Live from NCDM: Winners and Losers in the Loyalty Game

Posted on by Chief Marketer Staff

Burger King thought it was in CRM heaven when it started its BK Rewards program a short time ago.

A press release stated that the initiative would “drive interest and excitement to keep customers coming back to Burger King again and again.”

That’s not quite what happened. Instead, the chain abruptly announced on Nov. 22 that it would cancel the program. And that move fit a classic pattern, according to Dennis L. Duffy, managing partner of Loyalty Rules Inc., Ashville, NC.

“Companies start something called a loyalty program, but they’re not sure what it’s supposed to do,” Duffy said. “It starts with a lot of excitement, then it goes to sleep.”

The Burger King effort was similar to McDonald’s Road to Rewards, another “test program since gone silent,” in that customers had to post coded numbers online, Duffy added. Both were aimed at a youthful audience.

But there were key differences. For one, Burger King printed the code numbers right on French fry containers, whereas McDonald’s outlets had separate receipt printers that “often had wads of coupons hanging off the back,” Duffy continued.

And Burger King’s redemption scheme was “not as straightforward” as that of McDonald’s. A customer had to bid for products on a site co-sponsored by eBay.

In the end, both efforts were too complicated, and they suffered from another built-in defect: That the best way to register people in a retail loyalty program

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