VOLUME 10 NUMBER 2 | SPRING 2017

Ally Bank
Customer Centric
Banking, from
the Start

IN THIS ISSUE:

Customer Loyalty Blooms for Customer

Expectations vs. 1-800-Flowers.com, Inc. Engagement is top
Loyalty with BJs of mind at Lids
2 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017
 In this Issue...
SPRING 2017 | VOLUME 10 NUMBER 2 | LOYALTY360.ORG

FEATURES

8 12
How Ally Bank Puts Customers Customer Engagement
First Right From the Start is top of mind at Lids
Mark Johnson | Loyalty360 P.F. Wilson | Loyalty360

10 14
Customer Expectations Personalization and Meeting
Drive Loyalty at BJs Customer Expectations
Wholesale Club Help Loyalty Grow at
P.F. Wilson | Loyalty360 1-800-Flowers.com, Inc.
Mark Johnson | Loyalty360

LOYALTY FORUM: IN EVERY ISSUE

15 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR 28 TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS & REWARDS

42 LOYALTY EXPO
Familiplus: More Than Rewards
16 360 INSIGHTS Datacandy
Mark Johnson, Loyalty360 PREVIEW
30 TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS & REWARDS
17 LOYALTY FORUM: FEATURED TECH Four Customer Obsessed
Digital Messaging Trends
16 BEST PRACTICES Loyalty Management Editorial
Epsilon
How to Drive Loyalty with a Better & Production Team
Rewards Strategy 32 TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS & REWARDS P.F. Wilson - Editor-in-Chief
Mark Johnson - Contributing Editor
Blackhawk Engagement Solutions Driving Loyalty By Putting a Face
Carly Stemmer - Contributing Editor
on Chat Bots Shawn Cunningham - Design Director
18 BEST PRACTICES Idomoo David Rickerd - Design
Loyalty and the Era of Machine Learning Emilia Buckholz - Design
CrowdTwist 34 TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS & REWARDS Steve Taggart - Content Strategist
Three Considerations for Crescent Printing Company - Print Production
20 BEST PRACTICES Website Personalization
When It Comes to Relationships Its Montrose Travel Contacts
All About Me Article Submissions & Advertising:
Ernan Roman Direct Marketing 36 TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS & REWARDS Loyalty360
2017: Mobile or Bust info@loyalty360.org
22 BEST PRACTICES T3
513-800-0360
Mine Your Data Before You Change
Your Loyalty Program 38 STATE OF THE INDUSTRY 2017 Loyalty360, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
Lenati Whats the New Marketing Paradigm? Reproduction and distribution of this publication in any form without
SessionM prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein
24 BEST PRACTICES has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Loyalty360
Measuring the ROI of Listening to 40 STATE OF THE INDUSTRY disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy
of such information. The opinions shared are those of the contributing
Your Customers Repeat Purchases Dont = Loyalty. authors and not necessarily reflective of Loyalty360 and/or its affiliates.
PossibleNOW Heres What Does. Loyalty360 shall have no liability for errors, omissions, or inadequacies
in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The
Stellar Loyalty
26 BEST PRACTICES opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.

Three Keys to Customer Loyalty

Success in 2017
Signal
Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 3
ENGAGEMENT
DRIVES LOYALTY.
70.4% of consumers dont receive points for engagement in loyalty
programs, but more than half (54.6%) want to receive them.*
*The CrowdTwist Loyalty Across the Generations Report

CrowdTwist is an industry-leading provider of comprehensive multichannel loyalty

and analytics solutions that drive engagement and incremental spend, leading to
better customer data, stronger insight, and more personalized experiences.

4 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017

FROM THE EDITOR

Making Sense of the Sometimes Disparate Trends

and Insights in Loyalty Marketing
At Loyalty360 we make it easy to stay on top of the latest
solutions, ideas, and trends in loyalty marketing. Through
our website, expos, and magazine we deliver content
that is designed to make sense of the complex challenges
facing those charged with executing customer experience
and customer journey initiatives that generate dedicated
consumers.
In this edition of Loyalty Management magazine, we again
feature some of the worlds top minds in loyalty marketing
from some of the planets best-known brands and get a
variety of perspectives and viewpoints on a number of
marketing disciplines.
Jeff Pearson, senior vice president of marketing for the
LIDS Group, spoke to Loyalty Magazine about that apparel
retailers efforts to better engage with customers via social
monitoring.
Building loyalty across a suite of brands is the focus of
our chat with Jon Mandell VP, marketing and customer
experience for 1-800-Flowers.com. His team focuses
efforts not only on the parent brand but Fanny May and
Harry & David as well, which offers multiple challenges and
opportunities.
These brands and many more will gather in Orlando, Florida
May 2-4 at the Caribe Royale Hotel & Conference Center
for Loyalty Expo 2017, powered by Loyalty360. The biggest
and most exciting yet, this years Expo will feature some of
the most widely respected and recognized companies and
organizations from a variety of industries. The three-day event
will be packed with sessions and expert analysis on the latest
challenges and opportunities facing brands today as they look
to improve their loyalty marketing, customer experience, and
customer journey programs.
Indeed, the central focus of Loyalty360 is the exchange of
ideas and best practices, as well as expert insight and analysis
on the latest trends and innovations in loyalty marketing.
Loyalty360 is truly your voice of the customer-driven
resource.
Its an exciting time to be engaging with customers and finding
new ways to develop programs and ideas that promote
loyalty. In todays marketplace, Loyalty360 stands as an
indispensable resource for navigating the often challenging
waters of loyalty management.

Stephanie Meltzer-Paul, VP, membership engagement,

BJs Wholesale Club, discusses the extra steps that chain
takes in differentiating itself from its competitors. One area on Loyalty.
of focus for the brand is employee engagement, which
guides much of the decision-making process involving
customer interaction. new perspective
In the cover story, Ally Bank is profiled. What began as a
rebranding of General Motors finance arm has become you need a
one of the most innovative and forward-thinking banks
in America. Andrea Riley, CMO of Ally Bank offers a
fascinating narrative on how the bank reached this
lofty position.
Sometimes
This issue also features the expertise and insights of
organizations such as Blackhawk, Stellar Loyalty, T3, Idomoo,
ERDM, Epsilon, DataCandy, CrowdTwist, Lenati, SessionM,
Montrose Travel, Signal, and PossibleNOW.

P.F. Wilson
See things from our side.
Editor-in-Chief Look for us at Loyalty Expo
Loyalty Management or download the Loyalty Report at
PFWilson@loyalty360.org bondbrandloyalty.com/loyaltyreport.

40368 BBL LoyaltyExpo 2017 Showbook Ad Ev2.indd 1 2017-04-04 11:12 AM

Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 5
LOYALTY FORUM: 360 INSIGHTS

The Challenge of Measurability in an Era of Continuing

Change in Customer Loyalty
Mark Johnson
CEO/CMO
Loyalty360

Loyalty marketing is not about loyalty programs, as some believe it is.

Rather, its about driving true brand advocacy and customer loyalty
based on a set of experiences that that individual has with that brand. If you have that relationship
with the customer, if youre truly
The biggest challenge on the loyalty marketing landscape is the
useand often, overuseof terms that lack definition, structure, and listening to them, they will believe
an explicit understanding of what these words and nomenclatures
mean. As we talk to brands on a daily basis, we ask them about how
in your brand promise, and you will
they define customer loyalty, how they socialize customer loyalty, and have that alignment. That can, in
how customer loyalty can impact their organization.
turn, allow you to do unique things.
There appears to be a divide between those who talk customer loyal- Let them return in-store. Let them
ty and those who talk to the loyalty program. Loyalty360 has always
believed that the loyalty program is but a piece of a comprehensive speak with you. At the end of the
strategy that brands should enable to create total and comprehensive day its another touch point, and
loyalty.
brands see that. The more touches
Everyones talking about a seamless experience for the customer.
Everyones talking about understanding your customers, but as we
they have with an individual, the
have seen recently, many of these retailers have shuttered hundreds more theyre spending with them.
of stores or gone out of business altogether.

Theres a great opportunity to truly understand customers if youre

actively listening, and if you have that unique dialogue and under-
standing of what their expectations are. Weve seen a dramatic
increase in online shopping in terms of total numbers, so there is still
a unique opportunity coming out of that, yet even on that platform
listening is crucial to success.

If you have that relationship with the customer, if youre truly listening
to them, they will believe in your brand promise, and you will have
that alignment. That can, in turn, allow you to do unique things. Let
them return in-store. Let them speak with you. At the end of the day
its another touch point, and brands see that. The more touches they
have with an individual, the more theyre spending with them.
The fixed mindset belief is that theres only so much money people
Another idea were hearing more about these days is called entangle-
have to spend on entertainment, and only so much to spend on travel.
ment. This was a unique concept brought up recently by one of the
But if youre listening it creates a unique engagement. It creates a
members of our Board of Advisors. They are a large entertainment
deeper relationship with the customer, and you can measure it. Again,
entity speaking at the Loyalty Expo in Orlando in May, and theyre
brands are thinking outside the box. Theyre looking at multichannel.
looking at how they relate with the customers. There again, weve
Theyre looking at partnerships that can be very unique.
even got that idea of listening. They do some unique things in the
industry. Theyre in the travel industry, but theyre not afraid to send
Brands are getting back to the idea of listening and thinking outside the
them to another similar travel entity because theyre looking outside
box. These are all kind of banal terms, but if you truly understand where
the box. If they end up sending them to another hotel or another
you are as an organization, as a brand, you can do some very unique
resort with which they have a partnership, theyre still seeing
things, and in a measurable way, as well.
huge returns.

6 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017

LOYALTY FORUM: FEATURED TECHNOLOGY
Featured
Products,
Advancements
Technology
& Technologies
Data siloes have become an unfortunate reality of marketing, thanks to
the growth of technologies in disparate areas of business. Consequently,
building a bridge between these data sources has become a crucial piece
of crafting a holistic, insight-driven customer experience. With this in
mind, Baesman has built its Loyalty Management Solution (LMS)
platform with the specific purpose of creating new perspectives through
data collection, processing, and organization. LMS takes an agnostic
approach to implementation, allowing for seamless integration with a
clients existing technology. Once implemented, the platform is built to
provide employees with data dashboards that are easily accessed and
acted upon in pursuit of positive outcomes.
The success of engagement programs is often predicated on the value and
relevance of the incentives offered. Blackhawk Engagement Solutions has
carved its identity into this area of the market offering a platform built to
create channel loyalty through rebates and other incentive programs. The
platform is fully configurable through the use of a setup wizard designed to
aid in a program setup process that can be completed by Blackhawk and
the client in as few as 30 minutes. This ease of use carries into the platform
itself with additional configurations in development to create a greater
degree of program flexibility, as well as simpler UI design, streamlined
reward redemption, and advanced analytics that present data in an
interactive and aesthetically easy-to-interpret fashion.
cogensia
A CA C|GROU P Company
Maintaining consistent engagement across channels and touch points is
quickly proving to be a differentiating factor for brands looking to both
acquire and retain todays omnichannel consumer. Cogensia allows brands
to tackle this challenge head-on, leveraging vast amounts of data to create
engagement solutions tailored to create relevant and impactful moments
for current and prospective customers. Marketing solutions are created
according to the clients needs through a multi-phase process that takes
into account the brands objectives, core audience, and existing program
sophistication. Customer engagement touch points have become a matter
of quality over quantity, and Cogensias data-driven solutions ensure that
every interaction is as impactful, engaging, and personal as possible.
What are Analyst Reports?
Loyalty360s Analyst Reports are designed to help
brands and marketers navigate the plethora of vendors
and providers in the market that supports customer
loyalty, customer experience, and customer engagement
strategies in any capacity. With a focus on objectivity,
rigor, and transparency, the Analyst Reports help brands
take a wide view of the vendors available to them and then
narrow down to an appropriate consideration set based
on core competencies, strengths, and industry expertise
If you are a vendor or provider interested in learning
how Loyalty360s Analyst Reports can help you reach
new prospective clients, please contact Mark Johnson
at markjohnson@loyalty360.org
To view Analyst Reports please visit
loyalty360.org/resources/analyst-report
Loyalty. Engaged.
Designing and maintaining a full-featured and effective
loyalty program is a challenge even for the worlds
largest brands, let alone those with a smaller business
scope. CrowdTwist offers flexibility in their loyalty
programs in order to equip brands across the spectrum
with the tools needed not only to design and implement
a loyalty program, but also to maintain it and leverage
the resulting consumer data. CrowdTwists platform is
set apart through customization; in working with clients
of all shapes and sizes, the company allows for a brand
to have as much or as little involvement with
implementation and maintenance as desired.
Loyalty programs have exploded in market value in recent
years. While this growth marks a prosperous period for
the industry, with that comes an increased presence of
fraudulent activity. Lassus Red Amber platform seeks to
stop these actions at the source, detecting internal
discrepancies and saving companies the financial liability
of loyalty program fraud. Unique to Lassu is the modular
nature of the platform. Each of the six distinct tools is
designed to combat a specific source of fraud, and clients
are able to pick and choose which modules to implement,
creating an a la carte solution to fraud prevention based
on their individual needs and points of weakness.
Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 7
FEATURES

How Ally Bank Puts

Customers First Right
From the Start
Ally Bank was founded at what was, arguably, the worst
time to start a financial institution; following the 2008
economic downturn. Building from the ground up, though,
Ally built a customer-centric brand. Andrea Riley, CMO
of Ally Bank, helps recall how it all came together.

Mark Johnson
Loyalty360

It seemed like the very worst time to start a bank. At the end
of 2008, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression
had befallen the United States, and most of the rest of the
world as well. In addition to the hundreds of bank failures that
stemmed from the economic downturn, two of the Big Three
U.S. automakers, Chrysler and General Motors, had to be
rescued by the federal government.
Ally Banks approach in 2008 created a lot of momentum in the
marketplace. The bank would be an entirely online digital bank, with
no brick-and-mortar branches. A hallmark and legacy of the brand
became customer service. In the ensuing years, the banks customer
base has grown considerably due in large part to the addition of more
products. Those customers, in turn, are exceptionally loyal and are
consistently asking for Ally to roll out more offerings.

As a result of that action, General Motors financial arm

General Motors Acceptance Corporation, or GMAC, was
granted permission by the Federal Reserve to become a bank,
making it eligible for billions of dollars in government aid. What we created was a very
GMAC became Ally Bank. As storied institutions were closing
branches, Ally began building a bank from the ground up. customer-centric, very
What we created was a very customer-centric, very unique
proposition in the marketplace that really served an unmet
unique proposition
consumer need at the time, says Andrea Riley, CMO of
Ally Bank.
in the marketplace
That unmet consumer need was a brand in the financial
that really served
services category that truly served the pain points that
existed at the time. Allys goal was to sincerely put the an unmet consumer
customer at the center of the entire banking process.
need at the time
While brands today, both in and out of the banking vertical,
talk about putting the customer at the center of their efforts,
in 2008 it was almost unheard of.

8 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017

 Allys biggest challenge is consistently meeting
the strong expectation for solid customer service,
something that is engrained in the banks DNA
due to greater organizational alignment.
In response to that strong advocacy and the desire for the
customer to do more business with Ally, the bank has grown
its portfolio in a substantive way with products like the Ally
Cash Back credit card, as well as a new mortgage product.
A recent acquisition is leading to the launch of a product
called Invest, which will involve online investments and
enhance the Ally product suite. This, in turn, further
strengthens Allys relationship with its customers as the
need for accounts with other institutions is diminished.
Creating a customer-centric model, even in 2008, wasnt as
difficult as it sounds, according to Riley, for a very simple reason.
We didnt have any customers yet on the bank side, she notes.
The bank didnt exist. We literally, a small group of us, sat in a
room. A lot of the different folks that were part of the team came
from banking. We also had a lot of people that came from other
industries, myself included, with an agency background or an
automotive background.
The group mapped out each of the known pain points in
the industry as they existed at the time, listing them on a
whiteboard. One of the first pain points to be listed was ATM
fees; why should a customer have to pay $2.50, $3.50, $5.00,
or more to take their own money out of his or her bank account?
Another example were interests rates offered to customers.
Even before the crisis of 2008 those rates were trending
downward. By reducing or eliminating costs in other areas, such
as not having to maintain brick-and-mortar branches, Ally was
able to offer very competitive rates from the start.
Yet another significant pain point was customer service. The
term bankers hours was quite applicable at the time, as
most financial institutions closed at five oclock. For people that
worked second or third shift, that wasnt very convenient.
Ally realized that many customers need to talk to their bank
at odd hours. These consumers may need to travel, or have
otherwise hectic lives. To that end, Ally created 24/7 service,
becoming the first bank to implement that level of accessibility.
We also listened to very strong pain points from people
regarding offshore call centers, Riley continues. Its their
money. Its a very emotional subject, and they wanted to have an
in-language experience. We put all of our call centers onshore as
opposed to taking that business overseas.
Still another huge pain point, especially in 2008, was a user-
friendly website. Ubiquitous now, at the time even the most
sophisticated brands struggled with website functionality.
Again, Ally had the advantage of being able to build that
experience from the ground up. Being that their website was
also their storefront, the bank really had no choice but to create an
optimal web experience.
Innovations included an icon that would tell the customer what
their current phone wait time would be, allowing them to decide
which contact method they would like to pursue. We also created
something really unique called a De-jargonator, or glossary, Riley
says. When youre on the website, and you come across a term that
you dont understand, it will define that term for you.
The last piece to be developed was the product set. In addition to
offering the standard products found at other banks, Ally looked for
ways to improve those offerings. Offering slightly higher interest rates
was one. Another was the Raise Your Rate certificate of deposit (CD)
which allows the customer to lock into a CD, but if the rate rises after
the CD has been acquired, the purchaser can raise it one time to meet
that new interest rate.
As a result, Ally created exceptional consumer advocacy and demand
for something that was new in the marketplace. We could create
what the customer truly wanted in terms of the experience, Riley
says, because we didnt have to change things over and go through
the expense of changing. It was about creating based on what the pain
points were that existed in the marketplace at the time.
Today, Allys biggest challenge is consistently meeting the strong
expectation for solid customer service, something that is engrained in
the banks DNA due to greater organizational alignment. Even today,
the banks leaders review what can be done to better serve customers
and to address any new pain points that might have arisen. Indeed,
the company has put off some initiatives and acquisitions until it was
certain that such moves would fall within the banks high standards.
Another challenge comes from those in the same vertical who are
trying to catch up to Ally in terms of a customer-centric experience, as
well as start-ups looking to enter parts of the financial services space.
Everybodys trying to become customer-centric, and everybodys
trying to be digital, Riley points out. Youve got big banks coming
at you trying to add digital capability and trying to become more
like what we have, then you have all of the Silicon Valley-based
challengers and all of what were calling digital or fintech disruptors
that are trying to bite off little pieces of the business.
Though Ally has been in existence for nearly a decade, Riley feels the
bank is still very much a disruptor.
We talk about ourselves as the original disruptor, she says, because
we are. We disrupted the category forever, and I dont know that we
get enough credit for that, quite frankly. We created something when
it didnt exist with digital financial services.
Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 9
 FEATURES
P.F. Wilson
Loyalty360
Being a card-carrying member of a warehouse club store has its
advantages, the main one being lower prices. However, the store
must attract enough paying members in order for the model to
work. One of the biggest challenges in acquiring new members
is being able to explain the total value joining the club will bring to
you, says Stephanie Meltzer-Paul, VP, membership engagement,
BJs Wholesale Club. Not everyone understands all the different
benefits being part of a club can bring.
Some consumers question why they should pay to shop at a
particular store when there are so many free options both brick-
and-mortar, as well as online. Its ensuring that our prospect
marketing and our team members can explain our value prop
and illustrate the savings that you can get by joining a warehouse
club like ours, Meltzer-Paul says. Its our significant savings on
merchandise, services, and gas. On average, BJs Wholesale
Club members can save 25 percent off grocery store prices and
BJs has won accolades for having some of the lowest gas prices
in the nation.
Another challenge is meeting customer expectations, some set
within BJs vertical, some from other sectors including online
retailers. I think all retailers expectations are set by everyone
both in and outside their vertical, says Meltzer-Paul. In this
day and age, shopping habits are changing so frequently, and
consumers have more variety than ever on where they can shop.
That just makes it tougher for retailers, especially one like ours
that has a membership fee component. Our hurdle is even higher;
10 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017
Customer Expectations
Drive Loyalty
at BJs Wholesale Club
Great CX is even more crucial when
your customers are also paying members.
For BJs Wholesale, the challenges
of providing a great customer journey are
being met daily. Stephanie Meltzer-Paul,
VP, Membership Engagement, BJs
Wholesale Club speaks with Loyalty360
about those challenges.
both getting them in and then keeping them loyal and shopping with
us. Thankfully, our retention rates are very high. Once a member shops
with us for some time, we communicate their ongoing savings so they
see how the value adds up.
From the perspective of BJs Wholesale club, customers seem to be
prioritizing the convenience factor. Many years ago, it was just enough
to have the right quality merchandise in the right pack sizes for them,
says Meltzer-Paul. Now they want the convenience of easily picking up
those items. They want to get in and out of the club a lot faster.
To that end, BJs has invested in technology and programs like PICK
UP & Pay which allows members to order and pay online and then
pick up their items at the store. Well have your order waiting for you,
says Meltzer-Paul. There is also pre-ordering online for things like deli
items. Those are things our customers are asking for that were very
aggressively building out technology for.
Of course the backbone of any retailer is the frontline employee. For
team members, what BJs calls all its employees, engagement comes
first and foremost in everything we do, Meltzer-Paul says. When were
rolling out any new initiative, we always make sure we look at it from
the perspective of the team members since they are on the front line.
Among the aspects taken into consideration are ensuring the systems
are friendly for team members to use and that significant training has
been put against it.
 Many years ago, it was just enough to have the
right quality merchandise in the right pack sizes for
them, says Meltzer-Paul. Now customers want the
convenience of easily picking up those items. They
want to get in and out of the club a lot faster.

You can give members the best pricing, but if consumers dont
feel you are giving them friendly service thats going to be a deal
breaker, Meltzer-Paul says. Thankfully we do that very, very
well. We get very high marks for team member friendliness
and customer service. A huge part of our culture is our team
members putting our store members first in everything. It has
to be.
BJs has built a loyal following not necessarily by chipping away
at competitors customer base, but by making its brand unique
in the space. It is not even that were asking people to abandon
anything else, Meltzer-Paul says. We think our offerings are
unique. We tend to have more SKUs than some of the other
warehouse competitors. We have a huge selection of grocery
items, many of them organic, which we know is important to
consumers. We also have a huge selection of the hottest general
merchandise in everything from electronics
to apparel.
Members dont have to wait a year to get their payback, Meltzer-
Paul notes. Our members are constantly earning and burning. They
love being able to save along the way and having the flexibility of
storing their rewards for a big item or shaving off their weekly or bi-
weekly regular purchases. We give them the choice.
Obviously, a wholesale club has to work for the individual families and
businesses that belong to it and the location should be convenient.
It has to work for your family size or business size, your eating, and
your buying habits, Meltzer-Paul says. Our pack sizes tend to be a
bit bigger so some families have to get creative on how they store the
merchandise. But for millions of members, its a no-brainer in terms of
saving on the things they buy all the time.

Keeping the store layout consistent is important too. Were not We think our offerings are unique.
moving around merchandise constantly, Meltzer-Paul says.
You come into our club and can get familiar with it very quickly. We tend to have more SKUs than some
You can shop there weekly for the typical things you need for
your household more often, but you can also come in less
of the other warehouse competitors.
frequently and really stock up on perhaps the bigger items or gift We have a huge selection of grocery
buying, things like that, especially around the holidays.
items, many of them organic, which we
At a more basic level, members simply like the merchandise
selection as well as the lower prices. We also accept all
know is important to consumers. We
manufacturers coupons as well as distributing our own, adds also have a huge selection of the hottest
Meltzer-Paul. Thats a big differentiator for us that allows our
members to get additional savings on top of our already low general merchandise in everything from
prices.
electronics to apparel.
BJs also has a fairly sophisticated loyalty program which
features an upgraded membership tier. A store-branded credit
card offers additional perks including up to 5 percent cash back
and 10 cents off per gallon of BJs gas every day. Rewards can be
redeemed at the register in $20 increments.

Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 11

 FEATURES
Customer
Engagement
Sports fans are
passionate and love
to engage. For LIDS,
its a whole new game
as technology allows
the sports apparel
retailer to better reach
customers across
platforms. Jeff Pearson,
senior vice president of
marketing for the LIDS
Group, explains.
12 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017
Is Top of Mind at LIDS
P.F. Wilson
Loyalty360
LIDS has its head firmly in the loyalty marketing game
thanks to some recent investments in technology.
Weve moved into a new corporate office which
allows us to use the latest technology available to
connect with our brands, leagues, and of course
our customers, says Jeff Pearson, senior vice
president of marketing for the LIDS Group.
The new office is all sports-themed, so we
named our new social studio, appropriately,
the Press Box and its pretty fun.
Its also state of the art. We purchased a
couple of Salesforces software solutions called
Social Studio and Command Center, Pearson
notes. The Press Box is a space where weve
placed eight fifty-five-inch flat-panel TVs, and the
software allows us to put up across these screens
a number of different real-time social feeds and mea-
surement dashboards letting us know exactly what were
doing at all times. Retail is a 24/7 business and we always
need to know what is happening with our customers and our
competition.
Pearson notes that other companies have created similar studios like this
adding: For us, its a big deal because were very far behind in terms of being
a social and digital company. This investment quickly brought strong visibility
to our organization as to what our future plans are in digital engagement. Its
exciting to see us signaling this type of change
 Brick and mortar are still very critical to retail success.
You have to be able to engage loyal customers and those
learning about you through their mobile device and then

making sure your stores to be an experiential destination.

LIDS specializes in officially licensed sports caps as well as other
types of branded headwear. More recently it has expanded into
sweatshirts, T-shirts, jerseys, and other apparel. LIDS is an iconic
retailer found primarily in malls and outdoor shopping centers
throughout North America. It also has an online presence with both
Lids.com and Lids.ca. Founded in Indianapolis in 1995, the company
was acquired by Nashville-based footwear giant Genesco in 2004.
With the new technology operating in the Press Box, LIDS has a
whole new view of the social media landscape. Its all in real time and
we can insert ourselves into social conversations, Pearson explains.
One idea would be that we would follow the social media feeds for
Fanatics, one of our main competitors. Maybe well see a person
saying hey, Ive been waiting for my product for three days. It hasnt
come yet. Now theyre saying its out of stock. We would jump into
that conversation and communicate Weve got it! Come to Lids.com.
and well send it to you overnight with free shipping. We can do
a little bit of conquest marketing there and then certainly make
sure that any issues that we might have from a customer
service standpoint are handled quickly.
LIDS also wants to do more with building influencer
networks. You have a lot of people that love their
headwear or apparel and are influenced by athletes and
celebrities. For example, two of our big suppliers are
47 and New Era. Each of them has athletes and celeb-
rities to help raise their brand awareness and influence
consumers. We want to leverage these relationships to
their fullest potential.
New Era has a similar relationship with Big Sean who is devoted
to helping build the New Era brand and is very popular. His first to
albums went to No. 3 on the U.S. album charts, while his last two
hit No. 1. Customers are definitely following what Big Sean is doing,
wearing, et cetera, Pearson says, and want to know where they can
get what he is wearing. We are the place they can get what they want
and through the social studio, we can better communicate in those
key moments.
Communicating to fans and customers means engaging primarily
through the mobile platform, and thats where Pearson sees retail
heading. Brick and mortar are still very critical to retail success. You
have to be able to engage loyal customers and those learning about
you through their mobile device and then making sure your stores to
be an experiential destination, he says.
In many categories, of course, online-only retailers have been able
to make inroads. If customers know what they want and they know
their size, its easy for them to make a purchase online, Pearson says.
But there are still a lot of people that want to go in and see what
the product really looks like, they can put it on their head, or put on
the jersey, and we have to make this a seamless shopping experi-
ence across the board and make it easier for someone to make that
transaction.

For example, 47 has (former Boston Red Sox player

David) Big Papi (Ortiz) as well as (Denver Bronco)
Von Miller as spokespeople, Pearson says. So, we can
use their content and their communication to a much
greater extent than we are doing today across all the
different social channels we utilize.

Leveraging that relationship to its fullest potential is still in process but

improving according to Pearson. What we want to be able to do is to
better coordinate player appearances, he says. These appearances
dont always come off perfectly due to some customers just wanting
a signature, but we can use them to better engage the audience. We
could have players communicating on their social channels that LIDS
is the place where I go and I get my headwear, he says. It would be
great to be able to utilize, say, Von Miller, throughout the entire NFL
season. Thats how we would look to leverage that relationship.

Loyalty
LoyaltyManagement
Management| SPRING 2017
| SPRING 2017 1313
 FEATURES

Personalization and Meeting

Customer Expectations Help Loyalty
Grow at 1-800-Flowers.com, Inc.
In business for over 40 years, 1-800-Flowers.com continues to move
forward with its customer loyalty initiatives. Jon Mandell VP, marketing
and customer experience for 1-800-Flowers.com, Inc. discusses how
meeting customer expectations helps his companys efforts.

Mark Johnson
Loyalty360

Though its iconic name speaks to an older technology,
1-800-Flowers.com is at the forefront of customer
experience. Indeed, its .com suffix indicates that while it
has a proud legacy, it is very much a company of the times
even more so than when it was founded in 1976. In 2006
it acquired confectioner Fannie May and in 2014 added
premium food and gift producer and retailer Harry & David to
the fold. It also has several other brands and divisions.
All our brands are rather siloed in the way they do a lot
of their marketing, says Jon Mandell VP, marketing and
customer experience for 1-800-Flowers.com, but what my
team does is sit on top of or alongside those brands and
focuses on creating multi-brand customers, which would be
customers that shop at more than one of our brands, making
sure that we have a good, consistent customer experience
across all brands and any shared kind of programs that go
across them.
The companys two loyalty programs are Celebrations
Rewards, a points-based program, and Passport, which
is a free shipping program that covers all the companys
brands. Those all report up to my group, Mandell says, as
well as all the digital marketing for our food brands and our
conversational commerce team. Were kind of a catchall
for everything that happens within the enterprise and isnt
limited to just one brand.
The idea of building a consistent experience for 1-800-Flowers.
com and its associated brands is centered on making it easy to help
customers find the right gift for the right person at the right time.
The company website features nine brands, allowing easy customer
access via a single username and password. Credit card information
and addresses are saved for convenient retrieval by the customer.
You can earn and burn points across all the brands, Mandell
explains, so theres a certain value proposition that we put out
there in making it easy for our customers to deliver a smile that we
make sure is consistent across the entire family of brands. We can
also be more relevant to them throughout the year.
With running so many brands, the sophistication levels of the
loyalty initiatives can vary according to Mandell. I think there
are some areas where we are incredibly sophisticated in pushing
the envelope, he says. Thats certainly more on the customer
experience side of what were doing in conversational commerce,
building our gift business, and using artificial intelligence. We have a
bot on Facebook and a skill on Amazons Alexa platform. Thats still
very important to us when it comes to loyalty.
Less sophisticated are the traditional points-based programs
where members spend a dollar and get a point. These maintain
the traditional structure of, for example, earning 200 points and
receiving $20 towards a future purchase.
For us, they all kind of work together to really have a cohesive loyalty
strategy, Mandell notes, but Id say there are various levels of
sophistication based on the program overall.

14 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017

The acquisition of other brands, along with legacy systems
within 1-800-Flowers.com also present challenges. There are
different things that are important to different customers too,
Mandell adds. I think as a brand thats been around for more
than forty years in the 1-800-Flowers case, and even longer in
some of our food brands, we have a very wise customer set that
spans the gamut.
What works for some doesnt work for others. However,
together they all work well alongside each other. Were always
looking to advance and improve on them, Mandell says.
Certainly, being around as long as we have, there are things that
have worked and continue to work. But that doesnt mean we
dont keep building on it.
A significant area of focus, not surprisingly, for a brand like
1-800-Flowers.com, is personalization.
Thats one of the things that has driven our investment into
GWYN, which is our online gift concierge powered by IBMs
Watson artificial intelligence, Mandell explains. GWYN stands
for gifts when you need, and the idea is to have a one-on-one,
personalized conversation to help our customers find the right
gift for the right person at the right time across the family of
brands.
From a loyalty perspective, Mandell and his team are figuring
out ways to make it more relevant and more personalized so
that it doesnt become lost in the clutter thats happening in
customer mailboxes and email inboxes.
For us to have good customer loyalty we need that good
customer experience, which means we need to make it very
easy to shop with us, Mandell says, and personalization plays
a huge role in that.
Of course, the Internet and associated technologies have changed
the experience on the consumers end, making them at least better
informed and savvier.
I think theyre definitely trained differently, Mandell adds, and
theyve been trained to have certain expectations. Thats coming from
big players like Amazon, who have trained everyone that you should
never pay for shipping and expect your product in two days as well
as from new startup companies who are playing with venture capital
money instead of worrying about their P&L.
That, in turn, has influenced a change in customers. I believe retailers
are being graded on whatever the customers last best experience
was, Mandell observes, and it doesnt matter if it was in e-commerce
or retail. It doesnt matter if it was at their doctor. Expectations are
being set, and we have to meet those expectations.
Mandell also feels demographics are changing that. We dove into the
world of conversational commerce with Facebook bots, he says, and
that resonates more with the younger generation of customers who
are interacting with us, and thats great because its bringing new and
what we hope to be loyal customers to the brand.
But then there are other products with some of our customers, he
continues, that have been around a really long time where we are
able to now put our other brands in front of them and make it really
easy for them to transition themselves from being a one-brand buyer
to being a multi-brand buyer.
That enables 1-800-Flowers.com to lessen the focus on being an
occasion-based gifting company to being much more relevant and
building up that loyalty and staying ahead of things.
Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 15
BEST PRACTICES

How to Drive Loyalty with a

Better Rewards Strategy
Theresa McEndree
VP, Marketing
Blackhawk Engagement Solutions

Weve all seen it: a big new loyalty program rolled out with great fanfare. It looks exciting
and seems like it might be richly rewarding, but a few months later, it only has a few active
members. What went wrong? In many cases, loyalty programs dont offer the right mix
of desirable rewards to capture and keep participants attention. This is especially true for
credit card loyalty programs, travel and hospitality, and wellness programs, which have
broad bases of diverse members.

16 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017


Companies should instead create a rewards strategy that provides participants with a personalized
experience that encourages them to regularly engage in loyalty programs. Here are some ways you
can create a rewards strategy that drives loyalty:
Offer the right rewards
You can drive loyalty program participation by providing
the right reward mix. Create a robust rewards catalogue
that includes several different types of rewards such as
universal incentive cards, plastic gift cards, egifts, virtual
rewards, and travel and merchandise. Providing these
options allows your loyalty program members to select
the reward that best fits their personal preferences, which
creates a higher perceived value of your programs points.
Provide the right rewards values
Build a mix of achievable, accessible and aspirational
reward values. Achievable rewards typically range from
$5 to $25 and can be earned soon after program
enrollment. Participants should be eligible for accessible,
mid-tier rewards ranging from $10 to $50 after a few
months of participation. Finally, aspirational rewards are
valued at more than $50 for those who want to save their
points over a longer period of time. Youll have participants
spanning from those that want to redeem $10 gift cards to
their favorite restaurant on a more frequent basis, or those
who want to take a trip overseasmake sure you can
accommodate them all.
Deliver rewards as quickly as possible
To create greater brand connection, enable participants
to receive their reward promptly. Consider using digital
delivery to put rewards in the hands of recipients not long
after they redeem for them. By providing loyalty rewards
in a timely, responsive manner, you keep their experience
with your brand top of mind and increase the likelihood
they will engage with your program again.
Create a robust rewards catalog that
includes several different types of
rewards such as universal incentive
cards, plastic gift cards, egifts, virtual
rewards, and travel and merchandise.
Offer value-added rewards
Providing special offers to your loyalty program participants
can provide added value without breaking your budget.
Engaging loyalty program members with exclusive offers
such as a $100 gift card to their favorite restaurant if they
have only $90 worth of points can keep them engaged and
provide them exclusive access to benefits they could only
receive as a member of your program.
Create more redemption opportunities
The whole point of offering loyalty points is to engage
participants in loyalty-building behaviors. But unspent
points or rewards dont do your membersor your
companyany good. Try leveraging promotions to drive
redemption during key times of the year and create
additional loyalty by enabling point spend options available
when and where consumers want them. Provide availability
via channels such as mobile, email, chat, or even telephone,
and consider your participants physical locationsare your
rewards available only in the United States or can they be
accessed internationally as well? Enabling participants to
redeem their loyalty points easily when and where they
want will help increase their satisfaction with your program.
Effective loyalty programs can keep
participants engaged and coming back
for more. Try to align your loyalty program
objectives with an assortment of rewards and
delivery methods that will help you achieve
your goals and ensure your participants are
getting the most out of their loyalty rewards.
Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 17
BEST PRACTICES

Loyalty
and the Era
of Machine
Learning
Loyalty programs remain an important part of the marketing fabric for so many
organizations. In fact, U.S. consumers hold 3.3 billion memberships in customer loyalty
programs, according to Colloquy. One of the reasons why loyalty programs are so widely
adopted by marketers is because they not only offer rich customer data, but also provide
great insight into consumer behavior and engagement.

Jennifer Bontas
VP of Data Science
Loyalty. Engaged.
CrowdTwist

Brands can use customer data to make relevant offers
and targeted promotions. However, the volume and high
dimensionality of customer data can be overwhelming,
leading many organizations to get stuck in the Big Data rut.
Thats why many companies are exploring machine learning,
a class of algorithms that learn patterns in data. Machine
learning isnt newits been around for decades. But with
the advent of the Internet and e-commerce, marketers have
access to more data, and complementary technologies have
developed to provide better ways to collect and store it. As a
result, more companies are exploring the technique and are
starting to apply it to their marketing efforts.
Machine learning enables brands to become more efficient
with their marketing and make better decisionspossibly in
real timewithout the need for human intervention. Brands
can devise algorithms to select combinations of actions and
people that optimize their outcomes.
For example, instead of sending out 100 offers, a company using
this technique may send 25 because they will have a higher
conversion. Beyond the type of promotion or incentive to offer,
machine learning can also help companies identify the best channel
for the offer and the best time to send it.
Machine learning can help brands identify audiences and flag key
events algorithmically. This technique helps brands dynamically
improve the customer experience and contribute to the bottom line.
Machine learning isnt newits been
around for decades. But with the
advent of the Internet and e-commerce,
marketers have access to more data,
and complementary technologies have
developed to provide better ways to
collect and store it.

18 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017

While machine learning provides
a host of benefits, several pitfalls
exist for those unfamiliar with how
to apply the technique effectively:
Understand the Data:
Invest time in understanding the nature,
consistency, and completeness of the data.
If companies dont understand the data,
they will likely misinterpret the results
provided by machine learning. The better
the interpretation of the results, the more
effectively organizations will be able to use it.
Planning the Workflow:
Companies must plan ahead and think
holistically about the process in which they
will incorporate machine learning. Brands can
run into trouble if they dont think about the
mechanics of how to apply the results once
they are available. For example, a company
might implement a clustering algorithm that
maps customers into groups according to
their Facebook likes. These Facebook likes
will change over time, and thus so will the
definitions of these clusters. If the company
wants to personalize messaging based
on its customers cluster, it would need to
design a process to label or classify these
clusters, which may be more difficult than
implementing the clustering algorithm.
Overfitting the Data:
The problem is that a model fit on one set of
data might yield results that dont generalize
to other data sets. The solution is to perform
validation testing. There are many flavors of
validation testing, but the idea is to only fit
the model on part of the data set, and then
examine the quality of the predictions on the
other part of the data set that was not used
for model fitting. If the predictions arent as
accurate, then companies should rethink the
model and the data.
Identifying Acceptable Errors:
Its important for brands to contemplate
what type of errors are acceptable when
using machine learning. When algorithms are
making determinations, there will inevitably
be errors from bad data or a case that wasnt
anticipated. Its important to think about what
is best for the brand and the customer should
one of these errors arise.
Focus on Causation:
Machine learning requires more data and
fewer assumptions than traditional statistical
techniques. Nonetheless, its essential for
companies to look for a plausible causal
relationship that drives the patterns
highlighted by machine learning in order
to take action on such insights.
While machine learning isnt a guaranteed fix to solve all business
challenges, it is a useful tool that help organizations predict future
consumer behavior and drive better business results or desired
objectives. That can help loyalty marketers go far no matter if their
objectives are to drive frequency, increase an average order size, or
fuel spending in other product categories.
The race to get on board with machine learning is a competitive
advantage. Brands that succeed in personalizing messages and offers
to their customers will increase conversion rates, win customer
loyalty, and get ahead of the pack. No matter where companies are in
their journey with machine learning, its important to make the most
of the data they have and invest in understanding it to uncover more
valuable insights.
Jennifer Bontas oversees analytics and reporting at CrowdTwist. She has more
than a decade of experience generating actionable insights from data by applying
techniques from machine learning, econometrics, and statistics.
Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 19
BEST PRACTICES

When it Comes
to Relationships,
Its All About Me

Ernan Roman
Smart and Insightful
President
ERDM Corp 1 Personalization
Authentic and effective personalization has a unique
set of rules for each customer, not a blanket or bucketed
one-size-fits-all approach. There is an expectation from
consumers that they can control their brand experiences
In the Wunderman by providing their individual detailed, explicit preferences.
Study, Wantedness Consider this quote, What we receive is not smart
personalization. They arent personalizing the things that
heres what matter to me.
consumers said they The evolution from implicit data to explicit human
wanted from brands: preference-based data has significant implications
for brand relationship building and loyalty nurturing.
Consumers want to drive high levels of relevance in their
1. Get to know me. interactions with brands. This is the expectation that
2. Deliver for me. was voiced, I want more than just buying history-based
emails.
3. Keep winning me.
Innovative CX will become an ever more powerful
differentiator driving retention. Smart, preference
It was also noted that 88 percent of U.S. data-based insightful personalization is no longer an
optional activity but essential, What they consider
consumers want to engage with brands who set personalization is so old-fashioned.
new standards in meeting expectations. 56 percent
want brands to get them and 63 percent said
theyre loyal to brands that exceed expectations
across the consumer journey.
This aligns with findings from 15,000+ hours of
VoC research interviews our firm conducted in
which consumers identified three key areas that
build superior CX, retention and loyalty.

20 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017

 2 All-Channel Availability
Marketers traditionally think channel when they plan
marketing. However, customers view their buying journey
as one comprehensive experience, merging all channels.
So, it is now an imperative that marketers look at the shopper
experience as a complete entityand think simultaneous
omnichannel availability.
Shoppers do not segment their journey, rather they look at
their experience as a united all-inclusive venture. Therefore,
marketers need to realign procedures to deliver a new type of
engagement that unites loyalty and retention programs on
all channels.
According to the Driving Shopper Engagement through
Digital Technology study by Synchrony Financial, shoppers
expect the digital experience to not only be present but also
proactive and seamless.
In the same Wunderman study observed above, it was noted
that judging a brand on exceptional CX is determined by
the degree to which a brand proves their commitment to
earning a customers business across every touch point and
throughout the entire path to purchase.
3 Experience IS Everything
Your customers personalization is a 360-degree pursuit.
It doesnt stop at the homepage of your website or your
consumers email inbox for promotional communications.
Marketers need to move towards personalizing the entire
brand experience with human data that addresses lifestyle
and interests.
Traditionally, brand consumer experiences have been
dictated by personas developed to bucket shopper segments.
However, over the past 12 months, there has been a surge
in the number of companies disappointed by the lack of
significant consumer response and engagement due to these
ill-conceived persona-based segmentation strategies.
While personas were a good starting point to try and
devise CX, there are serious limitations because the
consumer decision-making journey is not a predictable or
programmable path. In essence, human experience is not
captured by simplistic personas.
Our VoC research has determined that it is essential
for marketers to establish human partnerships and
relationships post-sale to drive CX past the initial win.
Consumer relationships must have authentic and relevant
communications and interactions in order to be sustainable.
Zappos, the Perfectly
Personalized Fit
When discussing their multi-tiered loyalty program,
Kedar Deshpande, director of marketing at shoe
eRetailer, Zappos commented, we dont want to
create a gym membership program where customers
sign up and dont show up.We want to make sure
that our program drives customers back regularly.
utilization is [how] were going to measure the success
of the program. If I know [who] the customer is I
can sell better products to them, [and] I can sell better
recommendations to them
In the companys program announcement press
release, COO, Arun Rajan explained as we designed
the Zappos Rewards program, our goal was to take our
customer service to the next levelWe leaned on one of
our company purposes To Live and Deliver WOW
and we trust this program will truly wow
our customers.
The Zappos program identifies and rewards members
for logging in via their email on various devices,
making purchases, and writing reviews. It incentivizes
increasingly active levels of engagement. The more
you engage the higher your point value and greater the
rewards. And because the program is action based,
the companys marketing team can garner consumer
insights to deliver optimized experiences to grow loyalty
and relationships.
Just as with human personal relationships, brand loyalty
and retention needs to be based on human factors.
Without the proper human data insights, brands will
have a losing battle trying to develop personalized
experiences and omnichannel communications that
consumers feel are relevant and worthy of their time
and loyalty.
Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 21
BEST PRACTICES

Mine Your Data

Before You Change
Your Loyalty Program
Jonathan Adler Alison Rohrs
Director of Insights & Analytics Consultant
Lenati Lenati

As loyalty program age, they often become stale,

losing the ability to engage customers whose habits
and expectations have changed significantly since the
original launch. To avoid this stagnation, companies
must take a deeper dive into consumer data
in order to stay on top of these trends and
adapt the existing design accordingly.

22 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017

Recently, a major retailer asked Lenati to assess its loyalty
rewards program, which had first launched in the late 1990s.
By one metricretention ratethe retailers program was still
successful. But the program was failing to drive a large share of
wallet, and execs wanted to know why.
Because the program had existed for so long, reports didnt
incorporate new data sets captured by more modern loyalty
programs (for example, customer profiles or browsing
behavior). However, even basic transactional data dating back to
Answering the following questions will reveal several quick ways to use data
for a rewards program refreshand the right analysis to help you get there.
Are you driving the right behaviors?
Well-designed rewards programs can incentivize behaviors
like frequency and shopping across channels, but is your
program targeting the behaviors that can influence the most
profit? Which behaviors correlate to your top spenders?
Where are your biggest moments of attrition?
In the retail example above, a survival curve of members
showed many first purchasers never returned to make a
second purchasean expected one-and-done problem.
More interestingly, fewer customers made a third purchase,
which was new information. But after the third purchase,
customers would remain loyal shoppers. For this retailer,
refreshing the program with incentives to visit the store
again after the second purchase had the potential to further
reduce churn.
Are you rewarding the right people?
Tiered loyalty programs often reward an extremely small
group of their very best customers while ignoring very good
customers. For example, another companys tier structure
was rewarding the 3 percent of customers who represent 9
percent of their revenue. By analyzing the customer spend
distribution over possible alternate tier structures, we
discovered they could shift their approach to instead reward
the 50 percent of customers who represent 87 percent of
their revenue, making a major profit impact for a relatively
small added cost.
Whats the customer experience like?
Even before you survey rewards program members for their
opinions, transactional data from loyalty programs can reveal
gaps in the program experience. For example, how many
customers stay within your loyalty program tiers? Analyzing
transaction data at the customer level revealed churn rates
out of the top tier: More than two thirds of members who
earned top-tier status failed to achieve the same status
the following yearand nearly 10 percent of the top tier
members (and biggest spenders) never returned to shop at
all. Program design can address this issue by lowering the tier
spend threshold, or by specifying different requirements to
maintain a tier status than those needed to earn it.
the 90s revealed major opportunities to increase share of wallet and
improve customer lifetime value. The answer to the problem lay within
the data the retailer already had.
Even with large, sophisticated brands, we see a failure to feed data
from existing rewards programs back into the design of the program
itself. Even a few simple data analyses can multiply the effects of
successful incentives, and reveal otherwise unnoticed places to
respond to customer needs.
Whats the financial impact of changing the program?
Refreshing or redesigning an existing rewards program offers more
predictable ROI than designing a program from scratch. Existing
member transaction data can help you predict how real customers
will react to benefits more effectively than just making assumptions
with personas. And you can adjust program response rates and costs
by customer segment, since customer groups will take advantage
of benefits in different ways and at different frequencies. Weve
developed an ROI Simulator to test the financial impacts of different
program adjustments and quickly compare several program options
side by side, revealing the optimal combination of benefits for real-
world customers.
Finally, are you getting the right data?
A program refresh is a great time to review the way you are collecting
data. Which key business questions cant you answer right now?
What information is missing that you wish you had? Do you have
a database that maps to other databases? Now is the time to build
data capabilities in IT for the next round of improvements.
Redesigning a customer loyalty program? Be sure to check out
Lenatis New Methodology for Predicting ROI of a Loyalty Program:
Using customer and data-driven simulation to more accurately
project how a loyalty program will perform in the future.
Jonathan Adler is Director of Analytics and Alison Rohrs is a Marketing
Consultant at Lenati, a Seattle-based marketing and sales strategy
consultancy that helps companies acquire, grow, and retain customers.
Explore more on Lenati.com
Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 23
BEST PRACTICES

Measuring the ROI

of listening to your
customers

Eric V. Holtzclaw
Chief Strategy Officer
PossibleNOW

At face value, listening to Five key preference management metrics

customers and honoring
their preferences is obvious.
Every business listens to their
customers on some level and
the outcomes are immediate
and apparent.
At the macro level, the picture gets blurrier. This is the
arena of enterprise preference management, the active
collection, maintenance, and distribution of unique
consumer characteristics such as product or topic
interest, communication channel preference, and desired
frequency of communication.
When large organizations attempt to collect and react to
millions of unique data points, they encounter significant
challenges. Alongside legal and logistical quandaries,
many enterprises struggle with measuring the
effectiveness of their preference management initiatives.
provide the basis for what companies can
use to gauge success:
1. Contact retention
Many marketing contact databases are experiencing high
churn and outright decline because enterprises lack the
technology to correct the conversation with customers and
prospects. The only choice provided is to completely opt-
out of all communications. A critical priority for a preference
management initiative is the deployment of opt-down
functionality that enables contacts to avoid irrelevant topics
without blocking all future communications.
Given the power to control the conversation, far fewer contacts
(in many cases greater than 60 percent) choose the universal
opt-out and instead opt down to a more targeted stream of
communications. Its not that your customers dont want to hear
from you, they just want your communications to be relevant.
Define retention as a goal and track your contact loss.

24 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017


Alongside legal and logistical
quandaries, many enterprises
struggle with measuring the
effectiveness of their preference
management initiatives.
$ 2. Cost reduction
If given the option to switch to a cheaper communication,
your customers will save you hard dollars. This savings
can be significant in a relationship that involves regular
billing, privacy notifications, explanations of benefits, and
expensive marketing collateral.
Millennials as a group prefer to receive communications
electronically and from our studies we know they rarely
check their physical mailbox.
Even if all communications are already electronic, savings
can often be found through the elimination of redundant
databases and delivery tools and customer research
rendered unnecessary because of preference collection.
Define cost reduction as a goal and track savings from
paperless communications and improved efficiency.
3. Revenue growth
Proactively adding customers and prospects to new
communications or preventing them from opting out
by correcting the conversation is critical to boosting
revenue.
The flip side of your contact retention statistic should be
a positive sales number driven by sharper messaging and
a larger pool of potential buyers. This can be a challenging
number for some marketers to pin down without an
understanding of internal user flow. Connecting preference
management to revenue is vital when the time comes to
budget for expansion or enhancement of the program.
Use retargeting campaigns and educational content to
keep your customers in the conversation between buying
cycles and purchase decisions.
Define revenue growth as a goal and calculate the value of
preference management by A) lifetime revenue from customer
following an opt-down or B) an assigned value per customer
contact retained.
4. Technology governance
The proliferation of marketing technology in recent years
has led a corresponding increase in tech purchases and
implementations within the typical enterprise. Anxious
to stay ahead of the curve, marketers buy more and
more automation and distribution tools, inadvertently
locking customer information in silos scattered across the
company. Eventually, no one has a clear picture of who the
customer is and what they want.
Preference management empowers better decision-
making when it comes to technology investments by
centralizing customer data and offering a clearer picture of
what they actually want. Based on this information, CMOs
can more easily sunset an underperforming technology or
maximize value from the platforms already in use.
Define technology governance as a goal and track the
elimination of redundant technologies and reorganization of
approved systems and tools.
Liability
5. Risk mitigation
governance
A robust preference management program ensures not
only the active collection of consent but also ongoing
correction of consent. In other words, it empowers
companies to identify and react to changes in contact
information or permission status driven by government
regulation or internal business decisions.
Many companies initiate preference management projects
in an effort to mitigate compliance risk. Tracking its
effectiveness the absence of violation requires analysis
to identify problems avoided by preference management.
Examples of this include corrected contact records,
changes in channel of choice or collections of express
written consent to contact.
Define risk mitigation as a goal and track corrected customer
records that otherwise would have represented vulnerability to
litigation or regulatory action.
Eric V. Holtzclaw is Chief Strategist at PossibleNOW and the author of
Laddering: Unlocking the Potential of Consumer Behavior
Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 25
BEST PRACTICES

Kathy Menis
SVP of Marketing
Signal

The long-term payoff of investing in existing customers is beyond dispute.

Whats up for question, however, is how to retain them.
Building brand champions is a totally different ball game today than it was a couple of years ago. Customer experience, not
transaction-based loyalty programs, is the new playing field. Creating genuine and relevant interactions at critical moments
throughout the entire customer relationship is a brands competitive differentiator and what ultimately wins customer loyalty.

This doesnt mean loyalty programs should be benched. Program memberships and retention rates are still strong, even growing in
most industries. But active participation and redemption rates are below 50 percent for most brands. Clearly, brands are struggling
to turn initial interest into long-term engagement. Thats because people want more than transactional rewards; they want rewarding
experiences that simply make life easier.

Brands like Amazon, Apple and Starbucks that are strategically using their first-party data to understand and engage customers
with 1:1 experiences in the right moment and context are hitting it out of the park. Those that dont are striking out: 82 percent of
consumers worldwide have stopped doing business with a company following a bad customer experience. And this doesnt only
jeopardize brand loyalty, it hurts the bottom line. Each year, $41 billion is lost by U.S. companies following a bad customer experience.

This year, nearly 60 percent of U.S. marketers plan to allocate more of their budget toward customer loyalty this year. Yet to win and
retain loyal customers, they will need to up their game as well. By transforming their vast stores of first-party data into a centralized
customer knowledge base that can be used across the enterprise, marketers can recognize customers at any touch point and create
meaningful, end-to-end experiences that enhance peoples lives, foster loyalty and bring customers back again and again.

26 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017

Here are three keys to doing so this year.

1. Establish a customer-centric culture. 3. Organize around identity.

People consider every brand interaction from marketing Relevance is lost when brands cant recognize the customer
messages to in-store experiences to customer service as part on her cell phone, tablet, or in-store. While obvious in concept,
of their overall relationship with a brand. They expect a brand to identity is still elusive for many. Collecting all the customer data
know who they are, anticipate their needs and relate the right possible means nothing without a continuous, cross-channel
way at every point of engagement. And thats no small feat. identity resolution strategy in place. And herein lies the problem.

Certainly, brands face a number of challenges in delivering Marketers have unprecedented access to data. Yet fragmented,
impactful customer experiences technology immediately siloed data sets have left many with duplicate, disconnected,
comes to mind. Yet the top two are actually organizational and inaccurate information about their customers. Brands need
in nature: functional silos tops the list for 52 percent of to work with an always-on, centralized-identity solution that
companies worldwide, followed by cultural resistance, as integrates and synchs streaming data with offline data. Being
cited by 45 percent. able to recognize an individual at every touch point, every
time and connect that to a customer profile is what powers
Brands need to think beyond marketing campaigns and strategize the insights needed to engage that person with more positive
customer-centric programs that align marketing, product, and experiences at critical moments and increase loyalty over time.
service. The insights gleaned from customer data can be used
to inspire new product offerings and inform the technology, Identity, in essence, is the foundation for all consumer
systems, and processes needed to win, serve, and retain engagements. As such, its a strategic imperative for business
customers. By breaking down organizational barriers, fostering success. Repeat customers spend three times more than new
collaboration, and determining where and how each business ones, and just 20 percent of them account for 80 percent of
function intersects with the buyer journey, brands can define a companys future profits. Finding new customers costs five
how each contributes to an improved customer experience. times more than keeping them. Realizing the waste, more brands
are employing identity-based strategies to increase customer
lifetime value, net promoter scores and ROI.
2. Build holistic customer profiles.
Think of the many ways consumers interact with brands. At the end of the day, only a certain portion of customers are
Digital ads, apps, or email on any number of devices. Physical going to be brand loyalists. With a customer-first mindset, a
store visits. Call-center queries. Loyalty program activity. With holistic data asset, and continuous recognition, brands can
each interaction, customers leave behind a glimpse into their recognize who those customers are and craft immersive
activity, leaving marketers with a collection of partial views. If experiences that move them in the right direction.
marketers arent able to continuously connect all historical and
real-time behavioral data to one person, they cant possibly
understand one persons journey, nor unlock true identity. Thus
targeting customers with personal and relevant experiences Marketers have
becomes a shot in the dark. And that may lead to annoying
customers, fueling indifference and pushing them away. unprecedented
To compete with the type of intimate and immediate
access to data. Yet
engagements customers expect, brands must be able to unify fragmented, siloed
CRM and live behavioral data and tie it back to the individual
customer. New technology is available to create durable,
data sets have left
360-degree profiles that instantly update with each interaction. many with duplicate,
This allows marketers to understand customers needs and
expectations within the context of their relationship with a brand disconnected and
and where they are in their journey. Marketers can then use inaccurate information
these profiles to create personalized, connected experiences
across the web, mobile apps, physical stores, and even call about their customers.
centers, and maintain an ongoing dialogue with a customer,
at every point of contact.

1 Loyalty Marketing: Creating Stickiness in a Distracted World, eMarketer, February 2016

2 Bad Experiences Are Worth Avoiding, eMarketer, Sept. 27, 2016
3 http://www.newvoicemedia.com/blog/the-multibillion-dollar-cost-of-poor-customer-service-infographic/
4 The Loyalty Evolution: Growing Investment and the Multichannel Promise, CrowdTwist and Brand Innovators, May 24, 2016
5 Pursuing Customer Relevance in the Digital Age, Harvard Business Review, November 2015
6 http://www.invespcro.com/blog/customer-acquisition-retention/

Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 27

TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS & REWARDS

FAMILIPLUS: MORE THAN REWARDS

For 10 years, Familiprix offered Beauty Zone - a program to reward

members for purchasing cosmetics and beauty products. While
the program was appealing, it did not resonate with all customers
or encompass all products available at the pharmacy chain. Plus,
customer registration was overly complicated because Beauty
Zone was a local rewards program requiring customers to have a
separate card for each Familiprix store.

Annick Grondin
Marketing Director
Familiprix

Familiprix partnered with DataCandy, a North 20,000 New Loyalty Members

American leader in gift card and loyalty solutions
for retailers, restaurants, and petroleum Per Week
companies, to revamp and debut a brand- The program quickly established an active
new loyalty program known as FAMILIPLUS. member base with approximately 20,000 new
FAMILIPLUS provides VIP treatment to all loyalty members registering each week. The
customers and embodies the brands mission of mobile app has also proven to be an attractive
being an innovative and healthy destination that feature with members returning to the app
gives back to local communities. regularly to redeem points and set new weekly
wellness goals.
Innovation at the Forefront
The customer and their needs remained at the
forefront during every development stage of
the new FAMILIPLUS loyalty rewards program,
which attracted 325,000 members in the first
six months. Four days after the official June
16, 2016 launch, the MY FAMILIPLUS mobile
app debuted providing a virtual card option as
well as an opportunity to earn bonus points
for members who set, track and met weekly
fitness goals via the app. Not only did the new
loyalty program promote healthy habits, but
it empowered members to contribute to the
well-being of local children by donating earned
points to Opration Enfant Soleil. In addition,
customers can shop in any Familiprix store using
one loyalty card.

28 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017

 In addition, the average basket size among members
is 57% higher than non-members.

Familiprix +

From concept to execution, Familiprix worked

alongside the customer engagement experts at
DataCandy to execute FAMILIPLUS. In order to
optimize the program before launching it across all
350 locations, Familiprix and DataCandy spent three
years optimizing the program across four different
stores. Finally, in 2015 during Familiprixs annual
company conference, the new FAMILIPLUS loyalty
initiative was announced internally.

Knowing execution at the store level was key,

Familiprix implemented a strong training program for
front line employees and hosted multiple webinars to
all 5,000 employees. Familiprix executed a strategic
marketing campaign to debut the program, although
the time spent building buzz and excitement among
the team helped make the official rollout a true
success.

Success also came from the programs ease of use.

FAMILIPLUS is powered by the DataCandy loyalty
platform, which works seamlessly with Familiprixs
existing POS and new mobile app. The hardware/
Familiplus Loyalty Card
software compatibility ensured FAMILIPLUS would
be user-friendly for both cashiers and customers.

Familiprix
Familiprixs network covers all of Quebec
and New Brunswick with more than 350
locations. Familiprix ranked 27th among the
500 largest companies in Quebec in 2016.

Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 29

 TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS & REWARDS

FOUR
customer obsessed
DIGITAL MESSAGING TRENDS

Lauren Gentile Kara Trivunovic

VP, Executive Director, Digital Solutions VP Digital Solutions
Epsilon Epsilon

2017 may have just begun, but the trends we observed last year will continue to make an impact as digital
transformation forces brands to take a customer obsessed approach. A personalized customer experience
has the power to truly set a brand apart and drive loyalty.
But its important that marketers dont get distracted by shiny new technological advancements. Tried-and-
true mediums likeemailcontinue to effectively reach consumers. With additional elements of connectivity,
commerce, and augmented and virtual reality in full swing, its time to take a hard look at what works and
why. From there, marketers can determine if these new approaches have the ability to take their digital
messaging strategy to the next level and drive business growth for their brand.

Lets take a look at four key trends in detail:

Trend #1 Creating convenience for the customer Time is a precious commodity for the multi-tasking
consumer, and convenience from the brands they interact
with is both desired and appreciated. With the estimated
average 120+ emails consumers receive on a daily basis
and 40 percent of the workday allocated for meetings
and administrative tasksnot to mention personal
commitmentsconsumers are constantly on the go and
looking for time-saving opportunities. In 2016, the over-
programmed landscape opened the door for marketers
to focus on finding ways to create convenience for their
customers.

You might have seen the Buick commercial featuring their

RemoteLink app and door locking capability. In addition
to locking/unlocking doors, the app can start the vehicle,
manage Wi-Fi settings, check fuel levels, monitor tire
pressure, and more. This provides seamless connectivity
for on-the-go consumers that makes their day-to-day
lives easier. Apps are meant to drive convenience (no pun
intended) so expect mobile apps to be an integral part of
digital messaging strategies in the coming year.

30 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017


Trend #2 Enhancing the customer experience
Consumer look for experiences first, not things. In 2016 marketers
get creative with their campaign planning to generate immersive
experiences that leverage technology to bridge the digital and
physical divide. Augmented and virtual reality disrupted major
digital markets in 2016, and itsforecastedthat this will become
an $80 billion market by 2025, which is roughly the size of the
desktop PC market today.
Remember the Pokmon GO craze last year? This is an example
of augmented reality. The technology interacts directly with
real world surroundings by adding content to the game. This
phenomenon has exposed the public to the capabilities of
augmented reality and has left them wanting more.
These innovations go a long way toward improving the customer
experience, but they dont require brands to transform in order
to make the most of them. Stay true to your objectives and
brand purpose, but consider how you can leverage technology
and strategic ideas in ways that make sense for your business to
enhance your customers experience.
Emotional connections are
Trend #3 getting deeper for the customer
A study of thenew science of customer emotionspublished by
Harvard Business Review shows evidence that the most effective
way to maximize customer value is to move beyond customer
satisfaction and connect with customers on an emotional level by
tapping into their deep, often unspoken emotional needs.In 2016,
we observed several brands leveraging this strategy to connect
with consumers on a deeper level.
Procter & Gambles Thank You, Mom campaign for the 2016
Summer Olympics showed that theres nothing like the emotional
bond between a mother and child. Its a tribute to moms for the
role they play in raising strong children. The campaign went viral,
showcasing the impact that well-timed, emotionally provocative
content can have by taking the focus off of your brand and placing
it on the most admirable characteristics of your customers.
Trend #4 Speaking the customers language
With 6 billion emojis sent daily, theyve become a universal
language by giving people a way to channel their emotions, which
are often hard to convey through text message. More brands have
started to incorporate emojis into their marketing efforts to be
more expressive and speak the language of their customers. There
are manybenefitsto incorporating these icons into your marketing
programs. They are a bridge between digital and physical, and
while playful and fun, they can enhance communication and drive
response.
Dominos has made it possible to order an oven hot pizza to
your door with just one emoji. Once a customer has a Dominos
account set-up with their favorite order, and its linked to Dominos
Twitter feed, all they have to do is tweet the pizza emoji and
the pizza is delivered to their door. By speaking the customers
language, Dominos is not only connecting with their most loyal
customers but are creating convenience and making it easier for
customers to interact with their brand.
Customer-centric digital messaging approaches will continue at
full speed throughout the journey of digital transformation. It will
advance with the developments of new data-fueled technologies
and ideas focused on creating immersive experiences and will
enable many impressionable moments for consumers. Marketers
must consider how to build on the existing relationship they
have with their customers and market to them in the most
impactful and meaningful moments. Over time, these approaches
will engender deeper loyalty and your customers will become
obsessed with your brand.
Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 31
 TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS & REWARDS

Itclear
is becoming increasingly
that chatbots and
virtual assistants are
poised to become major

Driving
players in the relationships
between enterprises and
their customers.

Loyalty A quick walk through the floor of CES recently in Las Vegas

By Putting
would instantly confirm that. After all, as a self-serve tool,
chatbots offer the closest thing to a person-to-person
interaction. Their natural language interface and easy
deployment across platforms make them ideal loyalty agents,

a Face on customer care reps and company ambassadors. However,

if not used correctly, these emerging customer care agents
have the potential to become a ubiquitous nuisance, much

CHAT
like IVRs did before them.

Chatbots havent yet been swept by consumers into the

annoyance bin, but as the bots become more ubiquitous

BOTS it could just be a matter of time before they wear out

their welcome. So heres an idea to inject new energy into
chatbots; turn them into loyalty agents through the use of
Personalized Video.

We all know that customer interactions are increasingly

Yotam Benami moving online. Thats a good thing from a convenience
Chief Marketing Officer
Idomoo standpoint. The problem, though, is that digital customer
interactions are generic, lacking the personal touch that is so
critical to generating loyalty. The advent of chatbots has the
potential to improve the digital experience for customers,
but only if those bots learn how to communicate with
humans on their terms. Humans are and always have
been audiovisual creatures. From an evolutionary
perspective, we are illiterate having only learned
how to read and write several hundreds years ago
and arguably already moving away from doing so.
But weve been consuming and analyzing
audiovisual data for as long as weve been
on this planet, which is why our brains
are so receptive to it.

32Loyalty
32 Loyalty Management| SPRING
Management | SPRING 2017
2017
 So how does a
PV chatbot work?
Lets say a customer has a few questions about
how to use a new product or how a companys
new loyalty program works. On the companys
website, the customer would start a regular
chatbot interaction. However, certain questions
and keywords typed by the customer trigger
the generation of a Personalized Video in real
time. For example, the question How do I
activate roaming? can be responded to with a
Personalized Video addressing the customer by
her name and walking her visually through the
menu systems of the actual device she owns,
only to end with an offer for a roaming bundle.
No IVR or boxed tutorial can do that.

This vision is not a pipe dream, it is a reality.

The problem with video has always been that it Commercial deployments of PV-enabled
was a broadcast medium, a one-to-many channel. chatbots are happening at this very moment.
However, Personalized Video changes that by
generating 1:1 data-driven videos in real time. It is Engaging with customers on a personal level
this ability to dynamically generate videos in real time and using their preferred media drives the
that makes Personalized Videos so adequate as the highest levels of trust and engagement, which
future interface for bots. we know are the two cornerstones of customer
loyalty. PV-enabled chatbots can help companies
By using a human interface, bots will become more accomplish this.
engaging and effective, rather than becoming the
IVR of our age. Its easy to see how PV-enabled
chatbots can boost sales, retention and customer
satisfaction. Consider that 90 percent of the
information humans take in is visual and that this
information is then remembered 40 percent more This vision
reliably than text. Add audio to the video and the is not a pipe
effectiveness jumps even higher. dream, it is a
reality.
Video has the power to drive an emotional
connection with customers. And when viewers
connect with the message, theyre more inclined to
click, share, learn more, and begin forming a lasting
brand relationship.

PV-enabled chatbots have the opportunity not

only to present information in a visual and easy-
to-understand format but to humanize a brand by
applying the power of gesture and tone, giving the
brand a literal face for customers to get to know.

Loyalty
LoyaltyManagement
Management| SPRING 2017
| SPRING 2017 33
33
 TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS & REWARDS

Three Considerations This is the year. Youve vowed to lead the charge

for Website Personalization

for building a truly contextual, personalized user
experience for your online Loyalty customers.

Youve read all the articles and blogs expounding

on one-to-one marketing and using Big Data
to understand your customer. Youve wrapped
your head around the array of tools available to
help you deliver that experience. Youve brought
various stakeholders into the loop and identified
the many ways you can significantly improve
your relationship with online customers.
Its at this point that you realize there will be
a considerable investment of time, money
and strategic planning needed to bring this
personalization engine to life.

Jumping into any unknown territory is

challenging, and truly, so much really is unknown
at the early stages of implementing anything
with the potential to disrupt traditional marketing
tactics. The fact there is so much evolution in
the Big Data and Personalization space makes
life that much more uncertain for marketers
looking to make the jump, confident their choices
will stand the test of time.
Chris Martin
Director, Marketing &
Having built personalization into sophisticated
Application Development
Montrose Travel travel loyalty solutions for financial institutions
and other entities, the team at Montrose
Travel Loyalty Solutions has helped many
(understandably) cautious clients overcome
1. Create your road map this fear of the unknown and address issues that
Website visitors likes to see their name on the website page it says arise around the concept of
we know you -- and pre-filling some preferences into a lengthy online form web personalization.
is always a welcome timesaver for the user. These are clear use cases for web Weve also had to
personalization tools, but they hardly live up to the promise of a revolutionary overcome some
change to your marketing strategy. challenges of
our own.
The real power of a personalization engine lies in its power to transform
your organization and its ability to meet the growing expectations of your
Whether
customers, namely to engage them with contextually relevant content, to
youre
anticipate their needs, and guide them to transact.
jumping
But with no shortage of projects you can tackle with your personalization onto the
engine projects which may have previously been out of reach for lack website
of resources or organizational focus -- its all too easy to jump in and start
doing while losing sight of the bigger end goal of transforming.
So what does transformation mean for your organization? Defining key
milestones and measurable objectives of your personalization strategy is critical.
Are you looking to create channel stickiness for certain customer segments, personalization
increase product adoption across customer base, or curate performance in a bandwagon as an
state or region? Knowing your pain points, benchmarks, and desired outcomes organization or working with a partner in building
from the start helps to wade through the seemingly endless possibilities of a a personalized loyalty program, we hope this
target-rich personalization strategy. article will share some of the key considerations
you can preemptively attack before you get too
far down the road.

34 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017

2. Get your Legal house in order
One of the most attractive aspects of a personalization engine is the
ability to collect and analyze user interaction on your website, not just
in an anonymized, aggregated way but on the individual named user
level. The underlying objective is to build a profile on each individual
customer consisting of product affinities, preferences, geolocation,
and much more. You could potentially record every form submission,
every button clicked, and every screen swipe.
While there are plenty of unknowns around a customers preferences
and product affinities, surely there will come a time when youll need
certain data points to gain insight into some user characteristic you
have yet to identify. So just collect everything and ask questions later,
right?
From a legal standpoint, youll probably need to rethink this approach
and evaluate what data you absolutely need to collect and store, and
whether it might be considered PII.
For a financial institution, there are often specific definitions of what
constitutes PII data, and this could even be the storage of just a
few collective data points like email address or name and address.
While you may not be subject to the level of data security required of
financial institutions, youll need to consider your organizations data
security policies before you store certain information.
Financial institutions are also well-acquainted with the disclosure
requirements of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), especially
around the introduction of web cookies and the collection of account-
level NPI data (non-public information). This may trigger the
requirement for a new round of disclosures and even direct customer
acceptance if the existing privacy policy doesnt already accommodate
such forms of data collection. (Note: not every implementation
will, or should, rely on web cookies, especially if the personalization
experience is to extend across devices.)
The bottom line is you may need to consider limiting the type of
information you collect as part of the users profile. You might
successfully circumvent some issues by manipulating how that data is
stored. For example, salting and hashing algorithms may adequately
disguise critical data without compromising the capabilities of your
personalization engine.
3. Analytics and insights
Another powerful feature of a solid personalization engine is the
ability to easily conduct A/B and multivariate tests. The objective
is to simplify the user experience and reduce friction by removing
impediments to transaction flow. However, the challenge is
identifying where to focus your attention in the user experience.
Heres where an alternative analytics solution may help immensely.
Google Analytics is certainly a must-use tool for most organizations,
but as powerful as it is, there are other analytics tools that may serve
as a better compliment to your personalization engine (and to Google
Analytics itself).
While you can configure Google Analytics to drill down to data on
the individual user level, its not easy to do and there are limitations.
In particular, youll need to define the specific data point youd like to
collect, code the website page to pass that data, and wait for some
time to pass before youve collected enough data to make an informed
and statistically relevant assessment.
In building travel loyalty systems for our clients, Montrose Travel has
found Heap Analytics to be a useful resource in this regard, though
there are other analytics solutions to consider. Something we love
about Heap is the fact that nearly every interaction on the website
page is (anonymously) recorded without our having to define it up-
front and code for it and we can drill down to the individual user level
if need be.
On a practical level, this retrospective reporting capability is
invaluable. Six months after product launch when we want to assess
usage of a particular website feature (or if the client asks for this data),
we will have already collected six months of data before the need for
it even arose. We can then use our findings to make truly informed
enhancements to the user interface, or to identify where we wish to
conduct A/B tests for further investigation.
This level of reporting can also be of huge value to QA teams in
discovering specific points of failure through transaction funnels
across various devices, operating systems and browser types.
In closing:
The prospect of deeper insight into your online customers and gaining
their increased engagement is not just enticing but truly essential in
Loyalty today. For some organizations, website personalization can be
quite a jump. Behind the scenes of any effective implementation is a
set of tools, processes, and strategic plans that do not come without a
cost in terms of time and resources. But with some advance planning
and guidance, you can more easily direct your efforts to transforming
your loyalty program into something your customers have come to
expect from a modern user experience.
Chris Martin is Director of Loyalty and Leisure Marketing for Montrose Travel, the
U.S.-based Loyalty arm of Australian travel giant Corporate Travel Management Ltd.
(ASX:CTD). Montrose Travel provides best-in-class travel loyalty solutions for marquee
brands in financial, retail, and marketing services sectors
Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 35
TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS & REWARDS

Mobile
or Bust
Retailers have been experimenting with loyalty programs to connect with their customers
throughout history. Redeemable S&H Greenstamps, available at markets and gas stations,
first appeared in the 1930s and are often credited as the earliest rewards program. Some
even claim loyalty programs date back to the 1700s when retailers gave special repeat
customers copper coins to trade in for a free item with their next purchase.

Ben Gaddis
President
T3

While the concept of loyalty is clearly not a new one, how
brands and retailers approach loyalty has evolved drastically
over time. Long gone are the days of copper coins, stamps
and paper punch cards. Successful loyalty programs today
meet consumers where they are: their mobile devices.
Brands understand the importance of loyalty; almost half of US
marketers polled in a recent survey said they plan to increase loyalty
budgets this year. Theyve also caught on to the need to transition
to mobile, but not all are answering this essential question from
consumers when it comes to loyalty programs Whats in it for me?

Mobile is more pervasive than ever. comScore recently Retailers that get mobile loyalty right are those that understand
reported that mobile now represents 65 percent of all digital the need to address this question. Today, its not enough to just be
media time, with mobile apps dominating that usage. While mobile; retailers need to take their loyalty programs a step further to
most e-commerce transactions still take place on desktop, design programs that delight their customers, drive repeat purchasing
marketers and retailers are realizing more and more the behavior, and ultimately, revenue.
importance of a multi-platform strategy that integrates
mobile to successfully reach their customers.
Mobile now
The recent mobile revolution and rise of mobile payments
has removed the need for POS terminals, automated the represents
enrollment process, and enabled brands to communicate
with their customers more frequently and meaningfully.
65 percent of all
Mobile also opens new doors for retailers, as access to data digital media time,
like a users geography and shopping preferences, allows the
opportunity for customized, targeted campaigns and offers
with mobile apps
that resonate with the wants and needs of their customers. dominating
that usage.
36 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017
 Look no further than coffee
retailing giant Starbucks
for a recent example of a
brand nailing mobile loyalty.
According to MarketWatch,
Starbucks now has more
than 12 million active loyalty
members in the U.S.,
up 16 percent from 2015.

Through Star rewards, users accumulate stars with every
purchase and move up the ranks from the green level (0-299
stars) to the coveted gold level (300+ stars). While theyve
received some backlash recently for changing the way they
allocate points, this doesnt seem to have slowed down growth,
and thats a testament to their devoted following of users.
They go even beyond POS mobile payments to cater to their busy
customer by offering the ability to order ahead and skip the line.
Personal touches like free birthday rewards, perks like special double-
star days, and strategic rewards partnerships with companies like Lyft,
are all icing on the cake for a holistic mobile loyalty program that their
Starbucks customers recognize as directly valuable to them.

Starbucks knows that its customers want more than free coffee.
Thats why their approach to building loyalty includes so much
more than that. Most Starbucks customers are professionals
that want to grab their coffee and get on with the rest of
their day. Directly addressing that, Starbucks has seamlessly
integrated a mobile payments system that allows their
customers to pay at checkout with their phones.
In 2017, well see more brands transitioning their loyalty programs to
mobile - and those that dont, getting buried alongside paper punch
cards. The brands that will see success wont look at mobile as a way
to merely offer more product rewards, but rather create a full user
experience that makes life easier and better for their customer. In
other words, the brands that look at mobile loyalty as answering the
question of how, rather than what, are the brands that will inspire
long-term loyalty in 2017 and beyond.

In 2017, well see more

brands transitioning their
loyalty programs to mobile.

Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 37

STATE OF THE INDUSTRY

Whats
the New
Marketing
Paradigm?

Scott Weller
Co-Founder and CTO,
SessionM

A new marketing paradigm has hatched, and its growing.
Where there was once division between marketing and IT
teams now there is unity. Where technology once struggled to
meet marketing objectives without clear attribution, now its
deployed to support business goals with rich analytics.
We are embarking into a time period where the role marketing
is being redefined faster than most organizations can respond.
By respond, I mean drive business goals. It goes beyond media
and messaging, and it is becoming the contextual fabric that
holds together the complete customer experience. It is a union
no, a hybrid - between technology, marketers, business, and
those who study human behavior. The Harvard Business Review
agrees. In an article titled The Rise of the Chief Marketing
Officer , HBR prophetically declared
A new type of executive is emerging
at the center of the transformation: the
chief marketing technologist. CMTs are
part strategist, part creative director, part
technology leader, and part teacher.
segmentation is dead. It is a holdover from the bygone era of
direct mail and print marketing. It assumes peoples lives are
static. Its continued use has calcified what marketing is capable
of achieving for the business. It is a serialized process in a
parallel and asynchronous world, where asymmetric influences
produce measurable outcomes for the business. In an interview
with MarketingWeek last month, Salesforce CMO Guillaume
Roques said, we are no longer in a world where were
segmenting using categories such as age or location; we are
in a one-on-one world where we have to talk in a personalised
way to everyone. It means were back to where we were in the
beginning of the twentieth century, where people knew their
customers by name.
Journey building is
dead. It assumes life is
a production line. In an
era where consumer
intent changes with
the sudden trending of
a hashtag, it is beyond
the capability of any
one human being to
foresee or predict the
future, never

38 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017

mind create and test the thousands of permutations to truly drive
sales and incrementalism for the business. Machines are far better at
finding the patterns that matter in the vast sea of consumer activity
and predicting next steps and outcomes for the customer and the
business; a win-win world driven by an adaptive contract between
humans and machines.
Loyalty mapping is in. Its
beginning with the end in mind.
Its analyzing the data to imagine
and predict what the ultimate
ambition for each customer could
be. The route will be unclear with
lots of zigs and zags, potholes
to be avoided, and fast lanes to
duck into when the opportunity
presents itself. Control is in the
hands of the customer. The idea
of handing them directions, and
asking them to follow seems quaint now. CMOs and their partners in
IT are now responsible for being the way, if not always the means to
an end. As Guillaume explained: Digital transformation isnt about
how the CMO and CIO can work together to better those touch
points, its about the CMO and CIO working together with the CEO to
transform the way they are serving their customers.
Extending marketing into the customer experience and making
moments of impact requires people and technology that not only
understand the who and the what but also take into consideration
time, place, immediacy, and goals.
Those who have made the transition into this new era of contextual
marketing tend to fall into the following patterns:
1. The CMO and CIOs are tightly aligned. Tech is deployed
to drive goals, not for the sake of deploying tech.
2. They recognize that technology will advance faster than
their teams are able to respond with viable solutions.
3. They recognize that far more capital is being put to work
than they ever could to develop and design solutions on
their behalf.
4. IT teams have a declared mission to work with new and
innovative companies. They become more innovative by
taking risks on new ideas and by working with the best
and brightest in the industry.
5. IT is a supportive role, not a development shop. They
recognize they need to be experts on how to apply
technology solutions to their business, not become slaves
to technical debt and internally developed tools.
6. The business and marketing team are tightly aligned
on objectives.
7. Both the marketing and IT organizations recognize the
value of incremental wins. They avoid building battleships
and trade the monolith for small, nimble, and tactical teams.
Their technology choices reflect that.
Achieving this new paradigm must not overlook the obvious
challenges. Companies have invested years of capital, blood,
sweat, and tears into their current technology platforms. Traditional
brick-and-mortar businesses are not given the budgets and
luxury to transition off of legacy systems and onto complete new
tech; a distinct disadvantage to their new and disruptive digital
counterparts eating their lunch.
Also, building and stitching things
together on your own works great
until you have to tighten your IT belt.
Then you realize the people who built
your one-off no longer work for the
company, and you have amassed a
pile of technical debt (ie: start looking
for a new job). At that point, those left
behind have no choice but to take a
flamethrower to that rats nest.
World-class organizations achieving
this new paradigm are taking a unique approach. They are creating
incremental transitions from their data warehouse with The Customer
Data Platform. This new approach operationalizes customer data in
the cloud, allows the company to create a contract for accessibility,
reliability, security and access control. With this one step, they are
immediately enhancing their ability to integrate with newer and
more effective cloud-based technologies, modern data warehouses,
BI tools, advanced AI and analytics; without taking on the burden of
architecting a completely new marketing and CRM stack.
World-class organizations deserve world-class technologies and
shouldnt settle for anything less (and cant afford to either).
Achieving the new marketing paradigm requires technology worthy
of a Learjet--fast, agile, sleek, and built to last. The emergence of The
Customer Data Platform offers a clear next step for organizations that
understand a tactical and agile approach is the answer. They recognize
battleships will not win the war.
Scott has over 18 years of development, operational and leadership experience
turning ideas into reality and leading technology teams through the challenges of
early stage growth.
Prior to SessionM, Scott served as Vice President of Product & Technology for
Scientific Games (SGMS). While at Scientific Games, Scott oversaw the
development and integration of interactive technologies into MDIs products
and services.
Earlier in his career, Scott served as Vice President of Product and Technology at
GameLogic (acquired by Scientific Games in 2010), Co-Founder and GM of
SnapYap.com, Principle Software Engineer at Terra / Lycos Inc., and Senior
Software engineer at Gamesville.com (acquired by Lycos in 1999). At Lycos, Scott
spent several years innovating data and advertising platform technologies. At the
age of 16, he joined a team of eight motivated geeks to help build countrys first
Internet service provider, later acquired by Conversant Communications. Scott
graduated from the University Of Rhode Island with a BS in Computer Science.
Scott loves spending time with family, learning new software languages,
snowboarding, sailing and is an avid golfer.
Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 39
 STATE OF THE INDUSTRY

Repeat Purchases
Dont = Loyalty.
Heres What Does.
There are many definitions of loyalty, but it is a universal truth that people,
by nature, are loyal We are loyal to friends and family, sports teams, social
and political causes, and our favorite brands. What makes us loyal to some
and not to others?

Narina Sippy
CMO
Stellar Loyalty

Simply put, loyalty runs hand in hand with emotions. Customer

loyalty is the result of a consistently positive emotional [C]ustomer loyalty is about much
experience, physical attribute-based satisfaction, and the
perceived value of an experience, which includes the product more than repeat purchases. Indeed,
or services. even someone who buys again
and again from the same company
Ultimately, to prompt customer loyalty, brands must build an
emotional bond with their customers. They must understand may not necessarily be
those customers preferences and habits, and relate to loyal to that company
them personally and with relevance. As a mutual bond is
created, the loyalty deepens and the relationship transcends but instead may be
a single transaction. This is how companies can create value, trapped by inertia,
incremental growth, and sustainable loyalty. indifference, or exit
This all begs the question of how companies can measure and barriers erected
determine that emotional bond, something marketers are keen by the company or
to achieve.
circumstance Note
Frederick F. Reichheld, a Boston-based director emeritus at that loyalty may have
Bain & Company, expounds on the error many marketers make little to do with repeat
in relying on retention rates and customer satisfaction surveys,
in an article titled The One Number You Need to Grow, purchases.
published in the Harvard Business Review:

40 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017

Similarly, Reichheld argues, Customer Satisfaction Surveys
dont adequately identify top tier customers who are loyal
to the company, but instead locate repeat customers who
arent UNHAPPY with the company. Customers who arent
unhappy may be repeat customers for several reasons, some
of which have nothing to do with the company itself, such as
convenience, location, etc.
Keep in mind that when it comes to loyalty, the information you
are after is about the whole relationship, not a single experience
or transaction. So its important to use the NPS question
appropriately at the right time and place - and with the bigger
picture in mind. Other useful considerations when employing
NPS can be found in this Forbes piece, How Effective Is Net
Promoter Score (NPS)?

Remember, its not about driving transactions; its about

building emotional connections. How can you do that?

To identify customers who are truly As you build your program through 2017,
loyal, it often comes down to one ask yourself these questions:
essential truth:
Is your engagement building the
How far is the customer bond or only focused on the next
transaction?
willing to go to put their
own reputation on the
line for your brand. Are you nurturing those customers
who are indeed your advocates?

How do you identify and cultivate

more of these?

Have you asked the simple NPS

question to see how many of your
customers are willing to go out on
the limb for you?

Based on this - what is your

This is the basis of the Net Promoter Score (NPS), created by goal to improve this?
Reichheld and his colleagues at Bain, which measures on a
scale of 1-10 how likely a customer would be to recommend
a company to a friend or colleague. A customers willingness
to risk their own personal brand for yours indicates a level of As human beings, we are all wired to be loyal to the people and
support and commitment that goes well beyond the business organizations that make us feel good. Get to the heart of your
transaction. customer and youll get to the heart of loyalty.

While one of the more compelling determinations, its worth

noting that the NPS alone is not the solution to all things loyalty
related. There is always value in questioning customers more
fully to better understand the motivations behind the score and
Narina Sippy is CMO of Stellar Loyalty, the consumer relationship company
learn the root of the emotional bonds that exist. with a mobile-best SaaS loyalty solution.

Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 41

 Loyalty Expo is a true Voice of the Customer-driven, best practice-focused customer loyalty
and reward conference. By attending, youll have the opportunity to network with hundreds
of your fellow marketers and hear how they are reaching their customer relationship-
building goals. The 10th annual Loyalty Expo will include sessions from leaders in customer
loyalty, workshop sessions, networking opportunities, the 2017 Loyalty360 Awards, our
4th Annual Loyalty Landscape: State of the Industry Report and much more.

Keynote Session Keynote Session

Customer Loyalty 101: How Brands Built for CX: The Story of How Ally Bank
Can Use, Grit to Great was Created with the Customer in Mind

Linda Linda Kaplan Thaler is a member of the Advertising
Kaplan Thaler Hall of Fame, thanks to her work with campaigns
Author
including the Aflac Duck and the Yes, Yes, Yes ads
for Clairol Herbal Essences. Beyond that, Thaler is a
nationally acclaimed author; her newest bestseller
with Robin Koval, Grit to Great, was ranked one of the
top business books for 2015. Her talents have earned
her the prestigious Matrix Award, the Advertising
Woman of the Year Award, NYWIFTs Muse award,
and is one of Ad Age s Most Influential Women in
Advertising. Recently, she won the Clios Lifetime
Achievement Award and was the first woman to ever
receive this coveted award.
Andrea Riley Given the historic nature of the banking industry,
CMO many organizations within the vertical are locked
into a brand tradition that is decades, often even
centuries old. This is part of what makes Ally
Bank unique; built from the ground up in 2008,
Ally (then GMAC) was able to examine the pain
points created by these antiquated processes
and form an identity that sought to navigate
them in a way that put the customer first.

General Session Breakout Session

How Ulta Beauty is Leveraging Customer Serving Up Loyalty: Examining Loyalty

Data with Brand Partners Programs in the Restaurant Industry

Eric Ulta Beauty, the nations No. 1 specialty beauty retailer
Messerschmidt
is helping its brand partners develop stronger, more
SVP Marketing
loyal and profitable relationships with their customers
by leveraging the data of its more than 20+ million
Ultamate Rewards members. Eric will demonstrate
how this beauty retailer has shifted away from
discounts by using an A to Z approach for analyzing
customer data, identifying engagement opportunities,
developing and executing targeted promotional
strategies, and measuring results via the longer-term
change in customer behavior.
Justin Unger The base structure of a loyalty program is often
Sr. Manager,
Digital Marketing the framework that creates differentiation from the
& Innovation numerous other programs within the restaurant
space. In order to serve as an anchor point for
a comprehensive marketing push, the program
must seek not only to acquire members initially,
but also to encourage increased engagement
from these members once registered. In a panel
featuring loyalty marketers across the restaurant
vertical, speakers will discuss the importance of a
Billie Jo Waara
Sr. Chief
well-designed loyalty program, and how going the
Marketing Officer extra mile in CRM analysis can prevent customers
from failing to reach increased engagement after
program registration.

42 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017

 Conference Preview | 2017
May 2-4 | Caribe Royale | Orlando, Florida
Breakout Session
Strength Through Alignment:
How MassMutual Leveraged
Culture to Refocus on Its Customers
Una Morabito
Senior Vice
President MassMutual has made CX a core tenet in its
business, and enjoys substantial success in
the sector as a result. Join Una Morabito, SVP,
head of client management for MassMutual, as
she details how the company created a culture
of committed service, as well as the ways in
which it leverages existing technologies to align
processes with this new charted course. A shift
in culture is never easy, but MassMutual serves
as an example of how it can be done seamlessly
and with the dedication needed to enact
tangible change at an organizational level.
Breakout Session
Playing into Strengths, Identifying Weaknesses:
How A Strong Brand Identity Gives GM
the Information Needed to Drive CX Forward
David Mingle
General Director Identifying a challenge in the customer loyalty space
of Global Customer can often be as valuable, if not more so, than solving
Experience Execu-
one. Many brands find themselves stagnant simply
tion and Planning
due to their inability to find a starting point for their
CX improvements. David Mingle, GMs director of
connected customer experience, will show attendees
how General Motors approaches the strengths and
weaknesses of its customer experience as it stands
now. As the mobile channel continues to thrive, this
session will provide an exclusive look at one of the
brands leading the charge forward.
Breakout Session
How Marvel Drives Loyalty with
Points for Engagement
Julie Gerola Whether companies have an existing loyalty
VP & General program or are launching one for the first time,
Manager for its essential that they expand their loyalty
Digital Marketing
strategies to include engagement drivers, in
& Operations
addition to focusing on spend behaviors. Join
Julie Gerola, VP/GM, Marketing & Digital
Operations at Marvel Entertainment and Emily
Rudin, Chief Customer Office at CrowdTwist,
for a look at how the brand leverages a
multichannel loyalty program with engagement-
based drivers to drive fan engagement, reach
Emily Rudin
new audiences, and boost sales.
Chief Customer
Officer
Loyalty. Engaged.
Breakout Session
Customer Loyalty is Changing,
Brands Should Too
Sarah Sharp- According to a recent Accenture survey, 78 percent
Wangaard of U.S. consumers are retracting from loyalty
VP of Marketing programs. Hibbetts program started off strong,
& Operations
quickly enrolling more than 6 million members on
file. But soon after the program began, it started
seeing engagement suffer and core KPIs drop. This
presentation will focus on the evolution of Hibbetts
loyalty program from traditional loyalty to a program
fueled by customer insights and financial analysis.
The speakers will walk the audience through their
Kim Welther
journey from a robust analysis of the old program to
VP of Marketing
Strategy the insights that catalyzed a redesign and relaunch
of the transformed Hibbett loyalty program.
Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 43
 Breakout Session
Tradition Meets Tech: Bringing Modern
Marketing Techniques to a Sport Built
on History
Lynn LaRocca
Senior Vice In this session, hear how the New York Racing
President, CXO Association, one of the premier horse racing
organizations in the world, is applying modern
marketing techniques in an industry with rich
traditions and a storied past. The association realizes
the opportunity to tap into consumers emotional
bonds with the sport, but sees that a paradigm shift
has taken place between brands and customers. By
analyzing data and leveraging voice of the customer
feedback to understand what customers truly want,
the NYRA is focused on every channel and area
that is a direct touch point for customers, including
marketing, communication, the box office, sales, and
a variety of customer hospitality services.
Breakout Session
Engagement Through Entanglement:
Staying Top of Mind Through Collaboration
Michael Marino When it comes to building a foundation of
Senior VP, customer loyalty, brands must think outside the
Loyalty & Digital walls of their location. If a companys CX efforts
stop as soon as the customer walks out of the
building, it can expect a lackluster enthusiasm
from consumers in return. Through tactics
value-added partnerships and a highly successful
mobile app, Caesars has been able to create
entanglement through a large and diverse set
of outside customer interactions. Join Michael
Marino, senior vice president, loyalty & digital, for
a look at how Caesars extended its CX far beyond
its properties, and substantially improved its
position as a part of its customers lives.
44 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017
Breakout Session
Driving Customer Loyalty through
Personalization
Jen Gulvik Is your email club and customer marketing
SVP of Marketing, still one size fits all? With the proliferation of
Creative Director customer data, how do find more marketable
customers and gain the actionable insights
you need to deliver personalized, relevant
communications at the right time in the right
communication channels. We will show
you how Houlihans Restaurant Group is
transforming its eClub to 1:1 marketing to
increase customer loyalty and drive more
Barb Olson restaurant visits.
SVP, Loyalty
& 1:1 Solutions
General Session
General Session Featuring
Red Shoes Living
Lonnie Mayne Countless companies are willing to make a
Founder & CEO change in order to offer customers the best
product possible, but very few are willing
to go far enough to make transformational
changes. This is the focus of Red Shoes,
a concept centered on standing out and
creating positive experiences for both
colleagues and customers. Join Lonnie
Mayne as he walks attendees through the
foundational pillars of Red Shoes, and how
this philosophy applies to the increasingly
connected world of customer loyalty.
 Conference Preview | 2017
Showcase Session
Dark Data on Social Media: Using Online
Reviews to Capture and Improve Customer
Experience
Mark Lange
Chief Marketing Consumers increasingly rely on their own research
Officer to make purchasing decisions. This trend has
made online reviews and social media posts
about products and services extremely powerful.
Marketing departments are no longer in charge of
brand sentiment and perception. The good news
is online reviews and social postsespecially the
negative onesoffer a goldmine of insights about
customer experience and sentiment that you can
use to build advocacy. When mined and analyzed
effectively, data from these sources provides
information you need to make operational changes
that improve the customer experience.
Showcase Session
The Loyalty Effect
U.S. consumers hold 3.3 billion memberships in
Cassie Boutelle customer loyalty programs. Whether you are a
VP, Loyalty
leading financial institution, a small retail shop
Products Global
Retail Payments/ or a global company, there is one common key
Product Mgmt. to ensuring the overall success of your business:
consumer loyalty. As regulatory pressures and new
payments technologies challenge relationships
between financial institutions and merchants, its
important to find ways to collaborate on emerging
payment types and create new partnerships to
support them including point of sales integrations,
mobile wallets and redemption options.
Showcase Session
Agenda & Speakers Leveraging Multi-
Brand Customers to Drive Value with
1-800-Flowers
Rahul Chand
Senior Director, Loyalty programs have historically focused
Enterprise Loyalty solely on driving higher lifetime value (LTV) via
Marketing
higher retention rates and frequency. However,
1-800-Flowers.com, Inc. is increasingly
leveraging its Celebrations Rewards and
Celebrations Passport programs to create
multi-brand customers - customers that shop
with more than one brand. Join Rahul Chand,
senior director, enterprise loyalty marketing for
1-800-Flowers, as he shares with attendees
the plan for the company to create these
multi-brand customers in an effort to increase
retention through a variety of streams.
Showcase Session
3 Ways to Convince Your CFO to Invest
More in Loyalty
Len Llaguno
While loyalty programs undoubtedly generate
Senior Consultant
significant value, quantifying value and
forecasting the future outlook in financial terms
can be difficult. Predicting how members will
earn and redeem their points over time can
be a significant barrier to justifying further
Manolis Bardis investment in the loyalty program, particularly
Senior Consultant
for organizations that keep a keen eye on
company financials. Want to know the top
three things you need to do to convince your
CFO to invest more in your loyalty program?
This session will demonstrate how to use data-
driven insights to quantify the financial value of
your loyalty program and measurable ways to
optimize program ROI.
Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 45
 Breakout Session
Customer Loyalty in Travel
& Entertainment
Julius Lai Perhaps no industry is undergoing more change
VP of Guest in customer loyalty than travel & entertainment.
Engagement Thanks to increasingly accessible in-home
experiences, as well as the contrasting trend for
Millennials to value experiences over tangible
goods, marketers can feel overwhelmed when
looking for what exactly goes into the perfect
experience. In this travel & entertainment
panel, we bring together executives from top
brands in the space and examine their thoughts,
Graham Bradley
ideas, and predictions for topics like customer
Loyalty Programme
engagement, loyalty channels, new technology,
& Propositions and the raising expectations from customers
Manager across the vertical.
Showcase Session
Building a Better B2B & B2G Customer
Experiences with Advanced Analytics
Michael Marchand Agility is among the most valuable traits a
Executive in company can possess in designing and operating
Strategy, Innovation, a loyalty program, yet many organizations are
Corp. Development
and Operations falling behind in this respect, especially in the B2B
& B2G sectors. Through the leveraging of best
practices, brands can tailor CX to the individual
consumer, creating meaningful experiences that
are able to effectively engage customers and
create a unique sense of loyalty Join Michael
Marchand from Dell EMCs Chief Customer Office
as he walks attendees through best practices and
processes to better understand the customer in an
effort to make a significant impact on overall CX
and customer satisfaction.
VP, Global CRM
46 Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017
Breakout Session
The Evolving Grocer: Examining Changes
in the CPG and Grocery Space
In this session, brands will learn about how
Ron Cox
Director of customer data is driving change in the grocery/
Consumer CPG arena. No longer is mass only the fashion
Marketing &
Planning or passion. SpartanNash is working with its CPG
partners to create a shared vision for improving
the customer experience by changing how
we look at the product offering and customer
experience in each store. Personalization is
challenging traditional grocery retail thinking
related to item selection, display, promotion and
experience. SpartanNash is spearheading change
in this thinking by working with its CPG partners
to create a win/win/win relationship (Grocery/
CPG/Customer).
General Session
Creating Measurable Customer Experience & Loyalty
in an Evolving Retail Market
The retail space is nearly unrecognizable from what it was ten,
even five years ago. The dawn of online shopping has thrust
retailers of all sizes and specialties into a relative unknown frontier
of merging online selection and customization with a traditional
in-store customer experience. At Loyalty Expo 2017, marketers
from leaders in this industry will discuss the implications of an
increasingly digital space, and what their organizations are doing
to both adapt to the change, while still remaining true to the
values that have become their respective calling cards.
Brian Venuti Doug Glazer Carma Caughlan Jenifer Warrell
Director of Director of Consumer Senior Director
Customer Loyalty Engagement and of Marketing
Loyalty
 Conference Preview | 2017
Breakout Session
In-House VoC: How Allstate Rewards
Eschews Traditional Technology Solutions
to Cut Costs and Affect Positive Change
Richard Long
Strategic Marketing Insurance companies are unique compared
Leader & Advisor to most consumer-oriented industries in how
and why they traditionally interact directly with
their customers. It has usually been infrequent
and most likely not very positive or to share
good news. As a result, brands like Allstate
must work that much harder to form more
rewarding, frequent and positive interactions
and experiences with its customers while still
staying true to its brand. Join Rich Long, strategic
marketing leader and advisor at Allstate, for a
discussion regarding how Allstate approached
this challenge through the use of its unique
loyalty program and internally developed
VoC processes that can be applied in any
organization or industry.
Breakout Session
Driving Engagement in a Membership
Business Model
Stephanie BJs Wholesale Club is the countrys third-largest
Meltzer-Paul
wholesale provider in 15 states. Its business
VP of Member
Engagement model depends upon growing membership and
driving engagement among existing members.
This presentation will demonstrate how the
brand markets to its target customer, and uses its
internal data to drive trips and spends. It will take
audience members on a journey from acquisition
to engagement to retention to win-back strategies.
Breakout Session
Loyalty Revisited A Retrospective Panel Discussion
with Loyalty Expo Alumni
This panel discussion will be a retrospective on how customer loyalty
programs have evolved over the last one, two and three years. Youll hear
from past Loyalty Expo speakers who will discuss how their programs
and overall customer loyalty strategies have changed since theyve last
presented to the Loyalty Expo audience. Panelists will discuss the journey
of their customer loyalty programs, whats worked and hasnt worked
along the way. As brands put increasing focus on building customer
relationships and long-term loyalty, panelist will share their perspective
on the changing role of loyalty within the overall customer strategy for
their organizations and how it has impacted overall business objectives.
Kim Delaney Bill Linehan Lindsay Eichten Noah Brodsky
EVP & Chief Director SVP Worldwide
VP, Client
Engagement Marketing Officer of Loyalty Loyalty & Customer
Engagement
General Session
CX with Style: Driving Mobile Engagement
to Improve Overall Customer Experience
Jeff Pearson
Much has been said about the importance of engaging
Senior Vice
President, customers via new mediums. What often falls by the
E-Commerce & wayside in these discussions, however, is how these new
Marketing
mediums will intersect with more traditional channels
to enhance the overall experience. This was the focus
of the new loyalty program at Lids Sports Group, which
integrates directly with the brands mobile app to create
a complete customer experience. SVP, Marketing &
Ecommerce Jeff Pearson will show attendees how the
company approached this opportunity as it launched the
Lids Hat Club, a program that not only takes advantage
of a mobile app, but also offers both free and premium
tiers, layering on an additional challenge in offering value
and engagement to its customers.
Loyalty Management | SPRING 2017 47
7695 Beechmont Ave.
Cincinnati, OH 45255

Loyalty360 is the unbiased, objective, and market-driven association for customer loyalty,
which seeks to enable and encourage dialogue among industry leaders. From our introductory
individual memberships to our top premium tier, our members are provided with the exposure,
certification, and exclusive content they need to continue their path to true customer centricity.

Loyalty360 memberships offer unique benefits to both brands and suppliers including access
to exclusive content, content promotion, networking opportunities, and more.

For more information on Loyalty360 membership, visit

loyalty360.org/join or contact Mark Johnson at MarkJohnson@Loyalty360.org.

513.800.0360 | loyalty360.org | @loyalty360