The programme has to accompany the customer everywhere: as a customer I expect my loyalty programme to supply me with personalised information and offers throughout my individual customer journey and to be permanently available on all channels
Alexander Glueck, CEO of Loyalty Partner Solutions (LPS), has devised four theses on the future of loyalty programmes.
Thesis 1: "The era of just collecting points is over: anyone who associates loyalty with a traditional reward programme has good reason to criticise an outdated concept. On their own, points won't keep a customer with a company. If conventional point collecting systems are linked with personalised contents and relevant information for the customer, however, then loyalty programmes are the right instrument for binding customers to the company and so adding genuine value. Relevance is where it's at."
Thesis 2: "Interactions are the new transactions: conventional programmes only support the real transaction, i.e. a purchase. Innovative programmes include all customer's interactions with the brand; whether it's a post on social media or a product ranking on an online platform. This form of incentivisation enables users to win exciting bonuses quickly, reinforces customers' identification with the brand and reduces their price-sensitivity."
Thesis 3: "The programme has to accompany the customer everywhere: as a customer I expect my loyalty programme to supply me with personalised information and offers throughout my individual customer journey and to be permanently available on all channels. That also means the company's entire product portfolio has to be incentivised. So the loyalty programme becomes even more attractive for the customer."
Thesis 4: "The basis for a successful loyalty programme is a modern, high-performance and intelligent IT platform, which aggregates, processes and provides all information in realtime. All channels have to be included. Only by merging all the information and interactions a company does get a comprehensive picture of the customer's interests, needs and can adapt its product range to existing customer requirements."
Loyalty Partner Solutions GmbH was founded in 2008 as a spin out from Loyalty Partner GmbH and is a subsidiary of American Express. Alexander Glueck is its Chief Executive Officer. He started his career at Loyalty Partner in 2004. He held various positions in operations and IT and managed an executive department for several years. In 2008, Glück was appointed Head of Controlling, where he was ultimately responsible for, among other things, LPS and IT/project controlling at Loyalty Partner. In addition to his expertise in operations, IT and controlling, Alexander Glück has extensive experience in service delivery thanks to the time he spent as a team leader at T-Online International AG between 2000 and 2003.
