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Burger King Announced BKRewards Prada Testing e-tags Italian luxury goods maker Prada is testing "e-tag" technology in its New York stores. By attaching the electronic tags to merchandise in the store and monitoring shopper movements with electronic sensors, the retailer can keep track of every aspect of a shopper's behavior on the floor. (Colloquy.com)  17th June 2002
CRM Spending Still Rising Research firm IDC predicts that the worldwide CRM services market is slated to grow 18.6 per cent a year to reach $45.5 billion by 2006. (Colloquy.com) 17th June 2002
Smart Card and Smart Trolley in Supermarket Supermarket trolleys could soon be fitted with computers that remind customers what's on their regular shopping lists. Customers will log on to the "smart trolleys" using a loyalty card or credit card. The trolleys will also direct customers to special offers in the store. The devices, developed by St Albans-based Unipower Solutions, have had successful trials in the US. (The Sunday Mirror)  9th June 2002
Bank Customers Forced to Expect Less Grey's Eye on Australia consumer survey shows 79 per cent agree that big business is run for shareholders, not customers. Many companies are seen to treat service as an irritation and look for the lowest cost solution. They forget their caring for the customer and only think about cost. There is a lot of annoyance about call centres - they are seen as a cost cutting measure, not as a way of increasing service, with 81 per cent of respondents believing "personal service is becoming a thing of the past". This is magnified in the banking sector where branches continue to be closed. (Precision Marketing) 7th June 2002
Loyalty Tie-up on Cards Four of the UK's top brands are to join forces to launch what they claim will be the country's biggest loyalty card scheme. Sainsbury's, Barclaycard, Debenhams and BP are coming together to create a revolutionary loyalty programme that is expected to sign up 50 per cent of all UK households and be launched in the autumn. The loyalty programme, called Nectar, will club together the subscribers to each of the sponsoring companies' subscriber base. It will be run by Keith Mills, the founder of the Air Miles scheme's Loyalty Management UK firm. Mr Mills said: "We are delighted that four of the UK's best known and respected companies are coming together with us to launch Nectar." Card carriers will be able to collect points on purchases which will be exchangeable for a range of rewards. Sainsbury's chief executive, Sir Peter Davis, said: "We think our customers will welcome and value the benefits that Nectar offers." (Evening News - Scotland)  5th June 2002
Starbucks Taiwan Uses Smart Card for Loyalty Starbucks Taiwan launched a smart card loyalty e-purse system, which the customer receives a 20-percent discount on purchases through a stored-value card at Starbucks locations. The system also allows the user to track loyalty points and make purchases through the Internet, increasing loyalty among Starbucks patrons and providing the company with more opportunities to interact with its customers. (EDP Weekly's IT Monitor) 27th May 2002
First-of-its Kind Loyalty Programme in India Ansal Plaza Privileges, a special customer loyalty programme aims at providing a wide range of long-term benefits to its loyal patrons. The programme involves rewarding customers regularly for buying or using products or services from a basket of established brands. The customer can earn privilege points by buying products of a Netcarrots.com affiliate shop and exchange the points for any product at another affiliate shop. The annual membership fee is Rs 249. Praphul Misra, CEO of Netcarrots Loyalty Services, said, "Even though a few retailers have been running some form of loyalty programme, this is the first time they will be participating in an organised, professionally managed, large format, rewards programme." The campaign comes in wake of other successful united customer loyalty programme conducted by Netcarrots.com for industry leaders like Planet M, Domino's, NetVarsity, LG Electronics, Samsung, and Electrolux. (The Times of India) 23rd May 2002
Cathay Retains ICLP on Loyalty Marketing Brief Cathay Pacific has retained its loyalty marketing specialist Interna tional Customer Loyalty Programmes (ICLP) for another three years. The airline's brief includes programme marketing and communications management as well as servicing and operating of Cathay's Marco Polo Club and Air Miles programmes. The agency, which had been involved in the set-up and development of the two programmes since 1998, has more than 120 staff working on Cathay's account. ICLP has also handled programme strategy, database marketing and telemarketing for Cathay. (Media) 17th May 2002
Six Continents Reinvents Priority Club Six Continents relaunched its Priority Club Rewards program with new features, including points transfer, points purchase and a faster way to earn elite status by purchasing points. Instant point redemption is now available both online and by phone, giving Priority Club's 13 million members a paperless and immediate way to redeem free hotel nights. Both Starwoods and Six Continents advertise their loyalty program as "no blackout dates" and "no point expiration". "It used to be all about getting people in your program. Once they were in, you were done. Now everybody carries two or three frequent guest cards in their wallet, so the challenge now is much greater. You've got to offer them incentives to pull out your card and not someone else's when they're out on the road" says Pamela Mulder, Director of Consumer Marketing. (Lodging Hospitality) 10th May 2002
Updated Frequent-Flyer Miles Statistics Economist today talks about the big business of earning and spending frequent-flyer miles. 21 years ago this week, American Airlines launched AAdvantage, the world's first mileage-based frequent-flyer programme. Today some 100m people around the world belong to at least one such scheme. 50% of miles are earned without even leaving the ground today, credit-card spending and telephone calls are among the biggest earners. Free tickets purchased with frequent-flyer miles account for an average of 8% of airlines' revenue passenger miles. Airlines sell miles to partner companies such as credit card firm at an average of just under two cents a mile. In 2001, airlines sold roughly $10 billion-worth of miles to partners, which boosts airline's revenues; and marginal cost of giving away free seats that would otherwise be empty is minimal. Total number of miles awarded each year has doubled over the past 5 years; but miles redeemed have increased only by one-third. Holidays, car rental, books and CDs account for only 3% of redemptions. (Economist) 4th May 2002
About UAL Loyalty Services UAL Loyalty Services, Inc., is a wholly-owned subsidiary of UAL Corporation and is responsible for the development and administration of loyalty programs including Mileage Plus, Silver Wings and MyPoints.com. UAL Loyalty Services also manages united.com, United Cruise4Miles, Premier Group and many of United Airlines' media assets. 3rd May 2002
Verdict Research Shows Customer Loyalty Declining in UK The retail sector is being threatened by an alarming decline in customer loyalty, with brands such as Littlewoods and Gap most at risk for their non-segmented marketing strategies. That is the finding of research by retail specialist Verdict, which is warning retailers that they must adopt a 'micro-retailing' approach to consumers or face losing loyalty. Speaking at last week's Marketing Society Retail Forum, Verdict chairman Richard Hyman said customer loyalty had declined by 3.3%across all retail sectors since 1999. The fall was particularly pronounced in clothing, which fell by 10%, and housewares, where consumers have benefited from an explosion in choice in the past few years. 'Firms such as M&S and Next have successfully segmented their customer bases to offer different packages to different consumer groups,' said Hyman. 'Those such as Littlewoods and Gap have been less successful.' Despite the decline in loyalty, he added that consumers were less prepared to shop around, with fewer store visits per consumer predicted in 2002 against the 1999 figures. (Marketing Magazine) 2nd May 2002
Ecommerce companies score high on ACSI Survey According to the most recent results of the American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), which measures consumer satisfaction, ecommerce companies are providing higher levels of customer satisfaction than offline businesses in a number of key areas. The average ecommerce score declined slightly from a year ago, however, when it was actually higher than the average score for offline retailers. Ecommerce companies overall rated higher in service quality, product quality, and overall quality. Offline retail businesses, though, came out ahead in perceived value and customer loyalty. The survey looked at a few top businesses in each of four etailing categories: portals, retail, auction, and brokerage. As a category, portals came out the worst, dragged down by low scores for AOL and MSN, while Yahool came out at the ecommerce average. 30th April 2002
Software Won't Induce Loyalty, Contact Does Recent research involving 450 financial services organisations across the UK found that 76% of the total investment in CRM systems in the last 12 months, and 80% (worth $471m pounds) of all new CRM investments planned for 2002, will focus on establishing more face-to-face contact with customers. 29th April 2002
AT&T Wireless Services Reports Strong Q1 Revenue Increase at 15% AT&T Wireless Mobility Services president Mohan Gyani said "Our philosophy is simple, what's good for our customers is good business. We've adopted a "customer friendly" approach that improves customer loyalty, and this is reflected in our lower customer churn. We proactively work with existing customers well before their contracts expire to identify calling plans that fit best with their particular needs and help them upgrade their equipment. While customers' new monthly calling plans may be lower priced than their previous plans, we've retained valuable customers who have extended their contracts with us, and often they are multi-year contracts." 29th April 2002
Harrods Launches First Loyalty Card World-famous Knightsbridge department store Harrods is to launch a loyalty card for the first time in an effort to attract more regular customers. The retailer already operates a store account card and will offer the loyalty card from June to the highest spending 50,000 members of its 200,000-strong account card base. A spokesman said that unlike the account card, which offers discounts on products, the loyalty card will be "experience-led", with incentives such as free tickets to the theatre. (News from Retail Week) 26th April 2002
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Manages Expectation by Segmentation Mr. John Mims (VP of Sales & Marketing in Asia Pacific) in his appearance in a breakfast forum organized by Hong Kong Customer Service Consortium presented Starwood's Loyalty Marketing strategy. Their hotels range from luxurious resorts like St. Regis to exciting fun places like W Hotels, each configuration is tailored towards particular type of customers. One of his key messages is that managing expectation is very importatnt to maintain customer relationship and loyalty 25th April 2002
The Human Factor in Cathay Pacific Loyalty Program In a presentation organized by the Hong Kong Customer Service Consortium, Mr. Ron Mathison (GM, Director of CPLP) emphasizes the importance of human factor especially in the airline business. "If you treat your staff the way you like to be treated, your staff will treat your customers they way they like to be treated". We believe there are significant governing dymamics of a loyalty program he manages, we will just have to dig them out through our follow-up interview with him if possible 25th April 2002
Frequent Flier Programs Has No Differientation A study by American Express shows the average frequent flier belongs to four miles programs. That means factors other than miles make people pick an airline. But airlines can't ditch the programs. Over 90% of fliers surveyed by Inside Flyer magazine say only free miles help them stay loyal. Reports Investor's Business Daily. 25th April 2002
Air Canada's Launch of On-line Travel Agency Triggers Complaint Air Canada launched its much-delayed on-line travel agency Destina.ca yesterday, a product that has already triggered a complaint to regulators over an exclusive deal to award Air Canada's Aeroplan frequent-flier points. Earlier this month, Destina.ca announced a 15-year deal with Aeroplan to provide points with any product sold - whether it's hotel rooms, car rentals, package tours or even tickets booked on rival airlines. For example, customers will earn an extra 200 points for booking a hotel stay at the Destina.ca site - and one extra point for every $3 spent on air travel - in addition to the standard loyalty points issued by an airline or hotel company. (Globe and Mail Toronto) 25th April 2002
U.S. Mobile Services Customer Loyalty Fading The Asian Wall Street Journal reports today that 47% of people in the U.S. now own a mobile phone, the industry has already snared the easiest and most lucrative customers: road warriors and businesspeople. Now they are being forced to court other groups such as parents, teenagers and even the credit challenged. Meanwhile, customer loyalty is fading. The number of subscribers who ditched their service each year has risen to 30% of the total number who own a mobile phone, from 25% five years ago. 24th April 2002
Millennium Hotel Group to Offer Loyalty Card Guests at 18 Millennium hotels in Europe and the Middle East will soon be offered a smart loyalty card that will enable them to accumulate rebates. The chain is installing terminals at reception and other points of sale, such as bars or restaurants, that will read the card's chip and transmit transaction details to a processing centre. The rebates will be valid against accommodation or meals at participating hotels, including properties with Millennium's Copthorne brand and those of its alliance partner, the Maritim chain. Customers will be able to sign up for it on www.milleniumhotels.com/partnercard
23 April 2002
Proper Email Etiquette Build Trust & Bolsters Loyalty Revenue The demand for email privacy is starting to hit home with online marketers. According to a new study by the Direct Marketing Association, 60 percent do not rent third party email lists, and 74 percent send only targeted email to prospects. All told, the privacy initiatives will build consumer trust, which in turn bolsters loyalty revenue. "An email campaign with the proper privacy and permission etiquette will drive traffic to a store or Web site, and add to a company's bottom line," says H. Robert Wientzen, president and CEO of The DMA. (News from Peppers & Rogers INSIDE 1to1 newsletter) 23 April 2002
Dymocks HK launched Thermal Rewritable card for Instant Rewards Following the successful launch in Australia, Dymocks Hong Kong is now ready to replace the existing loyalty schemes run by individual stores, i.e. customers will be rewarded in the same way regardless of which store they visit. The program currently does not support Dymocks Online however. We are seeing more and more retail chains to adopt thermal rewritable card to replace stamp-on-paper or smart card as information such as bonus points and thresholds/jumps are readible through "human eyes". 22nd April 2002
Starbucks Prepaid Card Collects Data, Delivers Rewards The Seattle Times reports that the 4 million prepaid cards sold by Starbucks since November 2001 are expected to evolve into loyalty marketing tools with the addition of incentives and the backend accumulation of data about shoppers' purchase patterns. Starbucks C.E.O. Orin Smith told the Times that ultimately the cards will allow the company to know its shoppers better and target its best customers. Defecting customers are expected to be drawn back to Starbucks through marketing based on data analysis, too. (News from Colloquy) 19th April 2002
IXRetail Releasing XML Schema for POS Transaction Log in May Richard Mader (Executive Director ARTS) said the new XML Schema for POS Transaction Log (TLOG) is currently under review by the Technical Committee. They are expecting to publish it on their web site by first week of May. This extensive schema satisfies more than 30 use cases (business functions) for using POS data within other systems, including commission system, ERP and various bonus point, stored value and stock recording systems. 17th April 2002
IKEA Testing Loyalty Program for U.K. Popular low-cost home furnishings retailer IKEA is testing the IKEA Family loyalty program in Sweden for introduction in the United Kingdom only. The pilot is attempting to perfect the infrastructure of the program before it is opened to consumers in the United Kingdom, says Lois Blenkinsop of the public communications office of IKEA UK. She offered no other details on the marketing strategy. (News from Colloquy) 15th April 2002
Fancl House Announces Thermal Stamp Collecting Card Fancl House announced on 11th April 2002 that a new Membership program will be launched in July 2002. In addition, 6 new shops will be opened within this year, a new concept store, ~3,000 sq.ft., is coming up next year. Chan Chi Ming (Managing Director) says they are now acquiring 20,000 new customers every month, he hopes to expand the coverage of their customer segment from age 18-36 to 18-40,50 and stimulate purchase quantity of these customer. He also announced that the new Membership card is themal based. Sources said the thermal card is a stamp collecting card, while the plastic membership card will be phased out. Fancl is expanding to Shanghai in Sept 2002, Beijing and GuangZhou in 2003. 13th April 2002
GuangDong eyes on Broadband Customer Loyalty Our recent project on GDCATV's billing system incorporates concepts of managing customer loyalty in terms of usage promotion, bonus schemes and referral programs. On top of that, a genuine customer profiling and mining initiative is under serious investigation by the authority 20th March 2002
MoreRewards Singapore Now Expands to Thailand Founded in Singapore four years ago, the company works with businesses such as British Petroleum and Pizza Hut to provide customers with smart cards that track consumers' spending and reward them with discounts. Partners are expected to be in the food, clothing, retail, gasoline, finance and telecommunications industries. MoreRewards Singapore claims to have the largest loyalty coalition network in Singapore. The network consists of 30 service partners and 300,000 members. The company's Malaysian arm, RealRewards, was established in 2001 and launched with 14 sponsors, including Telekom Malaysia and Petronas. It now has 35 service partners with a membership of 2.6 million households, more than half the total in Malaysia. MoreRewards Thailand aims to have 30 to 35 partners by the end of 2004.MoreRewards Singapore, RealRewards Malaysia. (News from Collquy) 19th March 2002
US McDonald Wrapped Up Promotional Currency Campaign Loyalty-Rules reports the case study of McDonald's 2-month promotional currency program in which members earn by recording purchases at a program website. Rewards include McDonald's food, music CDs and movie theatre tickets. Case Study here, Campaign site here . 17th March 2002
POS Vendors Keen on VIP Components We have been partnering with various POS vendors for project implementations and found that they are expanding their capability to manage basic VIP functionalities, which is good enough for small retail stores. Retailers that look at it differently when their initiative covers branding and loyalty, which may require tailored CRM systems to cope with specific needs such as email marketing 15th March 2002
Hard Rock Cafe Makes $150K by Targeting Loyal Members Hard Rock Cafe is using E.phiphany CRM software as the basis of its two loyalty programs (see COLLOQUY's Program Synopses for recently posted profiles of both). Through E.phiphany, the restaurant chain has personalized marketing campaigns and increased the speed with which it responds to customer inquiries. In the past six months, 1to1 Magazine reports, Hard Rock has recouped 80 percent of its technology investment. A recent direct marketing campaign to loyalty program members resulted in $150,000 in merchandise sales for the chain. (Colloquy.com) 13th March 2002
Malaysian Company Issues Free Smart Card A smart card solution partner reports to us that a Malaysian company purchased large quantity of smart cards from them in order to execute a cross merchant promotional program. Smart cards are given out literally free for consumers and the acquired bonus points can be redeemed from a network of stores 4th August 2001
Michael Walters, Joint CEO Cards etc, discusses the importance of a
successful Loyalty program and gives Cards-Worldwide an update on its
recent deals with Catuity Inc and Welcome Realtime. 128Kbs Media
Player Stream
Graham Bath, Managing Director Virtual Market Place, discusses the business drivers behind a successful loyalty program. 128Kbs Media Player Stream 23rd October 2001
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Case Study on Customer eLoyalty
HK as a Regional IT Hub
Employee Performance and Customer Loyalty
Membership & Customer Loyalty
Knowing Your Customer
Retain Customer by Enticing Service Experiences
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