Loyalty Programs | Joy of Direct Marketing

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“No problem. We’ll send you your new lenses and you can send back your old ones.”

Those were the words of Diane when I called 1-800-CONTACTS to order my new lenses and return unopened boxes of the lenses that didn’t work for me anymore.

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I’ve become a great customer of theirs because they always make me feel like I’m number one. They don’t tell me what they can’t do for me, just what they will do for me.

Why don’t other companies do this?

I was in Marshalls last weekend buying king size sheets. They’re heavy. My arm was numb from carrying them around, and there were no shopping carts. Then I had to get on a long line to check out. I waited and waited. And waited and waited. Marshalls, if they cared about their customers, could have:

1. Added some more cashiers because it is a busy time of day (5 PM on a Saturday), but they didn’t.

2. Had some shopping carts available, so people didn’t just give up and drop their merchandise on the counters and walk out. Some stores have people walk around to give customers large soft bags to hold their purchases.

3. Maybe have store personnel check the line to see if they might help with missing tags, returns, or other special challenges.

4. Clean up the area around the line. The counters and the display areas were a mess. It makes you think that the merchandise is sloppy…leaves a bad impression. (Of course, maybe frustrated customers had just dumped their intended purchases and walked out.)

Companies are always calling our agency to talk about retention and loyalty programs – fun ideas to keep their customers engaged.

But real engagement begins when customers are satisfied with the service they’re getting. 1-800-CONTACTS is great at doing that. So is Netflix.

Some companies don’t even notice when I defect or abandon a shopping cart. I whisper “Adios” when a site insists I remember a Password or an old email address.

That happened yesterday with 1-800-Flowers. I was trying to order floral arrangements, and got all the way to checkout and couldn’t get the %#%@& password right. I had invested a lot of time in typing in my recipients’ names, and the notes to each one.

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Since the order wouldn’t go through, I defected. Adios. Did they try to get me back? No!

They did nothing. They didn’t even have a Customer Service number I could call for help. (Maybe I should have dialed 1-800-FLOWERS, now that I think about it.)

I quietly migrated over to ProFlowers, ordered the floral bouquets, typed in my notes to the recipients, and they happily took my order with no nonsense. Great!

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What kind of service are you getting lately and who are your favorites, and least favorite places to shop online and offline?

Let me know when you get a chance.

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I’m not fond of waffling but the answer is maybe and it depends.

Genuinely wealthy people may care about loyalty programs the way we understand them. They care about space, comfort, peace and quiet, service, privacy, excellence, quality, exclusivity, convenience … stuff like that. Of course, if you deliver on all those elements, you’ve already got a great loyalty program anyway.

The other night I was having dinner with some friends at the Bal Harbour shopping mall – it’s really called The Bal Harbour Shops. It was Fashion Night and a fund-raiser for the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.

We were sitting at an outside table watching waves of people pour through the front doors. A gang of insane-driver valets parked cars, some that cost as much as a nice apartment and some Corollas, Chevvies and Fords.

As we watched people stand in line for a goody bag containing nothing but two small samples of a new high energy drink, we wondered if they’d ever drink them or just toss them before they got home. Maybe it was just the idea of getting something for free. Or, much more likely, maybe most of those people weren’t high-end customers at all. Maybe they were wanna-bes.

A headline in today’s Wall Street Journal reads: “Ritz Hotels Bow to Slump, Adding a Loyalty Program”. The article mentioned a decline in how much consumers will pay for luxury hotels. So Ritz Carlton is joining the ranks of other hotels, airlines, sandwich shops and my local nail salon in offering a loyalty program.

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Ritz had always quoted its President as saying, “We’re not going to give you a toaster, we’re going to give you service”. I guess he changed his mind, because:

1. Their sister brands (Marriot’s Courtyard and Fairfield Inns) already offer points programs, so their administration systems must already be set up.

2. Booking expensive hotels for corporate business has become “frowned upon” in these uncertain times.

3. So maybe, just maybe, a frequent guest program will attract more business and leisure travelers to Ritz.

What’s the program? Twenty nights @ $300 a night will earn you one or two free nights at a Ritz, or 10 nights at Fairfield Inns or Marriotts.

In other words, spend $6,000 and get a free night at the Ritz or a lot of free nights at a hotel you wouldn’t stay in anyway. I hope it works for them.

I’ve always thought that the real loyalty to luxury brands comes from the long list of exceptional components that make them luxury brands in the first place, extra things that are built into the fabric of their brand. Sometimes they’re little things, like the note a Nordstrom saleswoman sent me last week asking how I liked my new handbag.

Remember

Are you planning to grow your loyalty initiatives? The LTV (Lifetime Value) of a current frequent customer always outweighs the potential of even several potential and occasional customers, so maybe a deeper loyalty program will work for you. And maybe the consistently perfect delivery on your brand’s promise will work even better.

Please tell me your favorite brand loyalty story here…and comment. And, thank you!

Tag Archives: Loyalty Programs

Real Loyalty comes from caring about your customer.

Do high-end customers care about Loyalty Programs?

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