, sell, sell rhythm (I’m a bit embarrassed).
We developed a mantra of moving from selfish to selfless.
We shared content to add to the lives of our members and offered rewards suited to their new state of living.
(By the way, we will now make this more of the norm)
We also had to re-adjust the expectations the leadership team and wider business had of us.
While the revised tone of communication and adapted rewards were appreciated by our members, the reality was we also needed to keep the revenue rolling in as we are one of the main sources of income for the business.
We took some serious steps to assess the situation and adapt our strategy.
We reassessed our measures of success focusing on those that really matter and what we can change. We did use the five key metrics guide you gave us – enablement, retention, revenue, interaction and advocacy.
Plus, we reviewed our return on investment modelling and gained approval from our leadership team!
We recalibrated our member value segmentation based on the changes in customer behaviour. We went back to the basics of RFM[1] segmentation. This was a fascinating process.
We reviewed and adapted our program structure and benefits mix.
We’ve been working tirelessly to take our program out of the sea of sameness to solve a customer problem and truly make a difference to our members. We had a focus on moving beyond points and perks, bonuses and birthdays.
We rigorously tested the member experience to find points of hassle and irritation – a work-in-progress at the moment.
We reviewed our messaging based on the four pillars of personalisation you shared. This will be a test and learn process for us as experimentation is our new communication philosophy for 2021.
Our team have also evaluated our technology architecture to ensure it is ‘fit-for -future’ and can seamlessly enable our program.
One thing which has made a massive difference is how we have involved our members, non-members and wider team in research to gain more feedback and insights as part of a co-creation process.
Finding the areas of alignment and might I say – some gaps, has been enlightening!
As for delivering on expectations, yesterday is history and we have new lofty goals for 2021 with a renewed optimism and clear plans.
We're super excited with what our program can deliver for our business and for our members.
"Give back to get back" – that’s what we say!
All the best for the rest of 2020 and here’s to ‘21
Regards
Loyalty Program
[1] Recency, Frequency and Monetary analysis
