As one of the earliest practitioners of one-to-one marketing (as a consultant for Don Peppers and Martha Rogers) I’ve been able to observe the good, bad and ugly about loyalty programs for nearly a generation. While there’s been incremental shifts away from bad & ugly, most companies still haven’t even come close to good.
Yes, they have loyalty clauses in their vision statement and someone in marketing assigned to loyalty. They may even have formal loyalty programs. But they haven’t yet created a culture of loyalty, a mind-set similar to a good marriage.