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ARTHUR GOLDSTUCK: Technology is making loyalty more rewarding
The greatest frustration consumers have with rewards programmes is that they have to work so hard for their loyalty to be recognised. Part of the problem is that the rules of so many rewards programmes appear utterly arbitrary: you can get miles on this flight but not that one; you can get your 11th coffee free only if the previous 10 were above a certain size; your hotel stay doesn't qualify because it was booked through a third party. In many cases, rewards expire before they can be used, or can be used only within very strict parameters. It is as if accountants have devised the schemes. Indeed, often they have. Of course, it shouldn't be this way. If customers are being prevented from using rewards, the rewards programme is broken. Worse, it's a sham. An example of how it should be done is FNB's eBucks. FNB doesn't make the points expire, and goes out of its way to encourage members to use their value. Of R8.4-billion worth of eBucks issued, R7.3-billion worth had been used, said...
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