Carrabba’s Italian Grill stands apart from many of its chain restaurant competitors. Sure, the food is freshly prepared, the wood-burning grill adds ambiance to the setting, and the service is excellent, but I was thinking about their approach to building customer loyalty.
Looking at several national competitors in quick-serve (QSR) and white-table restaurant chains, I found [...]

Aeropostale, Inc. is a specialty retailer fighting for the attention of a client base exhibiting limited or no attention span. I’m not mean, just the father of three children, so let’s just say that I’m experienced.
No matter how you describe it, today’s consumers are distracted and its not easy to engage them for long. That’s [...]

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about Atlantic City and its prolonged losing streak—and I’m sorry to report, things aren’t looking a whole lot better today. After a rocky 2009, revenues in AC fell again in 2010 by nearly 10%. And forecasters say 2011 could be even worse.
In an attempt to rejuvenate [...]

Technology Enables, but Imagination Wins
Tasti D-Lite not only rolled up its sleeves to take advantage of open API’s from Twitter, Foursquare & Facebook to integrate them with its point-of-sale system – it used its imagination to make an otherwise familiar loyalty program structure become the first and most widely executed example of “Social Loyalty” in [...]

While Tom Rapsas was in New Jersey buying wiper blades at Pep Boys, I was buying shoes for my son at DSW.
The difference in our experience with the respective rewards programs at each company boils down to an essential and often overlooked element of the loyalty marketing value chain – associate training.
You can read about [...]

I’m not a car guy.
So why does Pep Boys want me in their loyalty program?
I was standing in line at my local Pep Boys auto parts store the other day. Not that I’m a car guy. I usually pay my trusty neighborhood mechanic Larry to do everything car-related.But the wife needed some new windshield wipers, [...]

Relationship Banking is making a comeback with the launch of Regions Relationship Rewards this  past summer. The $137 Billion asset bank ranked #3 among 11 banks in the Southeast region of a JD Power survey on customer satisfaction, but was facing some challenges as the survey footnoted their ranking this way; “customer loyalty and perceptions [...]

Evidence of the health of the loyalty marketing business is that my list of subjects to write about grows faster than I can type.
Yesterday, as I picked up the USA Today slipped under the door in my NY hotel room, a glossy 8 1/2 x 11 flyer fell in my lap and changed my blogging [...]

Evidence of the health of the loyalty marketing business is that my list of subjects to write about grows faster than I can type.
Yesterday, as I picked up the USA Today slipped under the door in my NY hotel room, a glossy 8 1/2 x 11 flyer fell in my lap and changed my blogging [...]

Josh Stevens is the Groupawn, striving to live off Groupons for one year. If he’s successful, Groupon gains additional publicity in extreme fashion, all for the cost of $100,000 – the carrot in front of Josh until May 2011.
I’m neither a “WegPawn” or eligible for any incentive from Wegman’s, but I am considering moving in [...]