Does your team love your loyalty program? Here are three strategies to help

I was in a well-known department store a few weeks back and arriving at the counter to pay, I was surprised and delighted how enthusiastic ‘Rebecca – Team Member’ (as per her name badge) was about their loyalty program.

After the standard pleasantries were exchanged and whilst processing my purchase, Rebecca stopped for a moment, looked up at me with direct eye contact, smiled and asked… “So Mr Posner (name on credit card) are you a member of our great new loyalty program?”

(She had me at “loyalty program”!**)

“Great” and “new” intrigued me even further, although she had already captured me with the eye contact, my name (ego) and of course “loyalty program”

“No”, I said, followed immediately by…”why is it great?”

To which she passionately shared all the benefits simply and in less than 20 seconds. I did not actually time it, however it seemed very quick.

I joined immediately as she quickly entered some minimum details about me into the POS.

Note: The joining and onboarding process is another whole insight for another time, although it is a key moment of success for a program and one that we researched in ‘for love or money 2016’.

Rebecca is one example of a team member who loves their loyalty program and what a massive difference it makes!

There is no single magic wand that achieves an outcome like that, however here are three strategies to help you and your team love your program!

1.Excite. 2. Explain and 3. Expect

1. Excite: Invite your team to be involved from the beginning and excite them with the vision of your program – 10 words or less. Take the vision to the next level of practicality so that they know how the program makes a difference to them, to the business and most importantly to their customers.

2. Explain: Ensure they understand all aspects of how the program works and the benefits to members so that they express it clearly and quickly.

3. Expect: Set the relevant metrics of success for them to deliver to and ensure they understand what part they play in the leveraged effect of these metrics to the business.

It was clear to me that Rebecca had all three!

Have a happy loyalty day!

** You had me at hello – Jerry Maguire