2017 Loyalty Management Magazine Q3

CenturyLink’s
METRICS
Improve Customer
Experience
IN THIS ISSUE:
Tech Investments Go Inside 2017 Customer

Pay Off For Edible the Lids Brand Expo Conference
Arrangements Preview
Data Loyalty Stored
Management Programs Value
Marketing Email & SMS / MMS

Automation Direct Mail Mobile Wallet
We Transform the Way B2C Companies

Identify, Understand and Motivate Their Customers
2 Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017 info@clutch.com www.clutch.com

In this Issue...
SUMMER 2017 | VOLUME 10 NUMBER 3 | LOYALTY360.ORG
FEATURES
10 12
For CenturyLink, Metrics Make Early Investment in Tech
the Difference for Improved CX Builds Better CX for Edible
Mark Johnson | Loyalty360 Arrangements
P.F. Wilson | Loyalty360
LOYALTY FORUM: IN EVERY ISSUE
14 LOYALTY360 ON THE WEB: 24 LOYALTY FORUM: Q&A
38
Whats New Ask the Experts
15 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR 26 STATE OF THE INDUSTRY

Can Brands Be Scored On Their Level
16 360 INSIGHTS of Engagement?
Mark Johnson | Loyalty360 Michela Baxter | HelloWorld
18 FEATURED TECH

28 TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS & REWARDS
Three Customer Experience Shortfalls
PREVIEW
10 FEATURES of Video Marketing
For CenturyLink, Metrics Make the Summer Felix-Mulder | The Draw Shop
Difference for Improved CX
Mark Johnson | Loyalty360 30 BEST PRACTICES Loyalty Management Editorial
An Incentive Framework to Align the & Production Team
12 FEATURES Buyer and Partner Journeys P.F. Wilson - Editor-in-Chief
Early Investment In Tech Builds Better Claudio Ayub | Perks Mark Johnson - Contributing Editor
CX for Edible Arrangements Carly Stemmer - Contributing Editor
P.F. Wilson | Loyalty360 32 STATE OF THE INDUSTRY Shawn Cunningham - Design Director
From the Trenches: Insights & Best Elizabeth Shular - Design
14 BEHIND THE BRAND Practices from Real World Receipt-Based Steve Taggart - Content Strategist
Jeff Pearson | Lids Crescent Printing Company - Print Production
Loyalty Programs for CPG Brands
Ritesh Bhavnani | Snipp
16 TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS & REWARDS
Technology Providers Don’t Build Contacts
34 BEST PRACTICES Article Submissions & Advertising:
Brand Loyalty 3 Steps to Preparing a Roadmap to
Loyalty360
Jeff Sopko & Evan Magliocca | Baesman Customer Engagement Transformation. info@loyalty360.org
Manmohan Gupta | Pitney Bowes 513-800-0360
18 BEST PRACTICES
Omnichannel Loyalty: Connecting the 36 STATE OF THE INDUSTRY
Dots for a Better Customer Experience Payback Time: What Your CFO
© 2017 Loyalty360, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
Emily Rudin | CrowdTwist Wants to Know About Your Loyalty Reproduction and distribution of this publication in any form without
prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein
Rewards Program.
20 STATE OF THE INDUSTRY Len Llaguno | Willis Towers Watson
has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Loyalty360
disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy
The Product Ubiquity Challenge of such information. The opinions shared are those of the contributing
& Opportunity authors and not necessarily reflective of Loyalty360 and/or its affiliates.
Chris Martin | Montrose Travel Loyalty360 shall have no liability for errors, omissions, or inadequacies
in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The
opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.
22 BEST PRACTICES
Loyalty Is More Than a Marketing Program
Kevin Murphy | Epsilon
Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017 3

What’s New
LOYALTY360 ON THE WEB
ON LOYALTY360.ORG
CMO CHALLENGE WEBINAR SERIES

An extension of Loyalty360’s line of CMO Challenge research papers,
the CMO Challenge Webinar Series offers attendees an inside look
at the ways brands are innovating in the customer loyalty space, as
told by the thought leaders themselves. Presented by Loyalty360
CEO Mark Johnson, these monthly webinars examine and analyze the
insight we receive from brands on a variety of topics, including data
analytics, the changing nature of customers, and the importance of
internal alignment in building customer experience.
NEW CONTENT GALLERY

One thing that we feel sets Loyalty360 apart from similar
associations is our content. We’re constantly looking to cover
trends in CX & customer loyalty, and we believe that this
content should be hosted on a platform that is accessible and
easily navigable. This is where our newly redesigned Content
Gallery comes in: built from the ground up with ease of use
in mind, the new home of Loyalty360 content gives readers a
streamlined experience while exploring their favorite stories.
The new and improved Content Gallery is live now, and we
welcome you to check it out...
loyalty360.org/content-gallery
LOCAL EVENTS
After a successful pilot event, Loyalty360 is in the process of
expanding local events both in size and in scope. These events
provide networking in a smaller, more intimate setting than our
bi-annual expos, and feature presentations delivered by executives
from a local brand. With upcoming local events coming to cities
across the nation, keep your eyes peeled over the coming months
for information about a local event near you!
4 Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017

FROM THE EDITOR
Loyalty Marketing Need Not be a Land of Confusion

The paradox of loyalty marketing sometimes echoes the old This exchange of ideas and best practices, as well as expert
saying, “The more we learn, the less we know.” insight on the latest innovations and trends in loyalty
marketing, makes Loyalty360 a leader. Through its website,
Loyalty360 exists for that very reason. With the proliferation
membership base, conferences, and local events Loyalty360
of loyalty programs and merging technologies that continue
is truly your voice of the customer-driven resource.
to come to market to track and manage them, as well as
competition among brands in general, there is as much
Engaging with customers has never been more crucial to
confusion as expertise in the marketplace today.
brands and marketers as competition for the hearts and minds
In your hands, you are holding a magazine that reflects the of consumers continues to increase at a rapid pace. Matching
principles and culture of Loyalty360, the unbiased, objective, the fundamentals of loyalty marketing with new technology,
and market-driven association for customer loyalty. Through along with new concepts and best practices, is the key to
Loyalty Management, as well as our website and expos, we success. Loyalty360 exists to help cut through the noise,
enable and encourage dialogue among industry leaders and assess the often-disparate ideas, and clear up the confusion in
experts. With the coming brand certification component, this space.
Loyalty360 is positioned to be a true guiding force in loyalty
marketing. It continues to be an exciting journey for brands across
This issue of Loyalty Management features an interview with a variety of markets and industries. Loyalty360 remains
CenturyLink, one of the nation’s leading telecommunications committed to guiding brands along this path and helping our
firms. In this Q and A piece, CMO Bill Hurley discusses how members achieve their loyalty management goals.
his company approaches metrics and the use of data to
create actionable insight.
In an interview with Edible Arrangements, CEO Tariq Farid
recalls how an early interest in technology, along with good
old-fashioned grit and determination, wound up paying
dividends in the form of a company culture that focuses on
innovation.
In the Behind the Brands feature, we get to know Jeff
Pearson, SVP, marketing and e-commerce at Indianapolis-
based LIDS. In addition to tapping into his marketing
expertise, readers will also receive a glimpse of Pearson’s
interests beyond his duties at LIDS. Engage more customers
What’s more, Loyalty360 members share insight on a
variety of subjects related to loyalty marketing such as: how with EngageOne Video. ®
to explain to a CFO why a loyalty program has value, how

• Create easy-to-understand personalized video
to produce engaging video that yields results, the latest on
receipt-based loyalty programs, and more. statements and bills.
• Instantly deliver consistent presentation videos,
These brands, and dozens more, will meet at the Sheraton
uniquely designed for each viewer.
Music City in Nashville, Tennessee, on Nov. 6-8, 2017, for
the first annual Customer Expo, powered by Loyalty360. • Accelerate your sales process and empower
The event will feature more than 25 sessions and speakers, your sales team.
including executive-level experts from brands such as
Domino’s, Caesars Entertainment, Daimler, CenturyLink,
Sony, and many more.
Experience it now at mypbvideo.com/loyalty

P.F. Wilson
Editor-in-Chief
Loyalty Management®
PFWilson@loyalty360.org
17_SWS_04850_Loyalty 360_Print Ad.indd 1

5
7/25/17 11:31 AM
Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017
LOYALTY FORUM: 360 INSIGHTS
The Need for Collaboration in an Era of Constant Change

Mark Johnson
CEO/CMO
Loyalty360
As we have written before, the pace of change has increased Loyalty360 is also currently working with our board of advisors to cre-
significantly for marketers recently. With that rapid pace of change ate a standards and certification process for our members. Currently,
(technology, data, competition, changing consumer preferences both we have over 25 brands going through a pilot program consisting of
economic and political), the need for collaboration and community a six-part standards process that will allow brands to benchmark and
between marketers has never been greater. Recently, I took a call eventually be certified around their loyalty and CX efforts.
from the SVP of a large retail brand and she said, “I need help keep-
ing up in the age of uncertainty with Amazon, Apple, and changing These standards will allow brands to benchmark not only to their
consumer preferences, my team and I cannot keep up. There are too peers, but also to those outside of their competitive set. This will lead to
many experts and too much change. I need help.” training and certification processes and continuing education initiatives
for brands that will allow them to not only learn more about customer
Loyalty360 has always believed that customer loyalty is the most experience, engagement, and loyalty (getting certified in the process),
important facet of marketing, and we believe that the loyalty program but have a process that is being driven by brands to discuss externally..
is a part of the bigger picture customer loyalty efforts for a brand.
The initial findings will be released at the 2017 Customer Expo in
We always ask would you rather have a loyal customer, an engaged Nashville, and we would love to have you join us. Also, should you have
customer, or an experienced customer? an interest in learning more about the certifications and standards, or if
We understand that experiences drive engagement (however that there is something Loyalty360 can do to help you with your journey, we
may be defined), and we believe that leads to the cache of goodwill would love to know. Please feel to email me (markjohnson@loyalty360.
an individual has with a brand, which in turn leads to long-term, org) or call me (513-545-5612). I would love to hear from you. We are
behavioral-based loyalty. Hence, should an individual customer have trying our best to listen to the needs and expectations of the market
a few not-so-pleasant experiences, he or she can draw on that loyalty and address as many of them as possible, and we would love to get you
reserve (think of it as a piggy bank) but will still have loyalty to that more involved with Loyalty360.
brand.
There has been some confusion as to what Loyalty360 is. Are we a
Yet, every day we see some form of disruption that creates pause, media company, are we an analyst firm, or are we a trade association
confusion, or consternation. When Macy’s launches a new loyalty for the industry? We are THE trade association for customer loyalty, yet
program, they have a PLCC program and are part of a larger coalition we are a bit unique as we have so much content, including analyst and
initiative. However, we get calls from our members asking “well, technical briefs. There is a great deal (and growing) amount of content,
should we do that?” insight, and research that is exclusive to our members, and we would
love to have you join Loyalty360. This fall on our new website, along
Why is Macy’s doing that? When Toys“R”Us launches an aggres- with the new certifications and standards processes, we will be rolling
sive restructuring that is based on virtual reality that will drive the out new memberships (individual and corporate) with new access,
customer into the store, we get calls from our members asking what insight, and functionality.
that means for them.
We have listened to the market, brands, and customers over the past
Loyalty360 is focused on helping brands create deeper emotionally- year and we are bringing about the changes that you have asked for.
based connections with their customers. We are also focused on We are very passionate about customer loyalty and want to bring the
helping brands through a robust website and community, listening to ideas and process that are working in a measurable manner to the mar-
the challenges they have, and asking that community for solutions, ket for our members to learn from. We would love to have you join our
insight, and best practices. community and look forward to seeing you November 6-8 in Nashville
at Customer Expo.
Over the next six months, Loyalty360 will be launching a new
website with increased networking and community access for our
members. To that end, members will be able to engage with one
another in a very unique manner to discuss online, and in person, the
challenges they are facing as well as understanding from others on
how they may have addressed a similar situation.

JOIN US IN NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
November 6 - 8, 2017
Sheraton Music City
With sessions from leading brands and networking that can’t be found anywhere
else, Customer Expo is the only conference dedicated to every aspect of your
organization’s most crucial resource: the customer.
For more information, please visit customerexpo.com or contact:
Mark Johnson
MarkJohnson@loyalty360.org
loyalty360.org
LOYALTY FORUM: FEATURED TECHNOLOGY
Featured Products,
Advancements &
Technology
Technologies
& Services
Loyalty. Engaged.
Historically, marketing departments have too often needed to Designing and maintaining a full-featured and effective loyalty
rely upon CRM systems that were designed not for them, but program is a challenge for even the world’s largest brands, let
for sales departments. This retrofitting has resulted in alone those with a smaller business scope. CrowdTwist offers
suboptimal, even clumsy, marketing processes that leave much flexibility in its loyalty programs to equip brands across the
to be desired. In a response to this internal inefficiency, Clutch spectrum with the tools needed, not only to design and
Loyalty Marketing has built its platform from the ground up implement a loyalty program, but also to maintain it and
with data-driven, omnichannel customer engagement in mind. leverage the resulting consumer data. CrowdTwist’s platform is
set apart through customization; in working with clients of all
At the center of this platform’s power is its ability to unite shapes and sizes, the company allows for a brand to have as
consumer data from disparate sources, including (but not much or as little involvement with implementation and
limited to) mobile, social, and POS systems. From this data, the maintenance as desired.
Clutch platform is able to build behavior-based promotions and
experiences that are customizable according the preferences of Customizable widgets allow for complete control over every
individual customer segments. The platform is particularly aspect of the program, while data-driven campaign expertise
useful for clients with expertise outside of the data analytics provides a more “hands-off” option. Program reward mixes
space, for whom Clutch is able to serve as the “eyes and ears” provide the same level of flexibility, with incentives that range
when it comes to gathering, analyzing, and planning according from digital to experiential, sweepstakes, physical, or promo
to a constant stream of consumer data. codes. Through this selection of rewards, CrowdTwist remains
agile and able to engage a variety of audiences across age
For companies looking for a platform designed specifically to demographics and interests.
engage customers from a marketing standpoint and
deliver them to the eventual endpoint of Through this flexibility, CrowdTwist has set itself apart in the
brand evangelism, Clutch may just customer loyalty space and continues to boast one of the most
have the solution flexible solutions in the market today.

What are Analyst Reports?
Loyalty360’s Analyst Reports are designed to help
brands and marketers navigate the plethora of vendors
Increasingly, business growth is predicated on retaining customers and providers in the market that support customer
through differentiated customer experience. This CX excellence, loyalty, customer experience, and customer engagement
while manifesting as a simple email or interaction from the strategies in any capacity. With a focus on objectivity,
consumer’s perspective, requires an orchestrated behind-the- rigor, and transparency, the Analyst Reports help brands
scenes effort on the part of the brand. Specializing across a wide take a wide view of the vendors available to them and then
range of marketing optimization tactics, Lenati works with clients to narrow down to an appropriate consideration set based
craft this CX according to the needs and business objectives of the on core competencies, strengths, and industry expertise
client. Through loyalty plan design and execution, Lenati gives its
partners the capability for advanced data analysis and If you are a vendor or provider interested in learning
measurement, allowing for engagement initiatives tailored to the how Loyalty360’s Analyst Reports can help you reach
specific consumer base and the client’s brand positioning. new prospective clients, please contact Mark Johnson
at markjohnson@loyalty360.org
These services are integrated across the entire business ecosystem,
with the goal of driving growth and affecting positive customer To view Analyst Reports please visit
engagement and experience change. These changes are developed loyalty360.org/resources/analyst-report
holistically and are aimed at both short- and long-term impact
through their focus on collecting data that is both immediately
actionable and crucial in developing strategy at a wider scope.
Lenati’s focus lies in improving the customer journey at every stage
and, consequently, the client’s bottom line. Customer experience
has become among the most significant drivers of organizational
growth, and with Lenati’s expertise, the power to translate CX into
authentic loyalty is well within reach for any brand.
When it comes to crafting modern loyalty solutions in the mobile

space, Stellar Loyalty has earned a reputation as one of the top
players in the market. The company’s Stellar Consumer Relationship
Cloud platform, in particular, provides clients with a powerful tool for
building engagement and loyalty with consumers. With the
Specializing in the CPG sector, Snipp’s focus lies in creating platform’s interaction profiles, brands are able to easily capture
multichannel engagement opportunities that drive both every customer interaction, opening a path to data-driven targeting
transactional and non-transactional consumer behavior. Central and meaningful, personalized interactions. Implementation is
to the company’s mission is its sophisticated receipt designed to seamlessly open the door for augmentation, with the
processingtechnology, which allows customers to earn loyalty initial, one-time setup process including a framework for the future
incentives simply through uploading an image of a receipt. The addition of modules. This crucial point allows clients to begin with
platform is POS-agnostic, giving it the flexibility needed to thrive only basic functionality, while maintaining a forward-looking view
in a loyalty landscape where brands are increasingly challenged toward growth and increased data complexity.
with affecting packaging or integrating with store POS. On the
consumer level, receipt entry can be done via email, SMS, or In addition to offering its robust technology suite, Stellar also offers
branded microsite. loyalty services across a wide spectrum of support, from simple
setup assistance to a full-service model. Directly out of the box,
In addition to tracking purchases and rewarding customers Stellar’s platform offers performance analysis against given targets,
accordingly, the receipt processing platform allows for and tracks data at a granular level to allow for segmentation and
customized sweepstakes, rebates, and promotions as a targeting according to things like individual email opens and web
complement to a partner’s loyalty offering. New to the company’s page click numbers. The power of the Consumer Relationship
technology is Snapchat integration, which allows brands to Cloud Platform, combined with the company’s flexible
recognize and reward customers for sharing the brand via the service model, makes Stellar Loyalty a strong option
popular social media platform. Through its receipt processing and for any company looking to bolster loyalty efforts
loyaltytechnologies, Snipp continues to provide clients with alongside a reliable partner.
innovative solutions to modern loyalty engagement.

FEATURES
FOR CENTURYLINK, METRICS

MAKE THE DIFFERENCE FOR
IMPROVED CX
THROUGH A SERIES OF ACQUISITIONS, CENTURYLINK HAS
RECENTLY RAMPED UP ITS B2B EFFORTS, PARTICULARLY IN
THE AREA OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION. CENTURYLINK
CMO BILL HURLEY CHATS WITH LOYALTY360 ABOUT THE
OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES.
Mark Johnson
Loyalty360
Headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana, CenturyLink provides communications and data services to homes, businesses, government,
and wholesale customers in 37 states. The company operates as a local exchange carrier and Internet service provider in the U.S. and
is the third-largest telecommunications company in the country in terms of lines served, behind AT&T and Verizon. Through a series of
acquisitions, including its one of Level 3 Communications that’s expected to close by Sept. 30, 2017, the company has recently ramped
up its B2B efforts, particularly in the area of digital transformation. The main areas of focus in this effort are agility, CX, operational
efficiency, and security. CenturyLink CMO Bill Hurley chats with Loyalty360 about the opportunities and challenges therein.

Many high-level executives are focusing Is there confusion around metrics?
on customer loyalty beyond programs,
Hurley: I think there is. I’m kind of a broken record on agility, CX,
which is creating confusion due to a lack operational efficiency, and security because when you say digital
of metrics and standards. How does transformation people say, “I don’t know how to get a handle on that.”
However, when you say agility to a company, you can wrap metrics
CenturyLink approach this? around that. In our case, we reduced our cycle times by 30 percent
with one product. It’s determining what the key metric for agility
Hurley: I think it’s an opportunity to define the problem. And that’s where, is with that company in that industry, as well as the key metric for
in the work we’ve done, we’ve focused on coming at this conversation from operational efficiency.
four perspectives. Companies that want to be agile in the market want to be
able to deliver products and services to get them out in the market fast, and No matter what company you’re in, there’s a serious change going
they want to digitize themselves to be able to do that. That’s one group. on here because of the power of the network. It’s changing the way
people think about who is in charge and who the leader is. Customer
The second group is all around the CX. It’s about deepening relationships experience and digital transformation are really the gasoline of what’s
and using the network to digitize and create that sustained, deep CX that going on. You must measure it correctly because it’s going to impact
every company is looking for these days. your strategy going forward. It’s an exciting topic.
The third area that we see when we’re having a digital transformation
conversation is around operational efficiency. [Customers will] say “look, I It seems some brands understand that
want to transform my internal back office and digitize it because we’re out
of data. Help me in bringing digital network capabilities to my organization
concept, while others struggle. Is that
in that space.” an accurate observation?
The fourth is that as I expose my business processes and digitize my Hurley: That’s true. This is going to sound harsher than I mean it to,
business I’m opening myself up to a whole host of new risks that maybe but there’s not necessarily a full grasp of the change that is going on
didn’t exist when I was paper based. So, clients want help managing the in the world and in the market today by a lot of the senior leaders in
risks and security issues. many companies. It’s happening around them, not with them.
There isn’t one sit down where we have a conversation around digital The power of that network is really changing a lot of the dynamics in
transformation and everybody knows what it means. But when you peel the market. Getting a grasp on being able to wrap a metric around it
that onion back one layer at a time we inevitably find its one of those four. so that you can articulate in a manner that makes sense to everyone,
that’s a key to success.
What does your typical client look like?

What are the challenges of data, data
Hurley: We serve organizations with 10 employees all the way up to the analytics, and creating actionable
Fortune 100. And pretty much every one of the members of the Fortune 100
for that matter. When you get into the 250-500 employee level or more,
insight from that data?
you’re talking to the IT organization.
Hurley: Everyone on earth is using Google to search where to go to
dinner tonight. That’s really changing the way the world’s going to
That’s who we’re going to be having those digital transformations
operate in the future in terms of the data analytics and the ability to do
conversations with. In the 1 to 10 to 100 employee range, they may not have
it. We bought Cognilytics, a data analytics company, a few years ago. I
an IT department per se as much as they’ve got one or two folks that are
don’t know how many telecoms have data scientists running around, but
doing some IT work on the side, and we’re traditionally working with them. In
we do. We use the network and the power of the network to generate the
many cases what we’re finding is them saying, “I’ve got to run my business –
data and more insights.
CenturyLink, you take care of my technology for me.”
With the Internet of Things, it’s going to generate even more data, so
And we’ve got a broad enough portfolio to do that right now. With the
you’ve got to know how to analyze it and what to look for. You also have
proposed acquisition of Level 3, we can double down now and provide a
to steep yourself in that data and be ready for information to come at you
greater breadth of network access around the world at a more cost-effective
that you are unprepared for, knowing you have the systems, algorithms,
rate. That’s all predicated on the size of the company and what they’re trying
and processes that will allow for that data to surface and really change
to do statistically, but inevitably it ends up in one or more of those buckets.
the way you operate and do business.

“
FEATURES
It all started out as

something very simple,”
says Edible Arrangements
Early CEO Tariq Farid. “I never
Investment thought we would get to
this, but along the way,
in Tech we ended up building an “
Builds
IT company and a supply
chain company.
Better
CX
The company’s roots go back over 40 years to the
hopes and dreams of an immigrant family.
“My father came to the U.S. in the seventies and

moved us all here in 1981,” Farid explains. “We
were a new immigrant family from Pakistan. My
father worked as a machinist during the day,
making eight dollars an hour, and worked at
Burger King at night. My mother was a stay-at-
for Edible home mom with five boys and one girl.”
Tariq soon began working at the fast food restaurant, too. The franchise
Arrangements owner hired him as a favor to the elder Farid. During his time there Tariq
started from the bottom cleaning the restrooms. He soon learned that
working hard to execute even small tasks would pay off, and it did when
he got to move behind the counter to work the register.
P.F. Wilson “It was the best favor he could have done because from then on I grew
Loyalty360 up around businesses,” Farid remembers. “Growing up I delivered
newspapers and cut grass, and I learned to do it all well.”
Building on his experience in the A woman who lived down the street from the Farids, and for whom
floral industry, Tariq Farid launched young Tariq would cut grass and shovel the driveway, once said to him,
“I love how hard you work, and if you keep working this hard, you’ll be a
Edible Arrangements in 1999. Today millionaire by the time you’re thirty-five.”
it is one of America’s top franchise This inspired him to work even harder.
companies. Mr. Farid, still the When he was 17, his father saw an ad in the local newspaper for a flower
shop that was going out of business.
company’s CEO, tells Loyalty360
“They were selling all their equipment and liquidating all the assets,” Farid
how it all came together. recalls, “and my father thought we should go down there and make a deal
to buy it.”
The Farid family reopened the shop in 1986 and that was the very
beginning of the Edible Arrangements story. The family bought a few other
flower shops and from working in the stores, Tariq came up with an idea.
“I loved computers and started automating our flower shops,” he says. “I

put a POS system in and then different flower shops called me and asked
me to put a POS system in their stores. That turned into an IT company
which specialized in POS systems.”

In the 90’s Farid had the idea to utilize fruit in decorative bouquets, “I was a technology person before I started Edible Arrangements,
mimicking the flowers he had been working with for years. He and I’m still very passionate about tech,” Farid continues, “I built
tested the concept by selling a couple arrangements to existing Edible on technology. For us, the website and e-commerce were a
floral customers. They would always come back saying the same no-brainer. We had orders coming in from the web when everyone
thing, “WOW!” was just starting to talk about the Internet. We had a POS system
that managed and allowed you to do CRM services.”
Tariq then began pursuing his new dream of selling more of the
fruit bouquets. He opened a 600-square foot store within his East Back then, it wasn’t even called CRM.
Haven, Connecticut flower shop. He tried borrowing money from
area banks but was turned down. “As a small business owner, you would manually keep track of all
the birthdays and anniversaries, or you would buy a list,” Farid says,
“They all said they didn’t see much potential in the concept,” he “and you would get on the phone and call.”
says.
With Edible’s new system, the minutia was eliminated.
A close family friend who was a business professor, consulted with Continuously developing the system was crucial to Edible’s
the family. He questioned the potential of the concept. successful expansion.
“Who would want arranged, cut fruit on sticks in a basket?” he “As we started franchising,” Farid adds, “I would ask people ‘what
asked. does it take to support franchisees?’ And they would tell me ‘it
takes about one person for every ten franchises you open.’”
As it turns out, of course, a lot of people.
In general, it’s one person to handle marketing and another to
“We started franchising accidentally in 2001,” Farid says. handle operations, for example.
“Somebody’s mom in East Haven received an arrangement and the
guy walked into our store and said, ‘I want to open a franchise.’ That “You realize ‘I don’t have that type of money, I’m surviving off a five
first franchise location was in Boston, then came Atlanta and the percent royalty.’ So, when that franchisee makes $100,000, all I get
rest is history.” is $5,000. I can’t have that many people, I’ll be in debt and upside-
down and unable to grow,” Farid remembers.
Farid is convinced that IT played a critical role in the company’s
initial success. The solution was to build portals.
“I went out and tried to borrow money in the beginning but back “When the franchisee logged on it told them ‘this system is going
then, no one really gave you funding,” Farid explains. “The one thing to tell you pretty much all the things you have to do to build a store.’
we had was being able to give the perception of being a lot bigger Then the supply chain system that would connect them with all the
than we were.” vendors came along and the franchisee simply had to go and place
an order.
This allowed Edible Arrangements to demonstrate to prospective
franchisees that the company had efficiencies in place, which “When you talk to a franchise company about customer loyalty,”
indeed it did, that would allow store owners to focus on the most says Farid, “they may not first think of the franchisee. They’ll think
important thing: customers. of the end user even though the most important person really is the
franchisee. That’s who I need to create an infrastructure for, so they
“What I love about technology is it allows people to do a lot and can provide those services through the franchise to the customer.”
still focus on the customer and the product.”
In 2001, Edible Arrangements sold three stores, but just four years
Instead of spending time on bookkeeping, processing credit cards, later the company granted over 300 franchises.
and other ancillary functions, owners could focus on running the
stores from a customer experience perspective. “The reason we were able to do so many is that we had this
infrastructure and ecosystem in place,” Farid says. “When people
“Before we implemented our system, it was a fairly complicated came into our system, the technology helped manage their whole
process,” Farid says. “Taking credit cards used to be very life cycle.”
cumbersome. You would take an order on a triplicate carbon
paper form and walk over to the credit card machine, punch in the The system is still being upgraded even today. For example, in the
number, wait for the machine to dial into the processing center, and early days, a prospective franchisee would find a potential location,
then get an authorization number which would be hand written on take a picture, send it to Edible, and await a decision.
the card with the delivery address.”
“Now it’s magical,” says Farid. “Now they take a mobile device, go
With the Edible Arrangements POS system, the entire process was the location, we scan it and we can immediately tell them ‘yes’ or
streamlined. ‘no.’ It has allowed us to do a number of things and emphasize that
loyalty component to the most important person in my franchise,
“We were authorizing credit cards back in the eighties with 1900 the franchisee. That’s my customer.”
bps modems,” he says.

LOYALTY FORUM: BEHIND THE BRAND
BehindtheBrand WITH JEFF PEARSON | SVP, MARKETING & E-COMMERCE, LIDS
When it comes to sports apparel, few companies have reached the

level of success experienced by Lids Sports Group. With a focus on
hats, the retailer is fresh off the heels of launching its rebranded loy-
alty program alongside a new app, Lids Access Pass. To get a glimpse of the work that
went into the brand’s success, Loyalty360 spoke with one of the key people behind
the initiative.
Jeff Pearson is the brand’s Senior Vice President of E-commerce and Marketing. Pear-
son is responsible for multiple websites operated by Lids including Lids.com and Lids.
ca. In addition, Lids has over 1300 stores in the US and Canada where Jeff leads the
marketing, promotions, and store support. Before joining Lids in August of 2016, Jeff
was the Senior Vice President of E-commerce, Marketing and Strategy for hhgregg,
where he spent 10 years in various leadership roles.
Loyalty360 sat down with Pearson for a closer look at what drives the SVP, both in
and out of the office.
IF YOU COULD PICK ONLY ONE THING, WHAT IF YOU COULD HAVE ONE SUPER
DO YOU BELIEVE MOST INFLUENCES A GREAT POWER, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE? AND WHY? It’s from the Harry Potter books.
The ability to Apparate. (Go anywhere
A kind and courteous person that interacts with a sincere desire at any time in an instant. I hate wasting
to assist a customer or potential customer. In one word: NICE. time traveling to places.)
WHAT DO YOU LIKE DOING

IN YOUR SPARE TIME? WHAT TREND OR TECHNOLOGY
Working out. I am a bit obsessed SHOULD MARKETERS RETIRE AS A
as I have to make up for my
Hot Tomale habit. FAD OF THE PAST?
I think increasingly it is the 30 or 60 second TV commercial.
WHAT IS YOUR Today’s consumers want 6 to 10 second video or sound bites.
Consumers now and in the future will be more time-starved
FAVORITE MOVIE? and less attentive to this type of marketing.
I have two that I could watch

over and over: Forrest Gump
and Shawshank Redemption.
Both are very inspiring and
entertaining to me.

WHAT IS YOUR
WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN
PERSONAL MOTTO?
YOU WERE GROWING UP?
Keep smiling!
Professional basketball player.
1
WHO HAS HAD THE MOST INFLUENCE ON QUICK FIRE QUESTIONS*
YOUR PROFESSIONAL LIFE, AND WHY? WHAT IS YOUR
2
YES
FAVORITE WORD?
David Provost from Whirlpool Corporation. He gave me
many opportunities, was my boss, was a mentor, and still is
WHAT IS YOUR LEAST
3
a mentor to me. He helped me believe I could be successful. CAN’T
FAVORITE WORD?
Best of all, he’s a good friend that I know I could call at any
time to help me. And a key point is that he earned my wife’s
trust through his actions. Great person. WHAT TURNS YOU ON A GOOD WORKOUT WHILE
4
CREATIVELY, SPIRITUALLY, LISTENING TO U2 OR
OR EMOTIONALLY? CHRISTIAN ROCK
WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE COLD AND DREARY
5
WHAT TURNS YOU OFF? WEATHER
MUSICAL ARTIST OF ALL TIME?
U2—Hands down. WHAT SOUND OR NOISE DO
6
UPLIFTING MUSIC
YOU LOVE?
WHAT WAS YOUR LAST “AHA” WHAT SOUND OR NOISE DO
7
HONKING HORN
YOU HATE?
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE? WHAT
MAKES THIS MEMORABLE? WHAT PROFESSION OTHER
8
THAN YOUR OWN WOULD PROFESSIONAL GOLFER
American Airlines quickly giving a full refund for YOU LIKE TO ATTEMPT?
tickets I had to San Antonio, Texas during the
Hurricane Harvey disaster. They made the outreach WHAT PROFESSION WOULD ANYTHING IN THE FIELD
and coordinated the refund. Very easy process and YOU NOT LIKE TO DO? OF MEDICINE
was the right thing to do for me and my family.
*Inspired by James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio we asked Brad to share his quick-fire response to
the questions originating from the French series, Bouillon de Culture hosted by Bernard Pivot.

TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS & REWARDS
TECHNOLOGY PROVIDERS
DON’T BUILD BRAND LOYALTY
“Brands need to find partners
that will support them through ongoing
Jeff Sopko
President of Insights & Marketing
Baesman
management and analysis to keep up
with customer expectations throughout
”
Evan Magliocca
Brand Marketing Manager
Baesman
the program’s life.
If you’re on the brand side,

you’ve probably been in this
situation before:
You’ve worked tirelessly for months with a technology
platform provider to get it up and running and
once it’s launched, your partners on the technology
side suddenly disappear.
Their work is done but the real work begins for you.
You’re running a loyalty program from strategy to
execution—the parts that really matter to be successful.
Loyalty technology providers have the right intentions,

but loyalty is so much more than a platform. It’s the
evolution of customer behavior over time predicated on
positive customer experiences.
More importantly, it’s the detailed observation and the

refinement of engagement, purchase frequency, and
incremental revenue over time that proves success.

Still don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at some of
the major pain points for brands and customers when
it comes to working with technology providers:
YOU DON’T GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE IS CONSTANTLY
EVOLVING
No matter how great a technology is, it can’t make a program
successful by itself. In some cases, your program is doomed
from the moment you sign the SOW; loyalty technology
platforms are notorious for sunken costs, and the provider’s
Customer expectations change fast and drastically. Trying to
keep up can be difficult with budget constraints, development
build times, stakeholder buy-in, and technology limitations.
expertise and support are siloed to the technology, not loyalty. The best strategy to keep customer experiences positive
is to capture, analyze, and react to customer interactions.
Furthermore, brands using these platforms quickly realize
that their provider lacks the capability to help drive the actual Customer experience is all in the data—their actions,
program; they don’t recognize shifts in behavior, engagement, movements, and purchases are a prognosis on their thoughts,
and incremental sales. Yet those strategies and objectives are wants, and expectations. But to produce insights on those
paramount to justify the investment in the technology. data points requires rigorous analysis. Brands need to find
partners that will support them through ongoing management
As a result, many programs fail before they’re even launched and analysis to keep up with customer expectations
because they’re overburdened during a fragile and volatile throughout the program’s life.
part of the program’s life.
BRANDS LACK BANDWIDTH, NOT TECHNOLOGY THE SEARCH FOR INCREMENTALITY

The always-elusive hunt to prove incrementality reaches
Customer expectations are rapidly changing and brands have its apex within loyalty, which is always having to prove
fewer resources to keep up than in previous years. Brand itself more than any other marketing channel. That “prove it”
structure simply isn’t built to drive effective loyalty marketing. mentality speaks to the power of programs to help sustain
the company through these turbulent times.
Analytics teams are over capacity, digital and email marketers
are underwater, and loyalty marketers don’t have the resources Incrementality, however, it is challenging to prove. It takes
to dig into data, strategize, execute, and measure for their a methodical approach to strategy, stringent guidelines for
programs by themselves. analysis, and expertise with cultivating customer and programs
to prove out incremental benefits.
Yet technology providers can’t help fulfilling that need; they’re
usually out of the picture by this point unless the platform
breaks. What brands really need are long-term partners who
can manage a program from strategy to execution.
YOU’RE NOT ALONE
Brands can’t go it alone. Very few departments have the
resources, expertise, or partners in place today to truly prove
DIFFERENT BRANDS HAVE DIFFERENT NEEDS success. Loyalty has evolved, it demands partnership—a
team that empowers instead of hinders. A team that enables
Many providers supply the same product no matter the action consistently instead of fading from view.
client or its customer. Yet each brand has a unique identity,
product, customer base, goals, and challenges. Brands need If you want to build brand loyalty, start from within. Partner
options, not constraints. They need unique choices, not with a team that understands what’s at stake and they’ll be
cookie-cutter requirements. with you for the long-haul.
Otherwise, brands overpay for options they may not use
while being frustrated with the features that are supposed
to make sense for them.

BEST PRACTICES
Omnichannel Loyalty:
Connecting
the Dots for a
Better Customer
Experience
Emily Rudin
Chief Customer Officer
CrowdTwist Loyalty. Engaged.
According to recent research1, How can brands ensure they are meeting customer expectations?
Most brands are moving toward adopting an omnichannel loyalty
companies are already competing approach. A successful omnichannel loyalty program will connect
customers to a brand across all touchpoints. It will go beyond one-
solely on customer experience. dimensional discounts, offering deeply personal and authentic
customer experiences that will yield stronger engagement and
Consumer expectations set the bar higher spend among customers.
for customer experiences which

directly impact brand loyalty. What does a successful omnichannel
strategy involve?
Therefore, understanding what
CrowdTwist client Zumiez knows.
your customers want is critical It was recently ranked No. 1 in the
“Total Retail’s Top 100 Omnichannel
for creating meaningful brand Retailers”3 report. Zumiez invests in
its omnichannel strategy by putting
connections. 90% of customers2 the customer at the center, offering
expect consistent brand interactions a loyalty program that provides
members with the opportunity to
across channels. Similarly, loyal earn points for activities across
every channel, including in-store
customers expect to be recognized or online purchases, social media
interactions, and live events and
for every action taken with a brand redeem them for exclusive rewards
and one-of-a-kind experiences.
no matter what, how, or where.

“A successful omnichannel loyalty program will connect customers to a
brand across all touchpoints. It will go beyond one-dimensional discounts,
offering deeply personal and authentic customer experiences that will
yield stronger engagement and higher spend among customers.”
Connecting customers across the The Body Shop, for

ecosystem example, offers cash back
In addition to creating a seamless brand experience for
to spend in-store during the
customers, brands like Zumiez understand that this approach birthday month for loyalty
also offers a deeper understanding of the customer. Programs program members. This
like this one enable marketers to gather crucial data to drive strategy creates positive
marketing performance. feelings toward the brand
and serves as a good
An omnichannel strategy helps brands fit the data puzzle incentive for customers to
pieces together to form a 360-degree view of who their make a purchase.
customers are. Brands with an omnichannel focus are
consistently gathering data about their consumers across
channels and platforms, and analyzing data through
sophisticated tactics like machine learning and predictive
analytics. 77% of strong omnichannel companies store
customer data4 across channels, compared to 48% for weak
omnichannel companies. Through these methodologies, they
are able to predict future behaviors and create marketing
experiences that speak to their customers’ wants and needs.
77%
of strong omnichannel
companies store customer
compared
to
48%
of weak omnichannel
companies
data across channels
As competition continues to grow, brands that are successful

will be the ones that know who their customers are and are
Create relevant and personalized able to engage them across all channels seamlessly, to provide
customer experiences a memorable customer experience.
In order to provide a personalized experience, brands should

collect data from a range of sources and use it to serve
customers with relevant content, communications, and even
product recommendations.
1
Gartner Says Organizations Are Changing Their Customer Experience
Priorities”; Gartner; June 9, 2015.
Obtaining data about a customer can help you move the needle 2
“Ninety Percent of Holiday Shoppers Expect Consistent Brand Experiences
on a number of loyalty marketing initiatives. Additional data Across Channels and Devices According to SDL Survey”; SDL; October 23, 2014
can give you an opportunity to acknowledge happy occasions
with a free gift, such as bonus points, a sizable discount, or free “Total Retail’s Top 100 Omnichannel Retailers”; Total Retail; April 2017
3
samples, and help you refine your marketing messages to better Why Omnichannel Strategy Matters” Internet Retailer; December 31, 2013
4
suit your audience. You can start rewarding members who are
mothers for Mother’s Day, for birthdays, and for program join
anniversaries, for example.

STATE OF THE INDUSTRY
THE PRODUCT
UBIQUITY CHALLENGE
& OPPORTUNITY
Chris Martin
Director of Marketing & Application Development
Montrose Travel
Unfolding before us is the concept of ubiquitous access The human touch of an experienced travel professional is still in
to all products, across all channels, anytime. demand and preferred by consumers for many transactions. To
quote a wise colleague, “travel is both cutting edge and ancient
Operating as legitimate e-commerce platforms in their own right, at the same time.”
loyalty programs offering multiple redemption and purchase options
are compelled to compete with non-loyalty e-commerce entities For example, while flight booking has evolved to a relatively
that often have quite a head-start in this new paradigm. ubiquitous self-service product, products like cruises and tours
are evolving differently and may never be similarly adopted by
To some vendors in the loyalty space, the prospect of complete consumers.
ubiquity may be the Holy Grail; to others, it may be as realistic as a
desert mirage. Some products just aren’t well-suited for the omni- The functionality of booking a flight online has matured to the
channel distribution model, yet contribute value to the customer point where consumers have well-established expectations of
experience and should maintain a place in the loyalty future. If a researching, booking, and maintaining their air reservations.
key to CX success is finding the balance between product ubiquity Though it is one of the more complex products to book online
and consumer value, how do we arrive at that balance? (especially on mobile devices), it is by far the most transacted
across all device types in the travel loyalty space.
This is due in part to the many investments made by suppliers
The Ubiquity Challenge and distributors in evolving the booking engines for the product
and thus in shaping consumer expectations. Significant
expansion in capabilities for online, mobile, and voice interaction
The challenge starts at the level of product definition, and are serving to further propel flights into a ubiquitous status.
extends to consumer expectations of that product. For certain
products important in the customer experience, the proposition In contrast, travel products like cruises or tours are evolving
of ubiquitous availability means considerable investments in as vehicles more for consumer research than for self-service
technology, operational processes, and ongoing maintenance that, booking. While improvements in systems for consumer reviews
in the final analysis, may not yield sufficient return. are helping inspire buyer confidence, consumer adoption of
online booking functionality remains a hill to climb.
Let’s consider travel products – flights, cars, hotels, cruises,
tours, activities, and custom vacations. Why? Travel is a These products are complex enough that consumers prefer to
particularly interesting case study in that it faces considerable rely on the expertise of a travel professional when booking. It’s
challenges in the omnichannel distribution model, yet offers important products like these that sit on the periphery of the
so many opportunities to enhance the customer experience. omnichannel model.
While many consider the travel space a leader in terms of making
complex transactions possible in an online environment, not every
product is well-positioned to become ubiquitously consumed in
this omnichannel future.

What Drives Ubiquity? through the whole CX journey, or is the investment better spent in
reducing friction only at key points?
When considering product ubiquity, some of the factors For example, according to Expedia, over 80 percent of travel activities
that distinguish some products from others include: (i.e. “things to do in Rome”) are booked immediately prior to, or
during, the vacation stay. Implementation of personalization features
Product complexity to offer recommended activities as a cross-sell to a flight or hotel
booking can help enhance the customer experience and, at least,
Is the product easy to understand, or is the buying decision stimulate some thought on the activities product.
heavily nuanced requiring collaboration? For example, a
custom vacation package requires the expert input of a travel But perhaps an even more effective channel for recommending these
professional, whereas booking a car rental is a fairly straight- products is in a touch point email just days before travel begins, or
forward, easily understood transaction. by providing travelers with a native app-based portal to consume
additional information during their travel – information like restaurants
or points of interest, or to purchase activities like city tours.
Value communication
Can the best possible price or value be communicated across Product evolution also plays an important role in the distribution
all channels? Some suppliers impose price parity requirements. strategy. As product features or characteristics change, so may the
In these cases, the best possible price may only be offered in a approach to different distribution channels.
closed-loop e-commerce environment, or the currency must be
masked by points, making it impossible to share via channels like The availability of mobile-only hotel pricing is a perfect example of
social media. Both travel and merchandise vendors may contend a product adaptation that begs for a distinct user experience in the
with suppliers or manufacturers that impose restrictions on the mobile booking channel versus the desktop channel (or the offline
type of transaction by which a product may be sold (for example, booking channel). Here, the mobile user looking to book a close-
points redemption only). in stay has come to expect discounted, last-minute inventory; in
contrast, the desktop user may be looking for hotel deals 30 days
Finally, most travel products are priced real-time (especially from today and has considerably more time and space to research.
volatile are flights and, to a somewhat lesser degree, hotels),
making it difficult to convey accurate pricing across all channels, Another prime example of an evolving product is flights. Just two
years ago, while there was price complexity in air travel, the variations
so other value aspects may need to be communicated over price.
in the product were pretty well understood by consumers – choice of
first, business, economy, and premium economy seating.
Content richness
With the introduction of new, no-frills economy permutations, seats
Is the product generally homogenous? Or does it have many in an aircraft may come with different attributes (seat style, bag
variations, or value-added options? Is the product best allowance, etc.), and it’s now possible for consumers to redeem
communicated to the consumer via rich imagery, detailed for upgrades and ancillaries from within the loyalty platform rather
descriptions, and ancillary details? than purchasing them directly from the airline (Montrose/CTM is
introducing this functionality for its loyalty clients).
Consider the many factors beyond just price that go into
a consumer’s choice of a hotel stay; attractive images, Though this provides an unprecedented level of consumer control
placement on a map, points of interest, and amenities are over the travel experience, it also poses challenges in communicating
generally more important in the decision-making process than the new depth of the offering in certain channels.
even the property description.
The suggestion here is not that a product must pass all three
of the above tests to be suitable for ubiquity, but that a more Finding balance
strategic approach to multi-channel distribution may yield
The concept of ubiquitous access to products presents an
better results for the business and the consumer alike.
attractive future for e-commerce but not if at the expense of
the customer experience. The elimination or deprecation of
products not suitable for ubiquity, or attempts to force certain
The Ubiquity Opportunity less-suitable products into the ubiquity model, will only serve to
erode consumer satisfaction and, in turn, loyalty.
Distribution strategy is key to capitalizing on the ubiquity
opportunity. Organizations need to consider not only today’s Being thoughtful about your products and how your customers
model but need to give thought to where consumers buy, what consume those products will lead to the right blend of product
consumers expect on their CX journey, and how products may ubiquity, consumer value and, in turn, loyalty to your brand.
evolve over time.
The distribution strategy should include an assessment of Chris Martin is Director of Marketing & Application Development for Montrose
consumer expectations (and the tools they need) at various Travel/CTM, the U.S.-based Loyalty arm of global travel giant Corporate Travel
points in the decision-making/buying/post-purchase process. Management Ltd. (ASX:CTD). Montrose Travel/CTM provides best-in-class
This consideration is yet another driver of the ROI discussion travel loyalty solutions for marquee brands in financial, retail, and marketing
do all distribution channels for access need to be maintained services sectors.

BEST PRACTICES
LOYA LT Y
IS MORE THAN A
MARKETING PROGRAM
Kevin Murphy
GM Loyalty and Global Marketing Solutions
Epsilon
There are 3.8 billion total U.S. loyalty program members according to the 2017 COLLOQUY Loyalty
Census. In today’s marketing landscape, customer loyalty should not be viewed as just a marketing
program. Loyalty is something you receive from consumers by delivering on your brand values and
offering a superior customer experience. Marketers looking to advance their loyalty program need to
determine what their consumer values, what encourages them to participate and what entices them
to remain active in a loyalty program.

To achieve high-levels of engagement, a loyalty program should be viewed as a customer
experience platform to help brands deepen customer relationships and foster loyalty.
This requires loyalty to be a corporate initiative backed by research and planning where
everyone is held accountable for its success. You need everyone on board including
marketing, finance and customer service.
For example
Domino’s invests time and research into understanding what their
customers want from their Piece of the Pie® rewards program
(pizza!). Domino’s focuses on where their customers are. If their
customers are online, Domino’s is making it easy for them to order
online. The pizza giant performed analytics and conducted research
to learn what consumers wanted from a Domino’s loyalty program.
They want it made simple, of value and to be genuine. At a recent
event, Stephen Kennedy of Domino’s stated,
“Understanding the customer is essential to us at

Domino’s. Marketers need to look at the data and
have visibility into their customers. Be relevant
and understand why they stopped purchasing.
Once you know that, develop a communication
strategy for winning them back.”
Through these efforts, don’t lose sight of the importance of your As you’re continuing to advance your loyalty efforts within
existing customers. Marketers naturally tend to focus their efforts on your organization, remember:
acquiring new customers. However, the lifetime value of an existing
customer has proven to be more profitable. • Loyalty cannot be viewed as a tactic
The probability of selling to an existing customer is • Executive support is essential for the continued growth
of your loyalty initiatives
60-70%
while the probability of selling to
• Think with an innovative mindset and have some fun
• Test, test and re-test

a new prospect is
5-20%
Loyalty marketing has entered a new phase. Marketers need to
determine how loyalty programs fit into their overall corporate
goals and sustain both the funding and support to continue to
grow their programs and maintain profitability.
Leverage loyalty to enhance their customer journey and sustain their

relationship by demonstrating the value of your brand’s offering.

LOYALTY FORUM: Q&A
Ask the Experts:

How do you decide when and how to make “investments” in your
customer loyalty strategy? How do you define success in this regard?
Shop Your Way and Integrated Retail are at the core of Sears Holdings’
transformation. We are investing in our members through these two
strategic priorities so we can serve them on their terms – when they “With a lot of these product
want, how they want, and where they want.
categories becoming more
Through Integrated Retail, we invest in capabilities that allow us to
bring the best of both worlds together for our members – the ease
complicated, we’re looking for ways
and convenience of shopping online and the physical experience of to differentiate our service and
shopping in-store.
Leena Munjal,
improve that in-store experience.”
SVP, Customer Experience
and Integrated Retail
Sears Holdings
The first thing we always look at when it comes to investments

I’m not sure there is any set process for finding that next big is what behaviors and experiences are we trying to drive
investment. We have a core group of leaders within the organization and can this opportunity help drive those efficiently and
and when an opportunity presents itself, we discuss and decide seamlessly. We need to also understand how each opportunity
whether or not it makes sense for us to pursue it. I’ve always been fits into the larger “eco-system” at Finish Line and if it allows
a proponent of “going with your gut,” and when you interact with an us to enhance the customer experience. We know that this
organization, whether you’re able to articulate it or not, it either feels space is moving fast and to gain the customer’s attention and
right or it doesn’t. Our brand is agile enough that if a technology feels interest we need to be delivering on elevated experiences
right for what we’re trying to do, we can move quickly on it. across all touch points. With how fast the space is moving, we
also need to vet out the longevity of the solution.
David Tann, Imran Jooma,

VP & Creative Director Divisional President and
Atlanta Hawks Executive Vice President of
Omnichannel Strategy
Finish Line
Everything we do and invest in relates to our overarching goal of

being the preeminent loyalty program within the industry and Over the past few years, our organization has been examining
ensuring that our members are recommending us. Within this, we the idea that, besides our pharmacy, the drugstore experience
focus on two pillars: customer experience and relevant rewards. is largely self-serve; you walk the aisles by yourself, you pick
what you want, and you check out. With a lot of these product
categories becoming more complicated, we’re looking for ways
Mary Hines, to differentiate our service and improve that in-store experience.
Managing Director, Part of that is focusing in on the touchpoints customers have with
Global Head our associates, and making sure that those interactions create
Citi Rewards
caring moments for our shoppers.
John Learish,
Sr. VP of Marketing
Rite Aid
We have worked to build the customer experience from the ground We track our metrics very closely. We’re always looking at
up. This encompasses the whole experience from the first contact things like retention; what does attrition look like among different
the customer has to the last. How we interact with our customers segments, what does spend per trip look like? We also do surveys,
from the beginning to the end has to be consistent. This starts with which provides feedback from members to determine different
the potential customer seeing our online banner, to a visit to the aspects of our value proposition. And I think all those things are
rental shop, to signing up for our loyalty program – RedZone, to things that we’re focused on in the next year, in terms of everyday
their first time redeeming points. Every touch matters, even the way benefits that we’re giving members versus the additional targeted
communication is sent out. Every experience with our company and promotions or additional services that are available.
our brand has to be consistent for the customer.
Stephanie Meltzer-Paul,
Rich Mohr, VP, membership engagement
VP Rental & Global Product Manager BJ’s Wholesale Club
Ryder
How do you see CX changing, both internally (your industry)

and externally (all industries)?
The movie industry continues to be threatened, if you will, I think externally what the customers want is better visibility
by the latest in-home entertainment. But I think it’s good into our business. They want better visibility into what our
for the industry because it drives us to deliver the best inventory is. They want to know what our inventory is, what
customer experience possible. Who knows if all the advances types of equipment we have, when they want it, and where they
like recliners, extended menus, cocktails, and premium want to pick up. There is a lot more access to the business now.
formats--- where would those amenities be today without the Once, the business was only done from 7am to 5pm Monday
competition? So far, we’ve been able to go above and beyond through Friday, and maybe a couple hours on Saturday. That was
and produce an experience that the customer finds value in the old model. But now our clients are expecting to self-serve
and I believe that we will continue to do so. more. We’ve seen that shift over the last three or four years with
web-based reservations and live inventory. And that’s not as
Kelly Hawkins, easy as it sounds with such a diverse array of equipment that we
VP of loyalty marketing have to carry. Being able to manage life inventory with the new
Regal Entertainment Group customers’ expectations becomes more and more complicated.
Rich Mohr,
VP Rental & Global
I feel like guests are really after convenience and options. Product Manager
They want what they want when they want it, and of course Ryder
the snack industry is no different there. Consumers are looking
for programs that make their lives easier and provide value.
So, if we can provide that with our My Pretzel Perks program,
or any of our other offerings, such as connecting on social, that
is really going to drive value for each and every guest.
Meredith Wenz,
Director of Marketing
Auntie Anne’s Pretzels

Can brands be scored on

their level of engagement?
In this era of customer experience, major brands realize that engagement
matters more than ever. It is an important factor in a consumer’s relationship
with a brand, often influencing how much and how often they buy.
We also see a link between engagement, loyalty program

Michela Baxter membership, and purchase, highlighting the importance of
Senior Director of Loyalty converting loyal consumers at all levels of engagement to program
HelloWorld
members. Share of requirements is at its highest when loyalty
program membership and higher brand engagement overlap.
But share of requirements, even among those who scored low in
Engagement -- interactions outside of purchase -- has been and brand engagement, can increase by almost 20% when consumers
will continue to be a hot topic among marketers who want to build participate in loyalty programs.
stronger relationships with their consumers. But up until now, it’s
been difficult to quantify the impact of engagement on purchase. Highly-engaged consumers are incredibly valuable to brands on
multiple levels – driving increased share of requirements and
Even with a solid content marketing strategy, how does a brand providing a receptive audience for loyalty initiatives. To impact
know how well they’re doing? How can they attribute consumer a brand’s bottom line, it’s more important than ever to increase
engagement to loyalty, and ultimately attribute it to sales? consumer engagement and convert brand loyalists to loyalty
program members.
As experts on engagement, we wanted to quantify the return on
engagement strategies. We conducted research to measure the
impact of engagement on consumers’ purchasing decisions. The
study surveyed over 5,000 consumers across six categories on
purchase behavior and their level of engagement with a self- For additional findings on
identified favorite brand. Among its most compelling findings, this study, download the
the study shows that even the most loyal consumers (those who HelloWorld Engagement
purchase their favorite brand “most” or “all of” the time) buy even Score Whitepaper:
more at higher levels of engagement. Overall, the study found a
HelloWorld.com/EngagementScore
14% increase in this group of consumers when they scored high
on engagement compared to those who scored low.
Even the most loyal consumers purchase more of their favorite brands when better engaged.
21% 33%
increase in “occasional diners” at their favorite
restaurant brands as engagement increases
INCREASE IN
CONSUMERS
WHO SHOP THEIR
FAVORITE STORES
96%
“most of” or “all of” of highly-engaged CPG loyalty program
the time at higher members buy their favorite brands
levels of engagement “most of” or “all of” the time
26 Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER

SUMMER2017
2017
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50332 BBL Loyalty360 PrintAd Ev2.indd 1 2017-08-16 6:18 PM

OKAY NEW
PRODUCTION SPECIFICATIONS SIGN-OFF AS IS PROOF
TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS & REWARDS
THREE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
SHORTFALLS
OF VIDEO
MARKETING
Summer Felix-Mulder
Co-founder and CEO
The Draw Shop, LLC
In 2017, having a marketing video to help improve customer engagement and

experience is like having a website—everybody just kind of ... expects it.
The oft-quoted numbers show us why, too: It makes sense then why,
nowadays, everyone has a
• Landing pages that include videos reach up to 80% higher video. But videos aren’t without
conversion rates1 their own customer-experience
problems. And in a world where
• Emails with explainer videos have a click-through rate uplift customer experience is poised to
of between 200% to 300%2 overtake both price and product
as the key brand differentiator in
• And on social media, using texts and images resulted in the next few years4, innovative
1200% FEWER shares than using the tried-and-tested video3 companies are looking for a fix.

That’s where interactive
video comes in. WHAT DO
YOU DO?
Agree with
Say you
You’ve seen one or two, maybe from Deloitte or other leaders
Leave the boss
who use interactive videos to jumpstart everything from customer
disagree
engagement to employee hiring. the office
And the secret as to why interactive videos are so valued might just
be because they fix the problems that traditional video presents.
Problems such as ...
THE THE
ENGAGEMENT IMPROVEMENT
PROBLEM PROBLEM
Having a video in and of itself does not elicit a “Wow”. When you put a video out into the world, you can collect a
certain amount of stats on it. How long someone stayed on
While watching videos is more engaging than reading text, you it, when they quit, and ... that’s about it.
just don’t get that same lean-in engagement that you get with
media that compels you to actively interact with it. In interactive media, every decision point the viewer
encounters provides you with valuable information:
Not so with interactive video. Viewers are in control with preferences, tendencies, time interacting with each portion,
interactive media, which makes them spend on average 64% when people got bored or left—this and more amalgamated
more time with it than traditional video. into fresh, actionable data waiting to be used. This makes
it easier than ever to take action, plugging the leaks in your
marketing video and improving the overall experience of
your customer.
THE According to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs,
AUDIENCE customer loyalty is worth, on average, up to 10 times the
amount of the customer’s first purchase.
PROBLEM In a world short on loyalty, interactive videos improve the
customer relationship by personalizing and updating the
Traditional videos are linear—you watch it from the beginning to customer’s experience with your brand—not to mention
the end, and that’s that. You make a video for a certain audience your ability to consistently approve your message and
and hope it reaches them. But if you want to target more than approach.
one audience, you either try to reach everyone with one video
(bad idea) or make multiple videos (which can get expensive). Every day, our world becomes more interactive: in a few
short years, interactive media might well be the new norm.
Interactive videos change according to what the individual The good news is that, while corporate behemoths might
watching it picks. That not only lets you target several have already begun filtering into the Interactive Media
audiences—it allows you to target people on a granular level. space, it’s still relatively new on the scene. That “Wow”
Every choice they make on your interactive video segments factor still applies. Small- and medium-sized companies can
them that much more, putting them in front of specific break in and stand apart from their competition.
information or experiences made specifically to entertain them,
enlighten them, or move them.
Maybe that’s why interactive videos see twice the conversions,
and over 14 times the click-through-to-purchase rates5 when
Summer Felix-Mulder is a serial entrepreneur and author who’s dedicated
compared with traditional video. Finally, we have...
to making the world a better place. She’s also co-founder and CEO of The
Draw Shop, LLC, the video-animation company that makes attention-
getting sales & marketing videos for the world’s best minds and companies.
1
http://www.eyeviewdigital.com/documents/EyeView-White-Paper-Making-Video-Accountable.pdf Summer holds creative degrees from Pepperdine University and loves
2
https://www.forrester.com/The+Email+Marketing+Playbook+For+2015/-/E-PLA230
writing, momming (is that a verb yet?), and competing in triathlons.
3
https://smallbiztrends.com/2016/10/video-marketing-statistics.html
4
https://www.walkerinfo.com/customers2020/
5
http://www.cyberalert.com/blog/interactive-video-the-next-big-marketing-trend/

BEST PRACTICES
An Incentive Framework to
Align the Buyer and
Partner Journeys
Claudio Ayub
Chief Strategy Officer
Perks
The new buyer’s journey is leading to enormous

changes in the channel
The number one issue impacting suppliers and partners today is the misalignment of the partner
sales process to the digitally connected buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey has evolved through
the advent of the web, but it’s quite likely that your partners’ sales cycles are still activity based
as opposed to buyer’s journey based. A successful partner sales process needs to move away
from a process designed around sales activities, to one that aligns with the buyer’s position in
the buying process. Partners are now responsible for a bigger piece of the lead-to-revenue cycle,
which means that partners must take responsibility for engaging with the buyer through most of
their buying cycle. If we view the partner sales cycle, it’s changed from transactional into one that
requires prospects to be nurtured for months or years before they turn into sales opportunities. It
is critical to educate partners about how to connect with each buyer at each phase of the journey.
Behavioral incentives can make the difference in helping partners modify their behavior and start
using proven techniques and methodologies designed around the buyer’s journey.

The evolving buyer’s journey
Initially, the buyer isn’t really sure about what they need to
know. They’re looking to loosen the status quo, to entertain
change, and it’s the partner’s job to make sure that they
have the content that will allow that buyer to form opinions.
During the next phase, exploring possible solutions, the buyer
is doing their homework and the partner must supply the
right information to help them along the journey so that they
are considered in the final phase - selection. Starting with Demand generation and pipeline attainment are company level
the education phase, moving to a solution phase, and finally incentives while lead follow-up and opportunity registration
into a selection phase, behaviorally-based incentives have are incented at the individual level. Marketing and demand
a big impact on ensuring your partners modify their sales generation activities are essential to both drive and support a
behaviors towards the right buyer’s journey. rapid business model transformation.
Keep in mind that education is not just about your product.
Offer your partners marketing certification programs that
strengthen their expertise. Also, offer marketing enablement/
demand generation tools such as self-service demand
creation campaigns, pre-packaged marketing campaigns,
and compelling incentive programs that motivate both
the partner organizations and their teams to actively
participate in this new way of doing business.
Remember, you need to recognize that a
successful sale is a result of a string of productive
activities that, when combined, lead to that
sale and lead to that transaction. This is especially
true for products and services with long sales cycles,
where many different sales marketing and product processes
are in alignment to generate leads, nurture opportunities,
and maintain engagement through an increasingly complex
Incentives modify partner buying process. The reality is that you don’t really need to
behavior and manage alignment put incentives at every stage of the journey, you just need to
identify those areas that are weak and need to be changed,
and then choose the right incentive to advance that one area in
Start by identifying your buyer’s journey, then introduce need of improvement.
your partners to the concepts of demand type, stages of
the buyer’s journey, and how to align solution messaging Today, channel marketers must keep the buyer’s journey and
with demand type. Focus your training on helping partners partner’s sales cycle in mind when designing and structuring
evaluate the demand type and buyer’s journey for their incentive programs, as properly applied incentives will
specific audience and offerings so that they can start the ensure partner’s sales team modify their behavior towards
conversation with the buyers. Once that is done, it’s all understanding and aligning to the new buyer’s journey.
about delivering the right content at the right stage of the
buyer’s journey. You should also evaluate the sales cycle of
the partners themselves, and identify what skills are needed
to onboard new partners and shorten their time to revenue, Claudio Ayub is Chief Strategy Officer at Perks. He has over 20 years of
as well as understand the lifecycle of a given transaction, experience as a loyalty marketing expert with broad knowledge in strategy
development, market management, and channel sales planning.
from demand creation to sales closing and renewals. These
considerations will yield the skills and behaviors needed to
align your incentives with your partner’s sales cycle, so you
can influence those behaviors with incentives and different
types of incentive programs, which will help you align the
buyer’s and partner’s journeys.
Behavioral incentive models should be designed around
lead generation, lead management, and early opportunity
registration. You will want to move away from just
rewarding for transactions, to addressing everything from
qualified leads to the closed deals. Align incentive programs
to focus on both company level behaviors, and individual
level behaviors and skills.

FROM THE TRENCHES: INSIGHTS & BEST

PRACTICES FROM REAL WORLD RECEIPT-BASED
LOYALTY PROGRAMS FOR CPG BRANDS
Ritesh Bhavnani
Co-Founder, President, Chief Technology Officer and Director
Snipp Interactive Inc.
It is no secret that CPG and other multichannel brands are and figuring out what works best for them, we are seeing
facing an almost existential set of challenges. In particular, some clear benefits and common themes and trends emerging
the increasing fragmentation of both their customer bases in terms of program design and promotion implementation,
and their distribution channels along with the ever-increasing especially when compared to previous pin-on-pack programs.
competition from private labels and upstart brands (which are
easier than ever to launch) makes it a lot harder for brands to Time & Geography Delimited Programs: For those reared on
differentiate themselves on shelf and drive repeat sales. pin-on-pack, this is especially powerful. With receipts, you
know the date when the product was purchased as well as the
Further, the crumbling of today’s media audiences and the store address and zip code, and can hence create time-based or
explosion of new media channels (primarily digital and mobile) geography-restricted promotions during specific periods.
means that it is very difficult for brands to build profitable
relationships with their best customers through brand We have a client that ran a month-long “double points”
advertising and other above-the-line marketing spend alone. promotion as part of its launch strategy to increase visibility and
support for the program. Brands are also running promotions
As alternatives, loyalty and below-the-line shopper marketing during specific promotion windows (such as “back-to-school”)
efforts are proving to be more effective in addressing some of for certain products. Programs can also be restricted to specific
the challenges above and in driving sales – and tend to have a zip codes, cities, states or DMAs – or have promotions that
much greater (and more tangible) ROI for the spend. reward participation from those geographies.
Historically though, CPG brands have shied away from loyalty Retailer Support: Receipt-based programs are very effective
programs due to the difficulties and expenses in program for creating programs in partnership with specific retailers,
implementation. However, with widespread consumer especially if the objective is to get better retailer support for
smartphone adoption and the advent of receipt processing as sales and shelf placement. One brand created an entire loyalty
a viable alternative to pin-on-pack (receipt processing being program targeted at one specific retailer; consumers could only
both more convenient and cost-effective), increasing numbers get points for purchases made at this retailer. Other brands
of CPG brands are revisiting loyalty programs today. have run retailer-specific promotions where consumers got
double or triple points for purchases made at those retailers.
“However, with widespread consumer smartphone adoption and the advent of

receipt processing as a viable alternative to pin-on-pack (receipt processing being
both more convenient and cost-effective), increasing numbers of CPG brands
arerevisiting loyalty programs today.”
At Snipp, we have seen these changes first hand. Over the first Tiering & Laddering of Points: Brand managers can drive specific
half of this year alone we have launched six new programs consumer behaviors through the judicious tiering and laddering of
for an assortment of multichannel brands. We are seeing points in loyalty programs. Historically this was difficult to execute
increasing acceptance of receipt-based loyalty programs on with pin-on-pack programs but is much easier to do with receipts,
the consumer side as well: today, we process over half a million where all purchases are visible at the same time. For example, to
receipt submissions per month – a five-fold increase over the drive sampling, brands could offer points boosters when two specific
past year alone. While many brands are still experimenting products are purchased together.

“CPG and multichannel brands have not done very much with loyalty programs yet. We
are seeing that change and expect many more brands to experiment with and launch their
own programs over the next few years. As brands become more comfortable with these
programs, we expect to see more interesting examples and best practices emerge.”
Similarly, to increase basket size, brands could offer programs where

you get disproportionately more points for each additional unit
purchased (e.g. one purchase is worth one point, two purchases is
worth three points, three purchases is six points and so on).
Amplifying Purchase Through Engagement: While this isn’t

necessarily unique to programs for multichannel brands, many of our
clients have embraced the idea of amplifying their loyalty programs
by rewarding user engagement, particularly through social media and
online activities.
Several brands have programs where consumers earn additional points

through playing branded games, watching brand-based videos, sharing
content, referring friends to the loyalty program, and by completing
customizable polls and surveys. Engagement-based activities need to
be designed to ensure that they are meeting the overall program goals:
if the ultimate aim is to drive purchase, then brands should be careful
about how many points they give away for non-purchase related
activities and which activities they reward in that context.
Third Party Channel Solution: A significant use case for receipts

in loyalty programs is to supplement existing POS-based programs,
particularly in contexts where the brand sells direct as well as through
third party distribution channels. We had a brand do exactly that; they
have a very successful loyalty program they had implemented in their
own retail stores.
However they also happened to sell products through other retailers,

both online and offline, and a constant consumer complaint was the Data, Data, Data: The big opportunity inherent in receipts
inability to get rewarded for purchases made outside of the brand’s own is the treasure trove of data they provide about consumer
stores. Today, those loyalty program members can submit purchase purchase behavior and the insights into their shopping
receipts via the brand’s app and get points credited for those purchases. basket. Brand managers are using this data to determine key
insights into which retailers’ consumers are more receptive
Loyalty as a Platform: As programs mature, brand managers can to promotions, what products consumers are purchasing
increasingly use these programs as a platform to run all their marketing together, what competitive products are in the basket, how
promotional activities, creating greater marketing efficiencies and frequently loyalty program members are shopping, as well
increasing overall participation rates and pull-through. Instead of as a host of other data touchpoints that are allowing them to
running disparate, individual programs, brand managers are increasingly better target and provide greater value to consumers.
mandating that all promotions be run on top of the loyalty platform
where possible. Final Thoughts: Unlike many other industries, CPG and
multichannel brands have not done very much with loyalty
Doing so encourages further sign up of new loyalty program members programs yet. We are seeing that change and expect many
and increases convenience and loyalty for existing members. Further, more brands to experiment with and launch their own
because of the flexibility afforded by receipts, brand managers can add programs over the next few years. As brands become more
brands or sub-brands to the program very easily, encouraging greater comfortable with these programs, we expect to see more
adoption and strengthening the overall value of the platform. interesting examples and best practices emerge.

BEST PRACTICES
3 STEPS TO PREPARING
A ROADMAP TO CUSTOMER
ENGAGEMENT TRANSFORMATION
Manmohan Gupta
Digital Transformation | Product Marketing
Software Marketing
Pitney Bowes
The goals of digital transformation (DX) of customer engagement—the hyper-

personalization, relevancy, real-time feedback and on-the-fly agility—none of
that is possible without access to relevant data available at the right time. But
for many organizations, dealing with data challenges can be daunting. That
often comes down to the sheer volume of data in organizations that might
have decades-long histories, as well as the dispersal of that data—in multiple
CRMs, on spreadsheets, in filing cabinets—much of it conflicting, incomplete,
inaccurate, or otherwise untrustworthy.
A validated roadmap outlines three stages to

navigate these challenges with a clear path to
customer engagement transformation.

“Creating relevant communications, or those delivered through
the right channel and at the right time for the customer, requires
the use of data to inform personalization preferences around
channel and device, to understand response rates at different
times or days of the week, and how to devise an optimal
channel mix for your audience. “
1. UNDERSTAND YOUR 3. CREATE RELEVANT

CUSTOMER, COMPLETELY COMMUNICATIONS AT THE RIGHT
TIME ON THE RIGHT CHANNEL
This first stage in customer engagement transformation
is to know who your customer is, to understand their The third stage of customer engagement transformation
relationships, interests and behavior, and to coalesce that is where the preparations made in the previous two stages
information into a single customer view. Pitney Bowes’ converge—using data to inform customer interaction. This
Jesse Hoobler, global vice president, Solution Consulting, phase, says Hoobler, is about being able to create multiple
explains: “The premise behind identification of your points of conversation: “It is what many people refer to as
customer is really about creating a single view. It’s about omnichannel engagement—allowing the right person, to
consolidating multiple data points, likely from disparate get the right communication, at the right time, in the right
repositories, into a single, cohesive view so that you place, through the most effective delivery channel.”
can truly engage with that customer in an effective and Creating relevant communications, or those delivered
hyper-personalized way. Using this single view, you will through the right channel and at the right time for
truly know who they are, what they need, and how best to the customer, requires the use of data to inform
engage with them.” personalization preferences around channel and device,
to understand response rates at different times or days of
2. USE LOCATION TO ADD PRECISION the week, and how to devise an optimal channel mix for
AND CONTEXT your audience. This can be especially important as the
generational divide widens over technology and preferred
The second stage of customer engagement transformation communication preferences, and technology can enable
adds in location and context. In a mobile world, it’s no interactivity and two-way conversations with customers.
longer enough to know who your customers are; you also
need to know where they are in order to deliver a real
hyper-personalized and responsive experience. This phase Learn more about the stages involved in preparing a best practices-based roadmap to
covers both the customer’s physical context—i.e., where digital transformation. Visit pitneybowes.com/us/digital-transformation/forbes-digital-
transformation-paper to read a Forbes Insights white paper sponsored by Pitney Bowes.
they are in the world—and the digital context—i.e., where
they are most active on social media and their preferences
around communication.

PAYBACK TIME:
What your CFO wants to know

about your loyalty
rewards program
Len Llaguno
Willis Towers Watson
Most customers love being rewarded

for brand loyalty, and businesses love
Why do CFOs care?
loyal customers. It’s a simple formula Why do CFOs care?
Risk: How could this potentially impact my financial statements?
that has seen loyalty programs multiply Risk: How could this potentially impact my financial statements?
and expand across a whole range of Suppose
Supposeyou
youwant
wanttotoimplement
implementaachange
change that is going
going to
tomake
makeitit1%
1%easier
easiertotoredeem.
redeem.
industries over a period of many years.
Investments in loyalty programs can $7.080

A 1% change on a $4.2 billion liability
therefore now generate some big results in a $42M dollar cost
numbers – unredeemed points, for $4.883
example, represent a liability of billions
$ BILLIONS
$3.926
of dollars in some programs. And like $2.789 $2.574
any other kind of prospective financial
commitment, CFOs are interested in $0.685
$0.446
the balance between risk and reward.
For loyalty programs, that balance Amex United Delta American Marriott IHG Hyatt
largely depends on predicting member
revenue, how members earn and KEY TAKEAWAY: Program changes don’t just affect cost of points issued in the
redeem points, the role of affinity future, but also impact the cost of points issued in the past!
partners and suchlike. The methods
for doing these things are moving on. Advanced analytics techniques are enhancing loyalty program investment cases and helping to more
consistently blend financial and marketing objectives.

A shift in emphasis How do these techniques differ?
Most loyalty programs already crunch a lot of historical data. These newer generation analytics work by more forensically
But, typically, sponsors have reserved more sophisticated and comprehensively assessing the cause and effect of
analytic tools for marketing cases that explore short-term, decisions than aggregated historical data ever could. So, if
discrete behaviors, such as near-term lapse probabilities or you had 20 pieces of distinct information about a customer
conversion rates. or set of customers, you could look at the impact of every
combination of those items. And with things like big data and
Fewer companies, in my experience, have applied the same machine learning techniques increasingly coming on stream,
analytic rigor to financial analytics, such as estimating the the type and speed of analyses are moving on rapidly.
program liability and performing short- and long-term financial
projections of member revenue and cost. Many annual and
even three-to-five year financial forecasts for member revenue In the case of unredeemed points, newer predictive analytics
and costs, for example, are typically based on aggregated data can add a level of sophistication to customer financial models,
that throw little light on member behaviors that drive financial shedding light on considerations such as when points are
performance. redeemed and what factors increase or decrease redemptions.
This deeper understanding of the mechanics gives a more solid
By contrast, modern predictive modeling and data science base for liability estimates and the financial reporting decisions
techniques can help companies understand better how based upon them, not to mention a means for more proactively
member’s behavior today drives long-term financial value. With influencing redemption.
this knowledge, financial analytics becomes a super-charged
tool to both monitor and maximize financial performance.
Equally on the revenue side, more sophisticated financial
models can reveal a deeper level of behavioral insights that
would allow a company to tailor a program to maximize long-
term customer value. One of the key things new generation
Marketing analytics predictive analytics enable sponsors to do is to easily explore
vs. Financial analytics what-if scenarios. For example, a sponsor could test the
financial impact of possible program changes on performance,
Common financial analytics use cases including revisions to expiration/forfeiture rules. They might
also explore how to drive more value from bonus offers. The
availability of off-the-shelf software tools, including our own
LoyaltyAdvisor, means this process can be highly automated,
The Accounting Question
so results are produced very quickly, giving sponsors the
How will points outstanding today information they need to make fast and smart business
be redeemed over the next 10 years? decisions.
Another longer-term, strategic benefit is that the confluence

of revenue and cost applications made more readily possible
The Financial Planning Question by newer generation analytics helps bridge the potential
Based on our program management gap between marketers’ desires to grow engagement and
strategy, what will my program’s finance’s concerns about cost and liability impacts. And, with
revenue, expense and liability be that, program leaders may find themselves able to present
over the next 5 years? investments more fluently in the language of sometimes
skeptical CFOs.
The Marketing Strategy Question

If I change expiration rules, how
will points outstanding today be Len Llaguno leads the loyalty analytics team at Willis Towers Watson. Len has
redeemed over the next 10 years? worked on a diverse range of insurance and risk management assignments for
And what is the potential revenue personal and commercial insurers as well as corporate clients. Len’s background
benefit of doing this? includes traditional reserve, ratemaking and funding studies as well as other
quantitative and qualitative analyses to help clients manage and leverage risk.
KEY TAKEAWAY: There is a huge opportunity to uncover

value by advancing the sophistication of your financial
analytics

Conference Preview
NASHVILLE
November 6-8, 2017 | Sheraton Music City | Nashville, TN
The only
conference
focused
completely on
your customer
The inaugural Customer Expo will focus on all aspects of the customer comprehensive forum to meet and discuss the challenges facing brands
journey, including an exploration of crucial audiences both internal and today. Covering topics from performance management metrics, to interest
external. Through a robust slate of best-in-class speakers and interactive & acquisition, to organizational commitment & alignment, Customer Expo
discussions, actionable case studies, and proven world class technology truly is the complete customer conference.
suppliers, attendees will learn about the latest theories, best practices,
relevant case studies, emerging trends, and strategies that drive Brands in attendance at Loyalty360 events last year included:
measurable behavioral change and quantifiable results. American Airlines, Wyndham Hotel Group, Johnson & Johnson, GE
Energy, Allergan, Microsoft, United Airlines, MoneyGram, Best Buy, US Bank,
Customer Expo will provide insight on all customer-facing processes, from Ulta, Hilton, Sears, Citi Bank, Citizens Bank, GameStop, and many others.
the initial interaction that engages the customer, through the personalized
experiences that create a deeper relationship with that customer, to
the loyalty and retention processes need to keep a customer profitable
and loyal for life. In addition, the conference will touch upon the internal The three-day event will be jam-packed with
processes needed for organization excellence. This includes organizational learning and networking opportunities, including:
alignment and customer insights, as well as other internal factors that
create unique alignment between internal and external audiences. • 20+ sessions
• interactive workshops
The ability to understand the unique expectations of customers is more • peer-to-peer marketer-only roundtables
important now than ever. Customer Expo will give you insights on how to • new consumer and industry benchmark research,
transform your relationship with consumers, both today and going forward. receptions, meals, and breaks in the exhibit hall
• member-only networking
Creating increasingly relevant, personal, and customized experiences to
• post conference offsite learning opportunity at a
build sustainable bonds with customers is what will set your brand apart local recording studio to get a unique behind the
from the competition. From the first touch point to the most recent, these scenes perspective.
experiences are vital to elevating the experience, using data and actionable
insight in a more simple and manageable manner, leading your customers
down the path of engagement, and allowing for long-term mutually
beneficial relationships and brand advocacy on the journey to loyalty.
While past Loyalty360 events and conferences have focused on the
customer in specific areas, Customer Expo will encompass the complete
journey, and we are pleased to be able to offer this conference as a

Conference Preview | 2017
From the Inside Out: CenturyLink’s Key takeaways from the session include:
Application of First-Hand Digital
Transformation Lessons Creates • The significance of the digital transformation
Effective Client Relationships process Ways in which internal processes
can be applied to outward-facing projects
Bill Hurley
CMO Digital transformation is a phrase that is often thrown
around by companies across all verticals, but rarely is it fully
understood and executed. Simply defining and socializing
the hurdles faced by companies looking to improve their
digital presence can often prove to be a challenge, with many
brands unable to even identify the problems that need to be
solved. CenturyLink offers a unique perspective on the topic,
given that the company went through its own transformation
recently, giving them a first-hand look at the process from
both sides of the table.
Bill Hurley, CMO of CenturyLink will provide exclusive

insight into the company’s digital transformation, and
how this has affected the way it helps clients through
the same process.
Wake-Up Call: Creating Key takeaways from the session include:

Long-Term Brand Advocates
with SleepNumber • The significance of the digital
transformation process
Lisa B. Erickson SleepNumber is a long purchase cycle business, which is non- • Ways in which internal processes
traditional for most loyalty program brands. However, loyalty can be applied to outward-facing projects
Sr. Director of
and engagement is not a new concept for the brand. Before
CRM & Loyalty
integrating their existing Innercircle loyalty program with the
InnerCircle online program, SleepNumber had been creating
champions out of clients by incentivizing their Insiders with
refer-a-friend initiatives and building leads from those referrals.
In realizing the value of customer advocacy, SleepNumber

saw an opportunity to further engage and reward customers
through digital/social activities and acquire new business by
adding an online loyalty program to increase engagement.
Emily Rudin
Loyalty. Engaged.

Engagement from the Key takeaways from the session include:
Inside Out: MassMutual’s
Commitment to its Employees • The importance of employee loyalty in a
Yields Positive CX Results B2B2C vertical
Una Morabito • How effective employee engagement leads

External engagement is something that every company to an enhanced experience for consumerst.
Senior Vice President
strives for. Demonstrating value and creating a positive
• Best practices for aligning employee goals
experience for customers is, in essence, the foundation
with larger brand identity
upon which the entire customer loyalty industry is
built. What is less appreciated, however, is the internal
alignment that’s required in order to reach that outward
CX excellence. MassMutual has placed a laser focus
on creating an internal culture that not only motivates
employees, but engages them in a way that has proven
to boost brand advocacy in a tangible way.
The company has worked to make every employee feel like a contributing factor to overall organizational
success, and is proactive in sharing customer feedback with all employees. As a result, the brand has seen
positive outcomes in employee engagement and, consequently, customer experience as a whole.
Customer Chemistry: Inside Key takeaways from the session include:

Thermo Fisher’s Quest to
Leverage VoC in Building • Embracing loyalty from an emotional
Loyalty Across Product Lines perspective, rather than purely transactional
Doreen Pippen, • Best practices surrounding the cultivation

of brand loyalty, rather than product loyalty;
Senior Director of Given its unique market position—in addition to its sheer
avoiding a “siloed” consumer perspective
Customer Loyalty scope of products—Thermo Fisher Scientific faces a very
specific set of challenges in creating brand loyalty. Namely, • The role of internal alignment in creating
the brand has encountered hurdles in moving customers from and maintaining a “brand story”
product loyalty to brand loyalty. A customer may swear by
Lipofectamine 3000, but lack awareness of the larger line
of other Thermo Fisher products. To combat this, the brand
leaned into VoC data to find what customers were buying,
and what kind of loyalty came as a result. From there, building
cross product awareness was a matter of looking beyond
the transactional relationship and finding ways to connect
with consumers, 60% of whom had previously not been
interacting with the brand directly.
In her upcoming session at Customer Expo session, Thermo

Fisher Senior Director of Customer Loyalty Doreen Pippen
will explain how the company approached the task of building
customer loyalty not only for certain product lines, but across
the full spectrum of products offered.

Michael Marino
CXO
Michael oversees the Total Rewards Loyalty program, which consists
of customers from Caesars’ gaming, hospitality, and online businesses.
Michael also oversees the Caesars.com e-commerce business, digital
media, and PlaybyTR, Caesars’ mobile app. Michael’s previous roles within
Caesars include Vice President and Executive Associate to the Chairman,
President and CEO and Director of Marketing Analytics. Prior to joining
Caesars, Michael worked at Bain & Company and Capital One Financial.
Michael holds a BS in Computer Science and an MBA from the University

of Virginia.
Jamie Russo
Vice President of Loyalty Programs
and Customer Engagement
Jamie Russo, Vice President of Loyalty Programs and Customer Engagement, joined Choice Hotels
International in October 2014 to spearhead strategic direction of Choice’s award-winning loyalty
program, Choice Privileges. In his role, he is responsible for growing and further enhancing the
loyalty program as well as managing relationship marketing. He also oversees reservations and
customer and franchisee engagement across Choice’s network of call centers.
Jamie came to Choice from American Express, where he had various positions spanning card
acquisition, product management, and business development. In the consumer division of American
Express, he managed marketing of co-brand products (including the Delta SkyMiles Card),
negotiated and launched the Mercedes-Benz credit cards, and began acquisition programs with
Amazon Prime and Universal Studios. He also held positions in the Merchant Services organization,
where he was responsible for managing global hotel and industry relationships.
He holds a B.A. in Economics and Spanish from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.

Mark Johnson
CEO & CMO
As CEO & CMO of Loyalty360, Mark is committed to bringing loyalty to the forefront as a critical marketing
strategy. To further this goal, he has created an unbiased, market-driven clearinghouse and think tank through
which users and loyalty providers can interact and collaborate with. His finger on the pulse of what’s happening
in loyalty, Mark is driven to give members the expert insight and guidance they need to develop strategies and
implement programs that effectively engage their customers and employees and build stronger relationships
with them.
Mark has significant experience in selling, designing and administering prepaid, loyalty/CRM programs, as well
as data-driven marketing communication programs. He received his start in loyalty program design while at
Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati, OH where he developed the bank’s open (merchant-based gift card) and closed
(MasterCard) system stored value programs (Premiere Issue).
Mark has his undergraduate degree in mass communications (media management) from Miami University, an
M.B.A from the University of Cincinnati, and is currently pursuing an M.B.A. in Business Information - Statistics
from Xavier University. A recognized thought leader in loyalty marketing, Mark shares his expert insights with
media worldwide. He is a regular contributor to Hotel Executive and 21st Century Business and has been featured
in FoxBusiness, NBC News, ABC News, New York Times, Washington Post, 1to1 Magazine, MarketingSherpa,
CRM Magazine and The PrePaid Press.
Marc Rashba
VP of Digital Partnerships & Development
Marc Rashba is currently the Vice President of Digital Partnerships &
Development for Sony Pictures Entertainment. Previously Marc was the
Vice President of Marketing for Sony overseeing the company’s customer
marketing group for RVOD, digital and physical accounts working on
reward winning programs at Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart. During
that period, Marc was able to work on efforts with both the My Best Buy
rewards team as well as with Amazon Prime. Marc also developed a new
product line and a new technology that were awarded patents which he
shares with Sony.
Prior to Sony, Marc spent a number of years in the music industry at EMI
Music Group in a variety of strategic roles, but loved his time working
with Brett Michaels and the band Poison the most. Marc also held a
number of other entertainment roles with Bagdasarian Productions,
Amblin Entertainment and others. He lives in Oak Park, CA with his wife
and three children.

Stephen Kennedy
Director of Loyalty
As an expert in engagement marketing, Stephen leads the development,
execution and management of the award-winning Dominos® Piece of the
Pie Rewards program; which has been a significant contributor to Domino’s
continued business success. As Director of Loyalty Marketing, Stephen is
responsible for the overall success and ongoing management of the loyalty
program, directs the testing of the program to ensure continued success
and has responsibility for member engagement, experience and program
profitability. Leveraging over 15 years of marketing experience focused on brand
strategy, insights, innovation, advertising and strategic planning, Stephen is
constantly striving to take the Piece of the Pie Rewards program to the next
level of engagement.
Prior to joining Dominos, Stephen held management positions at General

Motors, Grail Brand Labs, Campbell Ewald and Borders Group. He earned a
Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan and a Masters of
Business Administration from Eastern Michigan University.
Doug Zarkin
VP - CMO
Doug Zarkin is a senior-level, global strategic marketing executive with an
impressive array of honors and recognition for his marketing and brand building
successes in the retail arena at companies such as Avon, Limited Brands and
Kellwood. In 2012, Doug joined Luxottica as the VP-Chief Marketing Officer
for Pearle Vision where he is currently responsible for the global strategic
marketing, visual merchandising, product promotion and store design for
Luxottica’s global optical franchise business.
In 2015 and again in 2016 , Doug was recognized with an Effie for marketing
excellence in HealthCare Services Marketing for leading the brand revitalization
work for Pearle Vision. When not at the office, Doug can be found on the tennis
court or in the pool with his two kids.

Jonathan Ruchman
Senior Director
Jonathan Ruchman joined Brookdale in February, 2014. He brings
to Brookdale over 25 years of experience in brand marketing and
customer experience. Jonathan’s career spans senior marketing roles
with leading global advertising agencies including Grey Advertising
(New York) and Euro RSCG (Chicago), serving brands such as Olive
Garden, TWA, Avis, Hoover, Red Lobster, and others. Most recently,
he served in key marketing positions at Allstate Insurance Company.
As Marketing Manager in the Corporate Marketing group, Jonathan
developed the nationally recognized Allstate Good Hands® Field
Goal Net program in college football.
As Senior Regional Marketing Manager, Jonathan led the Marketing

and Customer Experience department for the $2 billion, five state
Southern Region. In this role, he worked with 750 local Allstate
Agents on increasing customer acquisition and retention.
Marcos Czacki
Chief Operations Officer
Marcos Czacki is Chief Operations Officer in Daimler Financial Services
Mexico. Czacki is Coordinator of the Anticorruption and Compliance
Committee of the Corporate Counsels Association in Mexico (ANADE),
member of the Mexican Bar, ACAMS Chapter Mexico, ACFE and also
Board member of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Mexico.
He is University teacher and has been speaker in several legal and

compliance conferences.

We’ll see you in

Nashville!
Join us November 8th for a
trip to one of the oldest and
most significant spots in
country music: the legendary
Ryman Auditorium.
Enjoy a backstage tour of one of the

most historic venues in Nashville, and
see where artists like Elvis Presley, Hank
Williams, and Johnny Cash made their
mark on the world of country music. Only one loyalty company is built for speed.
Don’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity to see the roots of a Are you losing ground on your CX goals?
musical culture first-hand! Is Customer Centricity passing you by?
Stellar Loyalty can get you from strategy
and execution to ROI faster and easier.
The Consumer Relationship Company
Find out how at stellarloyalty.com
See us at our lounge
YOUR Every issue, Loyalty Management features the latest

content from the members of our association. For
NAME more information on joining our growing membership

of both brand and supplier companies, please contact
HERE! RyanHarder@loyalty360.org

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. Loyalty360 memberships offer unique
benefits to both brands and suppliers including access to exclusive
content, content promotion, networking opportunities, and more.
As a way to thank our readers, Loyalty360 is offering a 6-month

standard membership to all subscribers that register for the
inaugural Customer Expo, coming to Nashville November 6-8.*
To claim this offer, use code NASH17 when registering at
customerexpo.loyalty360.org/registration.
*Valid only for new members. Cannot be combined with any other discounts/promotions. Offer expires December 31, 2017.
513.800.0360 | loyalty360.org | @loyalty360

2017 Loyalty Management Magazine Q3

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CenturyLink’s

Tech Investments Go Inside 2017 Customer

Marketing Email & SMS / MMS

We Transform the Way B2C Companies

2 Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017 info@clutch.com www.clutch.com

LOYALTY FORUM: IN EVERY ISSUE

14 LOYALTY360 ON THE WEB: 24 LOYALTY FORUM: Q&A

15 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR 26 STATE OF THE INDUSTRY

Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017 3

CMO CHALLENGE WEBINAR SERIES

NEW CONTENT GALLERY

4 Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017

Loyalty Marketing Need Not be a Land of Confusion

to explain to a CFO why a loyalty program has value, how

Experience it now at mypbvideo.com/loyalty

17_SWS_04850_Loyalty 360_Print Ad.indd 1

The Need for Collaboration in an Era of Constant Change

6 Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017

For more information, please visit customerexpo.com or contact:

8 Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017

When it comes to crafting modern loyalty solutions in the mobile

Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017 9

FOR CENTURYLINK, METRICS

10 Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017

What does your typical client look like?

Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017 11

It all started out as

“My father came to the U.S. in the seventies and

“I loved computers and started automating our flower shops,” he says. “I

12 Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017

Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017 13

BehindtheBrand WITH JEFF PEARSON | SVP, MARKETING & E-COMMERCE, LIDS

When it comes to sports apparel, few companies have reached the

WHAT DO YOU LIKE DOING

I have two that I could watch

14 Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017

WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE COLD AND DREARY

WHAT WAS YOUR LAST “AHA” WHAT SOUND OR NOISE DO

Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017 15

If you’re on the brand side,

Loyalty technology providers have the right intentions,

More importantly, it’s the detailed observation and the

16 Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017

BRANDS LACK BANDWIDTH, NOT TECHNOLOGY THE SEARCH FOR INCREMENTALITY

Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017 17

for customer experiences which

18 Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017

Connecting customers across the The Body Shop, for

As competition continues to grow, brands that are successful

In order to provide a personalized experience, brands should

Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017 19

This is due in part to the many investments made by suppliers

20 Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017

Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017 21

22 Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017

“Understanding the customer is essential to us at

• Test, test and re-test

Leverage loyalty to enhance their customer journey and sustain their

Loyalty Management™ | SUMMER 2017 23

Ask the Experts:

The first thing we always look at when it comes to investments

David Tann, Imran Jooma,

Everything we do and invest in relates to our overarching goal of

How do you see CX changing, both internally (your industry)