A loyalty program can reward a purchase without earning the next one. Retailers need to give customers a reason to return, whether that’s rewards they can easily use, product launches they look forward to, or a simpler way to manage a subscription.
Our new white paper, Loyalty Beyond Enrollment: How retailers can build stronger customer relationships and measure the value they create, shows retailers how to turn loyalty into more repeat purchases, stronger retention, and measurable customer value. Drawing on our work with Victoria’s Secret, FIGS, and Sakara, it offers practical guidance for building loyalty programs that create lasting customer relationships.
Find Where the Loyalty Experience Breaks Down
Before funding another feature or benefit, retailers need to identify what is getting in the customer’s way.
The paper introduces our Loyalty Value Loop, a framework for tracing how customer knowledge shapes the experience, whether customers return to buy, and what the business earns. It helps teams locate the weak connection and use what they learn to improve the next interaction.
Give Customers a Concrete Reason to Return
Recognition, anticipation, and control offer different reasons to engage with a brand. The paper examines how those ideas informed distinct customer experiences for Victoria’s Secret, FIGS, and Sakara.
Each example illustrates how businesses can start by offering something customers value, and then make a specific customer experience better.
Measure the Business Gained and Preserved
The paper brings measurement back to three questions: Did the experience work for the customer? Did it change purchasing behavior or improve retention? Was the difference worth the cost?
It outlines how to compare similar customer groups, evaluate results over relevant purchase cycles, and account for the costs of rewards, service, and delivery. That gives teams a basis for deciding whether to expand, improve, or stop an investment.
Define the Next Loyalty Investment
The paper includes a five-question brief to guide investment decisions, covering the customer need, the experience to test, the cost to deliver it, and the evidence needed to keep investing.
We help retailers take that work from diagnosis through delivery: researching customer needs, prototyping the proposed experience, designing and building it, connecting the data and services it needs, and establishing measurement before launch. Let’s talk about the next loyalty experience worth building.
