Editors Note: Jim Kuschill is a patient man. Patient enough to have architected one of the world’s leading loyalty marketing software platforms while Chief Technology Officer of Frequency Marketing. DIRECTV got his goat and the following is worth a read, especially if you’re the person responsible for customer experience or customer service at your company.

I don’t know when the customer experience scales tipped, but indeed they have – DIRECTV can now claim to be just as lacking as your typical cable company.

My enlightenment started a few months ago…

As is the case with so many of us, my wife and I are pretty busy and we almost never remember pay per view (PPV). On this particular evening, I remembered PPV and even identified a movie that would be fun to watch. I queued it up and was looking forward to some comedy over the coming weekend, or maybe the weekend after.

In case you haven’t heard, the PPV model has changed and the (then) subtle notations on the ordering menu about the “new and improved” model were too subtle for me to comprehend. My movie recorded, my bill was debited, and my movie was erased.

I did some research and discovered this was certainly my fault. Flaming blog entries from a variety of people indicated that the change had taken place some time before. Never mind that there wasn’t anything with my billing statement explaining the change, nor an e-mail, nor a separate communication. It was as if DirecTV and the Studios didn’t want anybody to know about the change. How could it be that they wouldn’t want you to know that “pay per view” had become “pay per download?” Clearly the emphasis was now on “pay per” and viewing be damned.

I spent time wondering about “fair use” and what the Studios were thinking. How does a movie taking up space on somebody’s DVR lose them money? Do they expect thousands of recurring neighborhood parties for Battle of the Smithsonian? Maybe the movie gets tweeted around the world in 4 million little pieces? I just couldn’t figure it out.

I sent an e-mail of complaint to DirecTV and requested a credit to my bill. No response. I sent another. Still nothing. The $4.99 wasn’t worth a call, which sadly I suspect was the plan in not responding to the e-mail, so I simply bit my tongue.

But, I really did want to watch that movie, so I tried to order it again. The DirecTV system, being smarter than I am, decided that because I had already viewed that movie that I couldn’t really want to view it again. Well, that’s not quite correct, it said something was “wrong” and I needed to call them. Sorry, it just wasn’t worth it.

I vowed to never again use PPV – we simply couldn’t watch a movie within 24 hours of recording.

I have to imagine many people did just the same and sales tanked quite a bit. I have to imagine that DirecTV noticed, and trying to get viewers back they held a promotion in December offering 4 movies for the price of 2. Frankly, this was enough to get my attention and break my vow – which is usually a bad idea. But I had an ace up my sleeve and since the prior problem I had developed a Rube Goldberg way of recording the movies, so maybe I could beat the system, maybe just a little.

With the hustle of the holidays we forgot about the offer until the morning of December 30th, so we had to move fast so as not to impinge too much on all the football we wanted to watch. I scheduled 2 of the movies for the night of the 30th and the other 2 for the night of the 31st (making certain the last finished recording before the clock ticked over to the 1st). I got up early on the 31st, scheduled a few football games to record, and started my “transcription” process. Did the same thing on the 1st (with the parade this time). Mission accomplished – didn’t miss much of any football game and had 4 movies to watch sometime later for under $10. Such a deal. Well, almost. Turns out I had a media problem with one movie so we got 3 for $10, still not so bad.

Well, I just got my bill. The 2 movies I downloaded on the 30th show up as being downloaded on the 31st. And sadly, the 2 movies I downloaded on the 31st show up as being downloaded on the 1st. So no credit.

I immediately call DirecTV and quickly get through to Customer Service. Mickey confirms that his screens show the movies correctly being ordered/delivered on the 30th and 31st. I ask what seems to be a logical question, “Why does my bill show the 31st and the 1st?” Mickey has no answer. My next question is about the missing credit. Mickey has an answer for this – “DirecTV will mail you a certificate that you need to return.” Huh? “I’m sorry, can you say that again?” Mickey repeats his explanation – they are going to mail a certificate and I need to return it “with my payment.” I mention that I’m on an automatic payment plan, “How will that work?” I ask. Mickey doesn’t know. “Does the certificate come with the bill or will it be in a separate envelope?” Mickey doesn’t know. “When am I getting the certificate?” Mickey is happy he has an answer to this one – “Usually 4 to 6 weeks.” “Usually?” I inquire. “Well, yes, usually 4 to 6 weeks” say’s Mickey.

I ask Mickey if he doesn’t think this is pretty “customer unfriendly.” No response. I ask if I can make a complaint about the process. Mickey offers to forward an e-mail to the complaint department, but his heart isn’t in it. “Mickey, I understand this is not of your doing, but somebody there should really be thinking about this more from the customer perspective.” No comment from Mickey. I wish him a nice weekend and hang up.

DirecTV will pay for people to answer the phones because the bills are wrong. DirecTV will pay for people to answer the phones to explain that a certificate will come in the mail, sometime in the future. DirecTV will pay for the certificate stock. DirecTV will pay people to print and mail the certificates. DirecTV will make their customers spend time and money to return the certificates. DirecTV will pay people to answer calls about where the certificates are. DirecTV will pay people to open the envelopes that the certificates are in and post them to accounts. And, inevitably, when certificates are lost or damaged in distribution, lost or damaged in return, or credited to the wrong account, DirecTV will again pay for people to resolve these problems.

DirecTV could have given their customers a warm fuzzy by giving a direct credit. They could have described the process up front (in readable type) and then people could have made an informed decision. Nope. Somebody at DirecTV created an equation that said the promotion wouldn’t cost them as much by doing it this way. Clearly the equation didn’t take into account the loss of customer lifetime value.

As I said, DirecTV is now officially a cable company.

And so much for being a DirecTV advocate.

It’s probably no surprise that the great brands are able to combine excellent products with a superior level of customer service. After all, it’s this magic combination that makes them great brands in the first place.

Go to an Apple store to purchase their (in my opinion) superior products, and you get service from friendly, helpful sales reps who truly know and love their stuff. I’m also a big fan of Credo cell phone service. Not only does part of my bill go towards support of worthwhile social causes, every time I talk to customer service I find their reps are some of the nicest people in the world.

Then, there are certain products or services we use and like in spite of their customer service. Like the cool hotel on the beach, with the nice rooms and fantastic ocean views, but the less than accommodating staff. Or the pizza joint with the best pies in town and the never-on-time delivery.

But what about the opposite scenario? Can great customer service overcome a product or service that is deficient in some way to the competition?

Regular readers of Loyalty Truth already know where I’m going with this: right to my television set and Comcast. On these very Web pages, I recently wrote about my efforts to get my hands on a digital converter box from Comcast in order to receive a couple of channels that had dropped off my set.

You see, back in April, I was informed that I needed to pick up a digital converter to continue receiving MSNBC and AMC. But after going to my local office, I was told, “we’re out of them, come back in January”. A 9-month wait. After checking back in September, I received several conflicting responses, and after a lot of back-and-forth, I was led me to believe a converter would be sent to me in two weeks.

Fast forward to September 26th: two days after my last Comcast blog entry was posted, I received an online reply from ComcastMark of Comcast National Customer Operations. After answering a few questions, I was turned over to ComcastMike (or was it ComcastRich?) who e-mailed me with a few more questions. He, in turn, had a Comcast customer service rep named Cynthia call me.

I wish I could tell you the story had a happy ending, that Cynthia stopped by in a Comcast van to hand-deliver the converter box to me, and I was now writing this from my bedroom office, Countdown with Keith Olbermann playing in the background. But no such luck.

You see, instead of bringing me good news, ComcastCynthia reverted back to the original story. She told me there was in fact a 9-month wait for the digital converters, due to a delay by supplier Scientific Atlanta. She would call me as soon as they came in, probably in January.

To me, a 9-month wait to get the converter box means that someone in the offices of Comcast had really dropped the ball.  A 9-month wait means these devices must be in demand. Yikes, can’t Comcast put a little pressure on Scientific Atlanta to ramp up production? After all, in my town, a place where Comcast had a monopoly for many years, their share of market has dropped below 50%. Surely, there had to be a quicker way, Comcast. You’re bleeding customers!

It got me thinking about a recent post by Chris Brogan who pointed out that when a customer service rep tweets “some kind of comforting or informational note to someone who’s having a problem in real time, this information doesn’t exactly travel (easily) through the rest of the system to the people most likely to be directly in front of that person.” Or, in my case, to Cynthia, my designated Comcast rep.

Yet, I don’t really blame ComcastMark or ComcastMike or even ComcastCynthia. Sure, I was passed down the line once, twice, but that’s okay, as they all got back to me in a prompt and courteous manner. Cynthia also gave me the straight story, contrary to my previous encounter with a Comcast rep who said I’d have the converter mailed to me in a couple of weeks.

But despite their best efforts, I’m still in the same place I was back in April, before the Comcast National Customer Operations crew got involved—in essence, waiting 9 months for a part. (Which makes me glad I didn’t lease my car from Comcast.)

It just goes to show you that all the great customer service people in the world often don’t translate into happy, loyal customers—unless you have an organization behind them that gives them the tools, and great products and services, to back them up.

Tom Rapsas is an independent Creative Director/Writer/Strategist. He can be reached at tomrapsas@gmail.com and via Twitter @tomrapsas.

Sam Walton’s vision of creating a retail giant that would stock shelves with every day low priced items and crush the competition is still standing tall, even in a tough economy. They have managed to wipe out nearly all the competition and are looking to take out what’s left via Project Impact.

Project Impacts is in the beginning stages and represents a massive store and strategy remodeling effort. The result will be cleaner, less cluttered stores and friendlier customer service intended to improve the shopping experience. None of this is good news for competitors Kmart and Toys R Us.

Why is Wal Mart so successful?

The answer is quite simple and the company’s Northeast Manager Lance De La Rosa said it best in a recent article written by Time Magazine – “We’ve listened to our customers, and they want an easier shopping experience,” says De La Rosa. “We’ve brightened up the stores and opened things up to make it more navigable.”

One of the most noticeable changes is that Project Impact stores reshape Action Alley, the aisles where promotional items were pulled off the shelves and prominently displayed for shoppers. Those stacks crowded both the aisles and interrupted sight lines. Now, the aisles are all clear, and you can see most sections of the store from any vantage point. For example, standing on the corner intersection of the auto-care and crafts areas, you can look straight ahead and see where shoes, pet care, groceries, the pharmacy and other areas are located.

Maybe more important, discount price tags are still at eye level, so the value message doesn’t get lost.

As I read the article, the statement that “We’ve listened to our customers” stuck me as the most important element of Walmart’s success.  They listen to what their customers want and strategize to deliver – period. How many times do we hear what our customers want, but don’t act in turn as if we really listened?

Big Box retail pays big money for market research, customer surveys, polls and focus groups, but doesn’t seem to put the information to use often enough.  I suggest that Big Retail spend less time “wordsmithing” this message into company mission statements and focus on executing against the promises made. As many businesses are closing their doors, Wal Mart chugs along, widening their lead in a race they seem determined to win.

Hats off to Wal Mart as they implement this new merchandising strategy and read back customer needs in store design and operations.

In the middle of bustling multi-cultural Miami, Coral Gables is an oasis of sleek affluence framed by Spanish and Mediterranean architecture.

The rhythm of the city at lunch is to skip franchise restaurants and instead seek out one of the many independent stops for a meal or just coffee.

Last week, lunch turned into a two-part experiment, first visiting Giardino Gourmet Salads for something light and then stopping by Pasión de Cielo for coffee.  I would recommend each establishment for local visitors. The salads at Giardino are high quality and custom made while being prepared in a quasi-QSR environment.  Quality, healthy food and quick service don’t always go together, which makes Giardino worth a stop. Walking into Pasión de Cielo, I was struck by the Andean feel to the interior decor and the wide choice of gourmet coffees. Not every day would I drop the extra dollars for Jamaican Blue Mountain or Kona coffee, but this day it seemed worthwhile.

You might wonder why I am writing about salads and coffee in a loyalty marketing blog. The simple reason is that, in place of offering me “desert”, each restaurant offered me a punch card in hopes of a return visit.

Two thoughts came to mind:

1. If I were a small retailer or restaurant, would I bother with a punch card?
2. If I did go down the frequency marketing path, how could I do it better than the typical offering?

The right answer to the question is found by answering both together. I would not go down the punch card path unless I was fully committed to doing it better than the average bear. Why retailers wake up one day and think they should throw a punch card into their marketing mix makes no sense to me. Sure, there is a chance that they encourage some bounce back visits, but it is just as likely that the cards will be lost, and without anything more than the distant promise of “the 11th one free”, many people will lose focus long before that time comes.

Bottom line: punch cards without any enhancement don’t change behavior. At least not enough to warrant the slight give away in margin.

My two visits offered a contrast in punch card execution. Pasión de Cielo threw me the card like it was a receipt to be tossed in my bag. No reinforcing message, no request for an email, nothing. Giardino on the other hand, delivered the punch  card like it was a special gift that I should guard. They also handed me a card and asked that I give them name, email, and phone number to receive special offers and occasional announcements.  The biggest challenge for small business is customer identification, and at least Giardino took a step in the right direction. How they follow up and what they can offer that will encourage my return visit remains to be seen, but I like their approach.

Another local coffee stop that I frequent is the Daily Grind. They don’t offer a punch card but do have wireless internet. Sensitive to the wireless squatters that take up table space, they provide a password for 1 hour with each purchase. Why not take it a step farther and combine the punch card and email gathering with an offer of wireless service for those patrons willing to share their data? It wouldn’t take much to figure out how a tiered system that would award more wireless time to more valuable customers.

Sometimes it is not the tactic that is in question, just the execution. A punch might seem shallow and worthless to some, but if it is executed to improve customer visit experience, build a customer database, and drive return visits, it is a low cost and effective tool. Considering that the cost of the 11th cup of coffee is nominal, these retailers might have the lowest cost going to acquire customer information for their database.

If you’re like me and work on the creative side of the business, you’d like to believe that good communications and a healthy social dialog are the keys to building relationships and ensuring customer loyalty.

But the fact is, your company is often only as good as the people you have on the front line. One bad experience either in-store, on the phone, or via an online chat, can often tarnish even your best marketing efforts.

Take  Comcast. Is there any company whose customer service reputation swings more wildly across the great/terrible spectrum? Comcast has been both vilified for its customer service via the infamous “Comcast must die” Web site and glorified for its prompt @comcastcares replies on Twitter.

Which brings me to a recent personal encounter I had with the cable conglomerate. I’m a decade long Comcast customer and in April I found that two channels we occasionally watched at home, MSNBC and AMC, had disappeared from our two televisions that did not have a dedicated cable box. I called 1-800-COMCAST and was told that I needed a digital converter to continue receiving these channels and could pick one up for free—by going to the dreaded local Comcast office.

What’s most off-putting about this office isn’t the untouched-since-the-‘70s interior or the unsmiling, laconic customer service reps—it’s, I kid you not, the counter-to-ceiling wall of thick bullet-proof glass the reps sit behind. It’s the kind of set-up you see on TV in the visiting rooms of prisons, complete with vented portholes through which you talk to the person opposite you. It serves as a quite literal barrier to developing any kind of customer rapport, and gets you wondering why they need this kind of security in the first place.

So anyway, I went to the office to get my free converters—only to have the customer service rep behind the wall of glass tell me, with an unmistakable I-hate-my-job vibe, “we’re out of them, you need to come back in January”. A 9-month wait!

From the parking lot I made a call to 1-800-COMCAST to complain and received an apology. I was told that the converters were on order and should in fact be ready in September, a slightly more tolerable 5 months away.

Fast forward to a few days ago. Using Instant Chat at the Comcast Web site, I check to see if the converters might be ready. After being passed from one associate to another more versed with the converters, I’m informed they’re now available and I can have them shipped to my home. Yes! Only, after confirming my address, I’m told that, oops, they can’t mail the converters to my area (for a reason never explained) and that I need to contact my local office to see if they have them.

“Wait a second,” I chat back, “I don’t want to contact my local office, that’s why I’m talking to you.” A canned response is sent back to me to the effect, “I am so sorry about your situation. I know you’re frustrated, but you need to contact your local office. Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

Yes, for starters you can drop the canned faux sincerity. Then, you can break the rules and ship me my free converters. OR you can contact the local office for me and see if they have the converters. After all, I started our conversation by telling you that I was very tempted by a money-saving Verizon triple play offer I was receiving in the mail 3 or 4 times a week. Hint: You’re in danger of losing me as a long-time customer!

Funny thing is, I call 1-800-COMCAST an hour or so later on an unrelated Internet issue. And, after addressing the problem, the customer service rep quickly switches subjects. “Sir, I see you’re having an issue getting digital converters. Can I have them mailed to you in the next two weeks?” Shocked, I reply “Yes, you can, thank you.”

Sometimes Comcast offers terrible customer service. Sometimes Comcast offers great customer service. And sometimes you get to see both of them in the very same day. But my guess is, most customers only see one side. And if it’s the terrible side, they don’t stay customers for very long.

(Now, let’s see if I get my converters!)

Tom Rapsas is an independent Creative Director/Writer/Strategist. He can be reached at tomrapsas@gmail.com and via Twitter @tomrapsas

Now and then, it’s good to know you’re ahead of the game.

A few months ago, I had written about CVS ExtraCare and, along with an overview of their program, made note that I had measured one receipt in excess of 36″. If receipts were as much fun to catch as Tarpon and Bonefish, this one would have been a World Record.

Yesterday’s front page article in the Wall Street Journal, has brought the subject of the increasing size of retailer receipts front and center. Supporting this WSJ story is another take from MSNBC that you might want to read.

From my point of view, messaging on purchase receipts should be evaluated on the relevancy of the message. In CVS, there are a series of specific product offers as well as CVS ExtraCare Bucks offered to consumers. The “Bucks” are always welcome and drive bounce back to the store.

The accompanying product offers are relevant in theory, though as I noted previously, CVS has some distance to travel before it connects purchase behavior with offer. To date, I receive offers for products that I have not purchased previously and would never be on my list. In short, my hope is that CVS will do better with its data in the future.

In another example in the WSJ story, Home Depot was chided for devoting 4″ at the bottom of their receipts for survey invitation. The Home Depot spokesperson quoted said that 500,000 responses are received each month and that this medium drew much higher response rates than in-store customer comment cards used in the past.

If customers want their voices heard, I am not sure why they complain about being asked for their opinion. Yes, there is a paper-waste issue, but at least Home Depot cares enough to ask and is willing to put a $5,000 gift card on the line for participants each month.

There are two issues at work here: store operations and customer identification. I would encourage the operations people at all retailers to review the layout of their receipts and do their best to minimize the footprint. The customer identification issue is an old one that has plagued many retailers and can be addressed in large part by a customer loyalty program.

Whether you like points, miles or widgets, you should understand that by introducing any form of membership club with benefits allows the retailer to identify customers and lay the foundation for more personalized and relevant communications. If Home Depot knew who I was, they might not have to print their survey offer on my receipt, but could send me an invitation by email instead.

By using customer data in a positive and proactive manner, there is cost savings, environmental impact, and better customer experience at the register. In the longer run, there is the opportunity for delivery of relevant offers that will lead to higher share of wallet and incremental profitability.

I’ve always admired great writers and Rick Ferguson, the Editorial Director of COLLOQUY, is on my list of the best.

I had the opportunity to co-author an article for COLLOUQY with Rick on the changing nature of card rewards programs in this challenging economic environment. If you would like to have a quick read, it is available via download from COLLOQUY or the Resource Section of Hanifin Loyalty.

Rick has followed up on the topic with a clever take on what credit and debit card issuers should be considering as they balance the current profitability of their card portfolios with the needs of the majority of their most loyal customers. The Rewards Cardholders’ Bill of Rights is worth reading, especially in light of the volume of negative press about how card issuers are handlling the transition in prepartion for enactment of the Credit Card Act of 2009.

Rick’s Bill of Rights is on target and some points he makes should apply to the broader market:

• The “fundamental right to privacy and data protection” affects all loyalty program sponsors. The responsibility to use data with integrity is inherent on the sponsor. The absolute need to protect it from prying eyes is a heightened priority that affects any consumer facing company with sensitive data on file. The moment consumers lost trust in data protection standards will be the time at which the data faucet begins to shut down.
• Transparency in communications of program rules will engender loyalty. There is still too much fine print associated with this industry in particular and marketing in general. Live by the Loyalty Asterisk™ and you may perish by the same.
• The “right to good customer service” does seem fundamental. As loyalty is increasingly defined by the aggregate of CVP (consumer value proposition) and the customer experience, organizations will be judged on the perceived level of recognition as articulated by the customer service experience. Invest in associate training now.

Maybe the comment in Rick’s Bill of Rights that sent chills up my spine was highlighting of the “love-hate” relationship that exists between card issuer and cardholder. He quoted a Creditcards.com survey that said:

• “82% of Americans believe that credit cards provide a valuable service”, while
• “73% believe the government should regulate the credit card industry more closely”

Every credit card marketer and payments executive needs to push back just a little on the risk managers. One day the economy will be a little brighter and it will be at that time when consumers begin to hold more power. Card issuers should protect themselves for today while planning for tomorrow.

Read the Bill of Rights and let me know what you think.

How many people still get excited about getting mail delivered to their home?

I remember waiting for the mailman to pull up to the mailbox as a kid and running to see what came. Was there something for Me? A new flyer from my favorite store? A card from Grandma? It is something that stays with you as an adult and gets passed down generations. My son is 4 and gets very excited when the mail truck pulls up in front of the house and he can’t wait to go see what came.

Is this the next thing in our technological society that will cease to exist with the invention of email and the internet? Could be….for the postmaster general of the United States, John E. Potter, has gone to Congress and officially asked for permission to do away with Saturday mail.

According to Bob Greene, CNN writer, he states “His reasoning is hard to argue with. In the e-mail age, usage of the U.S. Postal Service is plummeting. Just about everyone claims to love the look and feel of a handwritten letter, the giddy anticipation of seeing the mail carrier strolling up the sidewalk and wondering what he has inside his bag for you, the orderly, set-your-watch-by-it routine of mail delivery to your home every day of the week except Sunday.” Potter goes on to say stopping mail delivery on Saturdays could save more than $3 billion a year.

In 1957, because of budgetary reasons, the postmaster decided to end Saturday deliveries. This lasted only one Saturday for the public was outraged and forced Dwight D. Eisenhower to sign a bill to provide more funding.

As our society continues to remove the human element from the way we communicate, will we hunger for it even more, and I wonder if we are doing that right now but fail to realize it? We know the importance of the human element and continue to blog and present the importance of the customer experience because we understand that it is needed and is crucial for businesses.

Joseph Campbell, one of my favorite authors and great mythologists states in his book, The Power of Myth, “It’s important to live life with the experience, and therefore the knowledge, of its mystery and your own mystery. This gives life a new radiance, a new harmony, a new splendor.”

As we continue down the road of the “e-world” it will be interesting to see if our society does in fact remove all human elements, imagination, mythology and all the wonderful places the human mind can go or will we realize there is something missing and long for it again.

Maybe the reason why loyalty and the customer experience is so effective is that is gives the customer “good feelings” that email and text messages cannot. Please join in for this discussion with your own thoughts.

Here are some questions I would love to hear your thoughts on:

• Do you like to receive hard mail and does it make you feel good when you get something in the mail such as a greeting card?
• Would you care if Saturday mail is stopped?
• Will the Gen Y and Millennials miss the human element or do they not understand this?

I had two hours to kill in Chicago O’Hare and needed something to drink. Just as I was teetering towards the familiar Starbucks installation, I spotted an inviting alternative across the concourse – Argo Tea. I’d never seen this chain before but was attracted by the Asian-tea-fusion feel to the place. As I scanned for the menu, the “take me” jumped out at me. There was a brochure for The LoyalTea™ Club.  I was hooked.

I’m sure you have encountered retail stores or restaurants whose design and layout not only catch your attention, but communicate an unspoken connection that makes you feel comfortable and invites you inside. This was the case with Argo Tea and, combined with my natural curiosity to see if their loyalty program passed the Loyalty Asterisk™ test, I had to linger for a few minutes.

I was not disappointed.  In fact, I was elated to see a reasonably modest outfit get Loyalty right.

The staff was well trained, helping to orient me to the reasonably complex array of tea drinks and smoothies. I was offered samples and while enjoying an Iced Pom Tea™ I asked about the LoyalTea™ program. I was greeted with an enthusiastic and knowledgeable brief on the program and handed a brochure and card which I later discovered was a “three-in-one” card serving as Gift Card, Debit Card, and Reward Card. Taking a page out of the Starbucks Duetto Card playbook, the card was really a stored value card that could hold my loyalty points and be loaded with cash value to pay for drinks and food.

Supporting the offer was the succinct and smashing brochure that clearly explained the program benefits and key features. Sporting the tag-line “Blends with Benefits“, the front of the brochure let me know what I could expect in short order:

• Register online and get a free drink
• Get a free drink on your birthday
• Load $50 on your card, and we’ll give you $5 more
• Buy a food item and drink to get 10% off
• Buy 10 drinks, and get 1 free
• Buy 5 tea packs, and get a free infuser

The inside of the brochure highlighted the triple threat nature of the card itself and encouraged takers to register the card online to protect the value on board from theft or loss.  The benefits on the front panel were reiterated with added details, and the value proposition was explained with instructions on how to calculate points into dollars  by “dividing the number of points by 1000 e.g. 4880 points = $4.88″.

With a little bit of digging, I learned that Argo Tea is a growing chain that opened its first cafe in Chicago in 2003 and now has over 16 around the Chicago metro area.  Loyalty branding should be complementary to the core brand message and LoyalTea™ was sync’d nicely with the corporate self description that Argo Tea “brings natural and tasty signature drinks to all those looking for healthy alternative beverages and lifestyle experiences”.

The company goes on to say that they are “passionate about bringing teas directly from growers around the world and blending them into unique and delicious signature beverages and teas …. and are committed to being a sustainable business by working with the best local and global tea, coffee, and food artisans and by contributing back to our communities to promote a healthy lifestyle and the conservation of natural resources”.

It is great to see a company get it right and I realize how seldom it is that I can highlight a program that on first impression merits nothing but praise. LoyalTea™ has a great name that survives a good pun and is constructed in a utilitarian way while reinforcing the company’s brand message. The staff were well trained in not only delivering a good customer experience but in reinforcing the value of the loyalty program.

Congratulations to Argo Tea. Did I mention that their drinks were great as well?

Earlier this year, I blogged on Loyalty Truth about the Ford Fiesta Movement. As you may recall, the Ford motor company gave new Fiesta automobiles to 100 social media-savvy drivers for six months—hoping they would post videos and blog about the Fiesta, to build some buzz around the car’s early-2010 launch.

I really hadn’t heard much about the promotion since then, probably for good reason. None of the participants are within my social media universe and a search of Google News reveals the Movement has gotten scant post-launch coverage from the offline or online press, aside from a few well-placed stories.

They popped up on the TV show Extra when host Mario Lopez helped launch the Movement’s “Social Activism Month” by donating items to a local charity while riding in a 2010 Ford Fiesta. They also placed a new Fiesta with a writer from Motortrend who made the equivalent of a head nod to the Movement while taking the car on a successful 600-mile trek through the mountains of Utah and Colorado.

Yet, while each of these stories gave the 2010 Fiesta some valuable press time, none featured any news about the participants themselves. What were those 100 Fiesta Movement social media mavens up to?

As it turns out, the 100 so-called “agents” in the program are not hard to find. Ford hosts a Fiesta Movement Web site with links to all 100. There are Live Feed pages that selectively highlight the latest tweets, videos and blog posts provided by the program participants. And a quick glimpse of these pages makes the program look like a buzz-worthy success with constant updates pouring in. It’s all Fiesta all the time!

But this got me wondering: how was this social media experiment working in the real world? Might I be exposed to the Ford Fiesta Movement message if I never visited the Ford Web site but was a quasi-follower of one the Movement agents?

As a quick test, I began looking specifically at about a dozen different agents’ blogging sites. What I discovered is that I had to do some real digging (or in this case, scrolling) to find news about the Fiesta or the Movement.

That’s no surprise really. The 100 agents in the Fiesta Movement were chosen because they already had a social media presence. And it appears that most involved are again writing about the things that made them Movement-worthy in the first place. The extreme spots dude is again writing about extreme sports. The hip-hop girl is out clubbing again. And just like in the real blogging world, one guy has seemingly packed it in, without a single post on anything in over 3 months.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this lack of Fiesta news, as Movement participants themselves have reported they are under no pressure from Ford to comment favorably on the cars. (Although there does appear to be an attempt by Ford to “sponsor” conversations, as one agent blogger mentions picking up 8 points for a new post.)

Still, I imagine the folks at Ford are feeling a little underwhelmed by the participation of some of the chosen 100. I also wonder if Ford’s 100 agent pool is deep and wide enough to reach beyond a small sliver of what I perceive to be the millennial target market. With hundreds of thousands of bloggers and video posters on the scene these days, it strikes me there’s a certain self-centered, party-on sameness to the Fiesta Movement agents.

But, bottom line: I think we have to give Ford an F-250 truckload of credit here for going where no other major marketer has gone before. This truly is a groundbreaking effort and a sign of things to come. More and more, social media will be used as a customer acquisition tool and will be every bit as important as other online and offline efforts when it comes to launching a major product.

Looking ahead, I see two key questions that still remain to be answered:

• Will the online activity turn into offline success? Despite its noble effort, I’m wondering if the Fiesta Movement has made a big enough impression for a national product launch. Will it really deliver bodies to the showroom? Ideally, Ford is on top of this and is already getting a read as to whether this experiment is working or not. I also wonder if it wouldn’t make sense to feature the participants in more traditional advertising efforts, including print, banner or TV spots, that tell people about the Fiesta Movement and point them to the site.
• Was launching the program a full year before product launch a bit premature? While the new Ford Fiesta is already the number two car in Europe, it won’t be released until early 2010 here in the states. And with the promotion scheduled to be over by late 2009, I wonder if they should have started the effort closer to the car’s release date. By early next year, the Fiesta Movement’s many tweets, blogs and video and picture postings may already seem like old news.

Look for another update to come in a few months.