Why do people seem so busy? I mean always and all of the time? Part of this is a perception problem. On average, people in the wealthier countries have more leisure time than they used to have 20 years ago. This is particularly true in the United States, but even in Europe leisure time has been going up steadily since 1965, when formal national time-use surveys began. Europeans work nearly 12 hours less per week, on average, than they did 40 years ago - a fall that includes all work-related activities, such as commuting and coffee breaks.
By Ivo Knottnerus
Yet the shortage of time is a problem not just of perception, but also of distribution. Shifts in the way people work and live have changed the way leisure time is experienced, and who gets to experience it. For the past 20 years, and opposed to previous trends, the people who are now working the longest hours and juggling the most responsibilities at home also happen to be among the best educated and best paid. The so-called leisure class – people who have the funds to go on holidays and other leisure breaks - has never been more strained for time. They are clearly also among the most eager to seek ways to maximize their time and benefits.
Not surprisingly, many of these busy professionals are also members of loyalty programs. In the UK alone, a typical household has on average 18 loyalty cards in their (digital) wallet. How does the fully-stretched ambitious loyalty member work around the issue of having little time, but still trying to collect as many loyalty points as possible? Really, how do they do it? It seems impossible!
I use credit cards for all my purchases in order to collect as many loyalty points as I can. The idea of spending cash makes me feel uneasy because it feels like a lost opportunity to collect loyalty points. I use my credit cards everywhere and make no purchases with my debit card whatsoever. I collect a ton of points with this, but after hearing from another loyalty adept about their second free vacation consisting of a flight, hotel stay and car rental paid for with loyalty points, I realized that maybe I’m missing out. There must be something more. I am not collecting points at the rate that I could. That set me off on a journey to find a way that will help me pay for my next trip to a sunny destination.
However, first things first, there are two problems to be solved. The first one is that because everyone is so incredibly busy, the method of collecting more points has to be efficient and save time. People want to collect points on their everyday spend. In an ideal world, collecting points on everyday spend becomes a natural thing, like filling-up your car or doing your daily grocery shopping - even better if it all converges into one single loyalty currency.
The second problem is that loyalty members are already collecting points in various ways. There are credit cards to be swiped, flights to be taken, hotels to be stayed in, cars to be hired, with the only goal to collect loyalty points. There is a clear need for other ways, ideally smarter and less time-consuming, to collect loyalty points.
But how? One part of the answer lies in today’s ever expanding online world. Not just online shopping but better said: ‘doing things online’, or rephrased ‘engaging in online activities’. And just by doing that a loyalty member can collect a lot more points. To give some perspective, e-commerce accounted for a 19 percent share of total business turnover in the United Kingdom in 2015. As of 2015, roughly 80 percent of UK internet users did some form of online shopping, the highest online shopping penetration rate in Europe, up from 53 percent in 2008.
The other part of the answer lies in the fact that consumers need to focus. In today’s world, loyalty currency A can only be collected by doing activity B, and loyalty currency X can only be collected by doing activity Z. Building on the above-mentioned example, (on average a UK family has 18 different loyalty cards in their wallet), there is a very high chance that they are collecting 18 different loyalty currencies. I am not sure whether that is very beneficial, let alone rewarding. What if you could collect your one and only favourite loyalty currency in many, many different ways?
With this in mind and with a view to always trying to solve the needs of today’s points-hungry and busy loyalty members, Loylogic has recently introduced its Akruu solution. Akruu is a global points and miles collection portal where members of participating loyalty programs collect their preferred loyalty currency by shopping and interacting / engaging online in various exciting ways. A simple but effective points or miles collection portal, which proves to be a very rewarding solution for exactly these members who want an efficient way to collect their one preferred loyalty currency for all their everyday spend.
It is a known fact from industry intelligence in the loyalty sector that up to 75% of program members are inactive. What if you could get 10% more of these inactives to collect points? If these are questions that you and/or your program management are pondering, we are happy to explore the solution with you.
Want to know more about this topic, please contact us.
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Ivo Knottnerus is Sales & Business Development Director at LoyLogic.
About Loylogic
Loylogic is the world’s leading innovator and creator of points experiences, insights, commerce and engagement. By tantalizing members with more choices and arming programs with insights on behavior – anticipating both present and future needs – we deliver powerful solutions that amplify engagement and build loyalty.
Founded in 2005 with offices around the world and a global content network of more than 500 merchants and 2,000 online stores offering millions products and services, Loylogic, the new paradigm of points-based e-commerce and e-payment solutions, is the partner that the world’s leading loyalty programs trust with making their points and miles loved more.
For more information please visit loylogic.com.
