How far do rewards go?

Research Problem

A large bank wanted to understand how best to increase loyalty and engagement amongst their credit card customers. They wanted to understand if loyalty exists and what it means in terms of credit cards. They also wanted to test the appeal and relevance of three rewards/offers they had previously communicated to some credit card customers, as well as test three new offers to determine which rewards appeal to credit card customers.

Approach

We conducted ten telephone depth interviews to understand loyalty in the credit card context and test the appeal of the offers. For the quant stage, we conducted 300 interviews evenly split between three groups who had previously received one of three offers. In this stage, we tested the appeal of specific offers, their effect on credit card usage and recall of previous offers.

Outcomes

We found that loyalty to credit cards is based on a low effort / low hassle experience, as well as an underlying driver of good customer care (or perceived good customer care). We found two clear winning propositions – although these were more likely to be a transient reward for the customer e.g. a simple thank you. The proposition in third place would be more likely to be seen as an ongoing ‘reward’, as every time a customer wants to purchase a product, they may recall the benefit of this proposition.

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