Loyalty card ‘fatigue’ taking effect
Consumers are experiencing ‘loyalty card fatigue’ causing them to forget to collect and redeem loyalty points.
That is one of the findings in new UK research from online rewards community Pigsback.com and loyalty management company Reward.
The research ffound that over half of consumers (56%) believe it takes too long to earn meaningful reward points and only 25% think the redeemable items are worthwhile.
The study, which surveyed over 2000 Pigsback.com members, found that 98% of people have a loyalty card while 65% hold three cards or more, but many of these consumers.
A third of consumers were found to be annoyed because they have too many cards to carry. This was reinforced by the fact that 36% are forgetting to hand over cards at the counter. A further 27% regularly have the wrong loyalty cards with them at the time of purchase suggesting that they do not perceive the programmes as important enough to carry around.
Jo Malvern of Pigsback.com commented: “Our research shows that the number one thing that our members are looking for in a loyalty programme is that it is easy to collect the points. We also found that many are tired of having to remember to use different loyalty cards when shopping on the high street.“
Gavin Dein, CEO of Reward added: “This backlash against loyalty is a real wake-up call to retailers. Forgetting to hand over loyalty cards is a symptom of two things: poor rewards meaning that many programmes simply aren’t important enough to remember and loyalty card fatigue meaning that people simply have too many to be bothered with or find them too much hassle.“
He said that the loyalty concept is extremely important, especially in a time of economic downturn, but retailers and rewards sites need to make sure that they get their programme right in order for their members to reap the benefits.