I have spent years inside loyalty programs, first as a member obsessing over my own points balances, and for the past eight years as a loyalty consultant at Loyalty & Reward Co, helping brands build programs members actually want to use. Whenever a client asks how to get customers to change their behaviour, these are the themes that I keep coming back to.
1. Start with a proper program audit
You cannot fix what you have not measured. A proper audit goes well beyond a few headline metrics. It assesses the whole program design, the value proposition, earn and redemption mechanics, tier structure, rewards, partnerships, technology stack, data, and security, alongside the numbers that show how the program is really performing, not how the launch deck said it would.
From there, the audit benchmarks the program against industry best practice and global comparators, builds or validates the commercial model to see where value is being created or destroyed, and produces a scored assessment with a prioritised roadmap. The best audits also test findings against real member sentiment through targeted research, rather than relying on transaction data alone.
The practical takeaway: run this kind of review annually at minimum. Programs drift. What worked at launch can quietly stop working three years later, and the only way to catch that is to keep measuring against a proper, independent benchmark.
2. Build the strategy around the customer, not the mechanic
It is tempting to start with the program framework or rewards. Do not. Start with the customer.
Surveys and interviews reveal patterns across customer segments, and those patterns should shape the value on offer, not the other way around. The program also needs a clear member proposition, one that reinforces the brand and matches what customers actually expect from it.
Personalisation follows from there. Data analytics let a program tailor rewards and services to individual preferences, and personalised experiences have been shown to lift customer satisfaction. None of this is a set-and-forget exercise. Regularly reviewing customer feedback keeps the program aligned as needs shift, and identifying high-value segments early means resources go where they have the most impact on growth.
3. Move personalisation from the segment to the individual
Personalisation used to mean putting a customer into one of a handful of groups and sending everyone in that group the same message. That standard has moved on. The current benchmark is personalisation at the individual level, where the offer, message, and timing are assembled in real time for each member based on their own behaviour, not the bucket they have been sorted into.
McKinsey research on personalisation found that 71 per cent of consumers expect a personalised interaction, 76 per cent get frustrated when they do not receive one, and companies growing faster than their peers draw 40 per cent more of their revenue from personalisation activities than slower-growing competitors.[1]
Tesco’s Clubcard Challenges[2] is a best-practice example of what this looks like. Built on Eagle Eye’s EagleAI platform, the program generates a different set of challenges for each member based on their own purchase history, rewarding incremental behaviour rather than repeating the same generic promotion to everyone. The initiative scaled to 10 million Clubcard members across the UK and won Best Global Loyalty Launch or Initiative at the 2025 International Loyalty Awards.
The practical takeaway: the constraint is rarely the AI itself. It is the data underneath it. A model can only personalise as well as the data foundation allows, so unifying member data across channels is worth doing before investing further in the modelling on top of it.
4. Design the program to flex
Members need change, and markets move. A loyalty program built as a single rigid structure struggles to keep pace.
Modular program design, where components can be added, removed, or updated independently, gives a program room to adapt without a full rebuild. Framework models support the same goal, offering structure while still allowing quick changes in response to feedback or market shifts.
A/B testing and small-scale pilots generate the micro-insights that guide those changes, and real-time reward adjustments mean a program can respond to individual behaviour rather than waiting for the next scheduled update.
5. Build an exciting rewards mix
Monetary rewards still matter, and no program should drop them. But the strongest programs have always paired them with rewards that money cannot buy.
Experiential rewards are a good example. Customers often value a unique experience over a discount. Marriott Bonvoy Moments[3] is a well-known case where members can redeem points for VIP access to sport, culinary, arts, and entertainment experiences, creating memorable moments that cash cannot match.
Recognition rewards work on a different lever entirely. Badges, certificates, and status levels tap into a member’s desire to be seen and acknowledged, which builds emotional engagement that a discount cannot replicate. Partner rewards extend the offer further again, letting a program tap into new customer segments through brands with a complementary audience.
6. Map the customer journey properly
A loyalty program sits inside the wider customer experience, so mapping every touchpoint, whether that is the website, the app, social channels, or the physical store, matters as much as the program mechanics themselves.
That mapping should surface friction. Where does the journey break down? What is confusing, slow, or frustrating? Fixing those points lifts satisfaction on its own, separate from anything the loyalty program does.
At the same time, look for the moments that already work well and lean into them. These are the points where the experience exceeds expectations, and they are usually cheap to amplify once you know where they sit. An omnichannel approach that lets customers move between browsing online and picking up in-store, for instance, keeps the experience consistent regardless of which channel they use.
7. Build a customer-centric culture around the program
The best-designed loyalty programs still depend on the people delivering it day to day.
A program can be perfectly designed on paper and still fail at the counter if the people running it do not understand it or believe in it.
MyMcDonald’s Rewards[4] is a good example of what getting this right looks like. When the program launched in the US, McDonald’s trained crew using digital simulations so they could learn the program hands-on, and gave crew members their own points to earn and redeem so they understood the experience from a customer’s side. USA president Joe Erlinger described the feedback from crew as “overwhelmingly” positive. By the second quarter of 2025, the program had reached 185 million 90-day active users globally, with McDonald’s publicly targeting 250 million by the end of 2027, a scale that depends as much on that frontline capability as on the mechanics of the program itself.
That kind of advocacy needs a wider customer-first mindset behind it, reinforced through regular communication and recognition, with employees empowered to make decisions in the customer’s favour. Feedback loops matter here too, giving every department visibility over customer feedback encourages the business to solve problems together rather than in silos. Tying company goals to metrics such as Net Promoter Score, customer satisfaction scores, and customer lifetime value keeps everyone pointed at the same outcome.
8. Create a genuine emotional connection
Loyalty runs on emotion as much as logic. Tajfel’s social identity theory[5] suggests people draw a sense of self-esteem and belonging from the groups they associate with, and that extends to brands. Customers often choose products that reflect their own identity and values.
A second, distinct driver sits alongside belonging. This is Psychological Ownership[6] which is the subjective sense that something is “mine” independent of legal title. Research from Cornell University[7] found that psychological ownership increases loyalty independently of customer satisfaction. Across an analysis of nearly 15,000 hotel reviews, a field experiment, and two lab studies, guests who felt genuine ownership over their hotel room, not just satisfaction with their stay, were significantly more likely to return, recommend, and engage. A member who feels their tier status or points balance is truly theirs will defend it harder than a member who is merely satisfied with the program.
Three things build that feeling, according to the same research: giving members real control over their experience, encouraging them to invest their own effort into it, and building their intimate knowledge of it over time, for example referencing “your Platinum status since 2019” in communications rather than a generic greeting. Whisky brand Laphroaig applies the same principle in an unusually literal way. Members of its Friends of Laphroaig program receive their own named square foot of peat field on Islay, complete with a map and a dram waiting for them if they visit. The reward works because it is physical, named, and genuinely theirs.
A few tactics build on belonging and ownership together:
- Give members a way to feel closer to the brand. VIP experiences and personalised service create a sense of belonging and exclusivity.
- Give members real control. Letting a member choose their own reward, room, or path builds ownership in a way a fixed benefit cannot.
- Tell a real story. Narratives that connect with a customer’s own values build a bond a discount cannot.
- Link the program to a cause. Letting members donate points to a charitable cause gives the relationship a sense of purpose beyond the transaction.
- Personalise the interaction, not just the offer. Using customer data to shape communications shows customers they are known, not just tracked.
The takeaway
These five tactics work best together. An audit without a customer-centric strategy produces a better-measured version of the same problem. Personalisation only holds up if the program structure is flexible enough to act on what the data shows.
Put together, they give a loyalty program the foundation to earn genuine engagement rather than rent it with points. If you are reviewing your own program against this list and finding gaps, that is usually the right place to start a conversation about loyalty consulting services.
Referencias
- McKinsey & Company, 2021. “The value of getting personalization right, or wrong, is multiplying”
- Eagle Eye, 2025. “Tesco Clubcard Challenges: personalisation at scale”
- Marriott Bonvoy, https://moments.marriottbonvoy.com/en-us
- QSR Magazine, 2021. “McDonald’s Loyalty Program to Launch Nationwide on July 8”, https://www.qsrmagazine.com/growth/marketing-promotions/mcdonalds-loyalty-program-launch-nationwide-july-8/
- Tajfel, H., 1979. “An integrative theory of intergroup conflict”, in The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, Brooks/Cole.
- Peck, J. and Luangrath, A. W., 2023. “A review and future avenues for psychological ownership in consumer research”, Consumer Psychology Review, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 52 to 74.
- Yoon, Y. R., Peck, J. and Shu, S. B., 2025. “Increasing hotel loyalty through psychological ownership”, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly.
- Friends of Laphroaig, https://www.laphroaig.com/friends-of-laphroaig
