2014 Silver Best Loyalty Programme or Campaign

Client Whitbread Restaurants

How did the campaign make a difference? Through this multi-channel loyalty programme, Whitbread has been able to develop a personalised approach for its most valuable customers. Creating a single customer view database from all loyalty customer data and non-loyalty transactional data, Whitbread has been able to provide highly personalised communication and build a real one-to-one experience between three of its brands and their customers.

Producing a 'friend of the brand' approach not only improved engagement but has greatly improved the number of customers who regularly return to each restaurant.

Over a third of all of revenue now comes from a loyalty member.

Strategy Nurturing your biggest fans is one of the best ways to grow revenue – so Whitbread set out to create a database specifically for loyal customers in order to always know who they are, what they need and how the company can deliver value to them in the most positive, relevant way.

As the programme covered three specific brands – Beefeater, Table Table and Brewers Fayre – Whitbread wanted its customer to knew that they would be recognised and rewarded across the group. Email address was used as the unique identifier.

Regular statement information based on the users' current points balance and personal profile information is created dynamically.

Creativity The creative thinking behind the campaign was to use personalised experiences to build a true one-to-one rapport between brand and customer.

Messaging was highly targeted and personalised – using automated offers to celebrate personal occasions, such as a free birthday meal or a free bottle of wine on their anniversary.

A new mobile version of the website was introduced in response to customer needs and a technology portal is used to enable call centre staff to efficiently support any customer needs, such as registering customers securely to the programme, helping them redeem points, helping print and mail vouchers, adding discretionary points and updating profile information.

In the past year 11,038,945 emails have been sent – with, on average. 933 variants of statement email sent each month.

Results The loyalty campaign was superbly received by customers – with more than 1.25 million signing up. 46% say they would visit a restaurant more often as a result and 61% have recommended the card.

The email campaigns were extremely engaging – average open rates topping 60% with nearly 40% click-through on some campaigns.

And loyalty members have increased average spend at a much faster rate than non-members: 25.82% against 11.91% for Beefeater Reward Club, 5.31% against 4.83% for Brewers Fayre Bonus Club and 9.19% against 5.54% for Table Table Tasty Rewards Club.

On average 25% of all transactions now involve a loyalty card swipe and 33% of all revenue comes from loyalty customers.