Loyalty specialists have showed that saving credit with a specific purpose (e.g. gifts) will lead to an increase in desirable behaviour. This purpose, however, needs to be feasible and needs to have some form of connection with the behaviour that is rewarded. Several initiatives have proven the success of loyalty programmes. This section will present two examples.
Air Miles
Consumers react strongly to positive impulses. Early nineties the loyalty programme Air Miles used this as their basis and increased dramatically, counting 3 million households with 6 milion card holders as their customers. The aim of the programme was to connect customers to the initiators (a bank, an airline, a chain of supermarkets and an oil company). By shopping at a selected group of stores the consumer receives credits (points) that may be exchanged for gifts. The costs for the programme were € 175 million, the profits € 800 million, creating an admirable return on investment of four.
NU saving card
Early 21st century the pilot ‘NU saving card' in Rotterdam investigated the effect of loyalty programmes in the public domain. The main question that needed to be answered was whether is was possible to influence citizen behaviour by rewarding them for the desirable behaviour. Citizens were, among other things, rewarded with credits if they decided to bring their large waste to the waste companies instead of having it picked up by the government. These credits could be exchanged for entrance tickets to public transportation, bicycle repare, entrance to the swimming pool and so on. The effects of this project were similar to the outcomes of Air Miles. People appeared to be rather sensitive to positive impulses, making them more receptive to offered information. Results showed that citizens improved their behaviour up to five times; the average visit to the waste company increased from 0.2 to 1.1.
Above all, there appeared to be an enormous advantage to government of Rotterdam as well. Collecting large waste would normally have cost the government no less than € 75 for each stop, whereas delivery by citizens turned out to cost € 10 (including 300 credits, which equals € 3), therefore saving the government € 65, or 86%. Rewarding desirable behaviour instead of discarding undesirable behaviour is thus profitable.
Taking the next step towards a loyalty programme can be realised by combining the projects above with a care exchange system that has been running in Japan for years.
