{"id":5128,"date":"2020-09-28T14:37:59","date_gmt":"2020-09-28T13:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/german\/?p=5128"},"modified":"2020-09-28T14:38:52","modified_gmt":"2020-09-28T13:38:52","slug":"showing-customer-commitment-through-promotions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/german\/showing-customer-commitment-through-promotions\/","title":{"rendered":"Showing customer commitment through promotions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

28 September 2020<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the industry struggles to get back to speed, more and more rewarding loyalty promotions are popping up. They are a great opportunity to show to customers that the operators care about them – but not everybody seizes that opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

It is typically programs announcing devaluations in their loyalty programs, which start their message with „based on customer feedback“. Any seasoned frequent traveller understands immediately that no good news is going to follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe with\nan advanced feeling that things would not develop as smoothly as hoped for, Air\nFrance KLM was very early to launch a generous promotion in its Flying Blue program<\/a>: Double reward miles and double tier\npoints on all flights between 13 July and 31 December. No registration\nrequired, no small print, no exclusions. In parallel, the purchase of miles is\nbeing promoted by a bonus of up to 100% until the end of the year as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the\nunpleasant wakening up to reality that things will still go worse for some time\nbefore improving (for those still in business by then), we’ve seen lately a lot\nof programs launching loyalty promotions. A small selection includes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Virgin Atlantic\/Flying Club<\/a>: Double Flying Club miles for all\ndirect bookings between 24 September and 01 October<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– SAS\/EuroBonus<\/a>: Double award points for bookings from\n22 September until 21 October, for travel until 31 May 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Finnair\/Finnair Plus<\/a>: Double award and tier points for\nbookings from 24 September until 07 October, for travel until 20 December<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Lufthansa\/Miles & More<\/a>: Award flights on Lufthansa, Swiss\nand Austrian are offered, as option, without surcharges until 28 February 2021\n– but at a higher mileage price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– IHG\/IHG Rewards Club<\/a>: Double points for all stays from\n01 October to 15 December<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Bangkok Airways\/FlyerBonus<\/a>: Triple points at participating\nChatrium properties until 31 March 2021 – excluding the nights between 29\nDecember to 03 January<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virtually\nall of the current promotions are missing the trick to put the customer first,\nwhat would though be more than justified in the current situation. Yes, there\nis hope that business will pick up again at one point, with Christmas\/New Year being\nthe next major hope. But how is the message received by a customer if an\nattractive promotion ends on 20 December or a few nights around New Year are\nexcluded? How much more would it cost to send out a more customer-friendly\nmessage, even if maybe\/hopefully not fully needed from a business perspective?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is this the\nright moment to fight a distribution war by excluding distribution through\ntravel trade channels, still the dominant channel for business travel?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the\nhonesty beyond a promotion with a very short booking window, knowing exactly\nthat hardly any customer is currently willing to book months ahead? Even with\nflexible rebooking options, everybody is now aware of the difficulties to get a\nrefund if desired. Trying to change behaviour here with more miles is probably\nnot super effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the\nwisdom to run a redemption promotion around fuel surcharges, looking at\nmonetizing the last mile in a time when no client understands anymore why some\nairlines still operate fuel surcharges at all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And is this\nthe right moment to come up with promotions at all if the most restrictive\naspects are hidden somewhere in the fine print most members would never read?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Customers\nmight not have a complete market overlook and don’t compare between different\nprograms, but they tend to have a very good sense for programs being honest\nabout their loyalty efforts and those continuing to see customers uniquely as\ncash cows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Less is\ncertainly more these days. Program operators should therefore well consider\nwhat kind of promotions might be most engaging – these are hardly\ncurrency-\/transaction-based promotions – and take the time to design them\ncarefully. It is better to come up with a handful of relevant, successful and\nhonest promotions – for which sufficient money is made available – than with a\nmultitude of useless promotions, creating rather frustration with members than\nanything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nunderlying objective of promotions has not changed in the current Covid\nenvironment. It is still about creating awareness. But the operational component\nof promotions has changed as it is no longer about generating immediate\nbusiness or increasing market shares. It is about building trust and to create\nloyalty in the medium term – with a much less certain return and more difficult\nto measure, but still strategically highly critical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Promotions\nhave actually never been so close to what loyalty marketers are supposed to do\nbest – to create loyalty. At least for now, the loyalty currency doesn’t have\nthe same power anymore as before and doesn’t trigger anymore automatically purchase\ndecisions. Creative differentiation is the name of the game to distinguish from\ncompetitors. It is high time to seize that opportunity and to introduce a new\nand more lasting quality to promotions, fully embedded to a wider loyalty and\ncustomer engagement vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Loyalty marketers,\nover to you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

28 September 2020 As the industry struggles to get back to speed, more and more rewarding loyalty promotions are popping up. They are a great opportunity to show to customers that the operators care about them – but not everybody seizes that opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5128"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5128"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5129,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5128\/revisions\/5129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}