Welcome to the Loyalty Club! Here Are 1,000 Irrelevant Emails
EVERYONE has a loyalty club these days
"Would you like to join our loyalty club?" It’s a question I get almost everywhere I shop—at clothing stores, hardware stores, pharmacies, home decor shops, flower shops.
Yes, almost every time I make a purchase, I’m offered membership in a loyalty club by a friendly sales associate, well-trained in recruiting more members to the “exclusive loyalty network.”
The problem? It feels anything but exclusive. EVERYONE has a loyalty club these days. And what do I usually answer when asked? Most often: "No, thanks. I'm good." I don’t think I’m alone in this.
I’m tired of having to delete dozens of emails every week
It’s not that we don’t want a good deal. But I’m tired of having to delete dozens of emails every week from a sports store in Hemsedal, where I impulsively bought a pair of ski poles during Easter 2023. I’m not particularly interested in cross-country skiing and have no need for a racing suit, carbon fiber skating boots, or high-speed sunglasses at a 30% discount—three times a week.
I have no plans to compete in the Birkebeiner race or train for long-distance skiing. It’s simply not relevant to me as a loyalty club member. "Welcome to the loyalty club! Here are 1,000 irrelevant emails," I mutter to myself, slightly passive-aggressively and ironically, as I delete yet another endless stream of “great offers” from my inbox.
I’m tired of having to delete dozens of emails every week
The motivation for having a loyalty club is, of course, a no-brainer for most stores. The goal is naturally to create some form of customer loyalty and increase sales by triggering and stimulating one of the most fundamental human drives—the reward system and the resulting dopamine release when we (seemingly) score a great deal. Any frequent flyer points collector can attest to this.
My reluctance, and probably that of many others, to join various loyalty clubs boils down to relevance. Or rather—the lack of it. That racing suit offer from the sports store in Hemsedal is super relevant for 5% of their customers, but nothing more than annoying spam for the remaining 95%.
Unfortunately, most stores struggle to provide their customers with relevant information. I believe the root of this problem is that many stores sit on massive amounts of data that they neither use effectively nor know how to leverage in a meaningful and value-creating way.
Forte Digital organizes the RELEVANS conference every year
Need To Modernize Their IT Systems
To gain this insight, they need to modernize their IT systems. It’s only when the sports store in Hemsedal manages to connect real data—often from back-end systems—with user-facing solutions in the front-end that they can create useful services and targeted, relevant information for me as a customer. Once my data becomes available, the store can personalize communication and even predict my future behavior.
They would then understand that my real interest is fly fishing. After all, I also bought 12 dry fly imitations along with those ski poles—because my actual plan was to fish in the famous Hemsil River, just a stone’s throw from the store, and not to ski the Birkebeiner.
Going forward, I hope I’ll receive an email like this instead:
"Welcome to the loyalty club! Now, enjoy 30% off Hardy fly reels!"
