New entrants to the rewards space

There have been a number of new entrants to the loyalty and rewards space in recent years One of the most notable and certainly the largest is Capitec’s Live Better programme

“Capitec’s Live Better programme has developed into a fully fledged loyalty and rewards programme that rewards Capitec clients through cashback, disrupting the financial services loyalty landscape,” says Gordon Dodge, a consultant at Eight20 The programme has 9 5-million members, of which five-million use Capitec’s savings tool, 1million save through the programme’s partnerships and 800,000 earn through banking rewards

More recently, Builders Warehouse announced the introduction of Builders+, a freeto-join loyalty and rewards programme that offers Builders

Warehouse customers regular deals, personalised offers, monthly competitions and birthday discounts

Astron Rewards launched in the latter half of 2022, rewarding customers with daily and monthly rewards for filling up at their participating forecourts Rewards start with fuel and convenience store vouchers, increasing to holidays and car servicing products

Sasol Rewards launched in April 2022, with customers now able to earn 15c a litre of fuel, which can be redeemed for fuel or selected items in convenience stores

African Bank launched its Audacious Rewards in September 2022, enabling its clients to earn points on card spend and spend at qualifying partners, which can then be redeemed as vouchers, products and experiences than a race “Consumers’ wallets are under pressure, driven by the impact of load-shedding, along with increasing fuel, food and electricity prices Customers want better for less ” Brands that want to get more out of their loyalty data, she says, need to re-activate or re-engage dormant customers “It’s often as simple as a text or email, targeting a specific customer segment with a message saying something along the lines of: ‘We miss you, Vusiwe, and we haven’t seen you for a while Come and shop at any of our TFG brands this weekend only and redeem this R100 voucher on us ’”

Another option is for brands to unpack their customer demographics, because gender differences should influence the type of content a brand sends to its customers, she says Research reveals that men are more interested in hospitality and entertainment messaging, while women are more interested in retailer messages The majority of customers both men and women want to receive shopping incentives and vouchers via SMS

In an age of artificial intelligence and chatbots, millennials and Gen Xers are more open to sharing data on new technologies and are more likely to feel comfortable than baby boomers This may be stating the obvious but this really is the fastest and easiest way to get more customer information and provide better customer support at the same time, says Ronnie Brands also need to consider digital options to drive shopping and engagement, advises Ronnie It s estimated that by the end of 2023, 82% of South Africans will have access to mobile phones Combine this with the fact that most customers say they would use cards more if they had access to a digital option, and it’s clear just how important digital is becoming Younger generations, in particular, are very interested in digital loyalty cards ”

Given that acquiring new customers costs five times more than retaining existing ones, loyalty programmes are a winning recipe, says Ronnie “Succeeding in the loyalty space requires using data to better understand what customers want in order to build successful customer relationships ”

Though Discovery Vitality has been around for a number of years, a new version of the programme was launched in March 2023 Discovery Active Vitality 3 0 brings together Active Rewards, Banking Rewards and Drive Rewards under one banner on the

Discovery Banking app The revamped programme, reveals Dodge, has a new personalised gameboard which rewards users the more they engage with the company’s products and services, and introduces new gamification mechanisms to engage members more regularly