Technology is shifting at lightning speed and loyalty programs are rising to meet demand. How can brands effectively respond to these changes and implement strategies that can enhance customer loyalty and drive revenue?
The recent Asia Pacific Loyalty Awards spotlighted organisations that are successfully addressing this challenge. In this article, we sit down with loyalty experts across the Asia-Pacific region and several of the shortlisted finalists, including ALH Hotels Group, Qantas and IMO Carwash – businesses recognised for their innovative approaches to customer loyalty.
Though their strategies vary, a common theme emerges from their insights. As cost-of-living pressures, rising acquisition costs, and shifting consumer expectations mount, loyalty programs must provide genuine value. Companies that adapt to these challenges – leveraging data to refine their strategies and offer meaningful rewards – are poised to outperform those that don’t.
Matthew Zimmerman, Head of Loyalty, Pub+, ALH Hotels
What is a ‘must have’ when building a successful loyalty program?
Clear short, medium and long-term vision. Without these three phases transparently defined, someone else will define the vision for you.
In 2025, what are the most relevant challenges in the retail sector that loyalty helps to address?
In the retail sector, a well-integrated loyalty program can shift the conversation from, “Sales are down, let’s do 20% off this weekend” to “Segment A was down 10%, do we want to target them to bring them back, target another segment to bring back or do nothing?”.
This conversation helps the business focus efforts and investment into the right initiatives to close the sales gap.
What does the next phase of AI-powered personalisation and loyalty look like?
The next phase of AI-powered personalisation and loyalty should enable marketers to set specific KPIs and have the personalisation tool recommend campaigns, provide a forecast, select members and even create copy and assets.
This will enable marketers to quickly implement campaigns to meet the defined KPIs, rather than waiting on all departments to complete their deliverable.
Utadi Murphy – Executive Manager, Product, Digital and Customer Experience, Qantas Loyalty
What is a ‘must have’ when building a successful loyalty program?
When creating a new loyalty program, or revitalising an existing one, there are three must haves, in my experience.
The starting point needs to be your customers’ perspective on the “Value-Effort” equation. It’s easy to get caught up in the business reasons and economics of a loyalty program. However, at its foundation, it needs to hit the right balance of perceived Customer Value and effort required to obtain that value. Successful programs remove friction and maximise perceived benefit.
The second is internal buy-in right through the business. In my experience, the programs that have strong front-line team buy-in really thrive because the customer’s interactions with the program are so positive.
The third ‘must have’ is a strong sense of momentum. Customers who get initial benefit in any form and continue to engage are most likely to add more value to the business.
In 2025, what are the most relevant challenges in the retail sector that loyalty helps to address?
One of the most important roles a loyalty program can help retailers with in the current environment is enhanced customer retention in a highly competitive market. With cost of living pressures and increasing international options for customers to choose from, providing additional and relevant value is really important to win them back again and again.
This can be in the form of tangible and aspirational rewards or through greater utility and value to their everyday living. Focus on keeping both the experience and the proposition super simple for the customer.
What does the next phase of AI-powered personalisation and loyalty look like?
Data-driven personalisation will continue to be a differentiator for businesses with strong loyalty programs. Creating strong data foundations and using the right tools to increase relevance to your customers will drive greater conversion and increased stickiness.
What is clear is that this may look very different for every business and really needs to be closely integrated into your unique value proposition and supported by the right capabilities.
David Trevan, Managing Director, IMO Car Wash Australasia
What is a ‘must have’ when building a successful loyalty program?
For us, a successful loyalty program hinges on simplicity and real value. Going all digital and getting rid of paper keeps things hassle-free, while ensuring people know exactly what they’re getting: clear, achievable discounts and rewards without any fuss.
In 2025, what are the most relevant challenges in the retail sector that loyalty helps to address?
In 2025, we’re dealing with cost of living pressures and plenty of competition. Australians are watching their wallets and being mindful of discretionary spending. With budgets tight and so many options out there, a loyalty program needs to add value and provide meaningful rewards to keep spending worthwhile.
What does the next phase of AI-powered personalisation and loyalty look like?
AI’s next phase is about using data to make loyalty feel personal. This might look like offers based purely on customer behaviours and preferences, delivered through digital channels. It’s smart, seamless and customer-friendly.
Jonathan Reeve, Vice President, APAC, Eagle Eye
What is a ‘must have’ when building a successful loyalty program?
One of the key ingredients for successful loyalty programs is a proposition that “rewards the behaviour you seek”. For example, the design for a business focused on driving more visits may be fundamentally different to the design for a business that needs to increase average spend per visit.
In 2025, what are the most relevant challenges in the retail sector that loyalty helps to address?
Loyalty programs can help to address several current challenges. A couple I would call out are: (i) increasing costs of acquiring new customers, particularly through third-party channels like Facebook. Rising acquisition costs make retaining existing customers more important than ever and loyalty programs are a tool for keeping existing shoppers engaged and returning; and (ii) Retail media and monetisation. First-party data from loyalty programs allows retailers to power retail media networks, offering brands better ad targeting and closed-loop measurement.
What does the next phase of AI-powered personalisation and loyalty look like?
At Eagle Eye, we believe the next phase of personalised marketing will be “Marketing in the moment”. This involves engaging customers through personalised, context-aware strategies that respond to real-time data about the customer and their environment. AI-driven technologies can process customer data, purchase history, and contextual triggers in real time, allowing retailers to offer customised rewards, notifications, and promotions that resonate with the customer’s immediate needs and desires.
Sarah Richardson, Advisory Board Chair, Australian Loyalty Association
What is a ‘must have’ when building a successful loyalty program?
Buy-in from your business at all levels, from the CEO, to department heads and front of house staff. Without advocates within and throughout the business your program will fail.
In 2025, what are the most relevant challenges in the retail sector that loyalty helps to address?
With the restrictions on several forms of marketing coming into effect, direct-to-consumer marketing, enabled by rich data made possible only by customers being loyalty program members, is more crucial than ever. In addition to this, Australian consumers are increasingly diverse, with rich transactional, demographic, geographic and psychographic loyalty data being crucial in identifying individual needs.
What does the next phase of AI-powered personalisation and loyalty look like?
Personalised AI agents available for high-value loyalty members will significantly enhance the experience within programs. Having an agent that can answer all your queries with relation to your membership as well as past purchase information will be a game changer for organisations who develop these capabilities early on.
