More than four in 10 customers have switched brands over the past year as they sought out better customer service, a new report has found.

Businesses achieving high Net Promoter Scores (NPS) are invariably gratified by this single number. But arguably, there has been some blind trust as to how significant this figure is on the bottom line.

As physical cards and coupons are becoming obsolete, new technology like mobile wallets, are changing the way customers are interacting with brands. City Tattersalls Club, a 120-year-old social club located in Sydney’s CBD, saw the limitations of using traditional vouchers and cards and decided it was time to embrace customer loyalty in the digital realm.

The gap in customer affinity between traditional communications and media companies and big tech and digital companies is closing, according to a new report from Accenture.

Customers are increasingly empowered in their purchasing, and yet they continue to get lost in the promotional fray from brand messaging, according to the AIMIA Global Emotional Loyalty Study. Loyalty solutions business, AIMIA says transactional loyalty is not enough and the challenge is for brands to build one-to-one emotional connections with customers to increase visits and transactions and drive growth.

Loyalty programs are being rehashed and relaunched almost continuously as smart marketers know it costs far less to retain a customer than get a new one.

When it comes to winning the approval of customers, handing out money can be an effective strategy – although perhaps not a sustainable one.

Hoyts has redesigned its loyalty program, Hoyts Rewards, to combat the widespread trend of program fatigue among Australian consumers to offer instant benefits and new membership tiers.

Customer participation in loyalty programs is falling, with 47 per cent of members reporting they have actively used their card or number when making a purchase in the last 12 months.

​Australian marketers recognise the need to drive customer loyalty, but a disconnect between the goal of customer loyalty and the measuring of this loyalty is causing programmes to be ineffective.

​Consumers are looking for in store experience and convenience, rather than loyalty programs. This is the word from tcc global, which recently ran a global research study of 15,000 shoppers in 15 countries to map the behavioural triggers, identify preferences, and define what loyalty means in today’s retail world.

Medibank’s fortunes are rising thanks to a “substantial turnaround” in customer advocacy and retention, driven by consistently delivering a better customer experience, more value and recognising customer loyalty, according to CEO Craig Drummond.

Australian consumers don’t care about brand loyalty when shopping, and price is the main factor driving it, according to a new local marketing report.

Gen Z are already becoming more influential than Millennials, so if you’re not talking to them now, you’re really going to miss out in the longer term, Unidays' APAC vice-president, Ed Schmidt, claims.

Experimental loyalty agency, LoyaltyX, and the University of NSW (UNSW) have partnered on an innovative blockchain loyalty research project, giving students an opportunity to earn ‘Ethercryptocurrency’ at the checkout of participating merchants simply by scanning a barcode in their digital wallet.

A drastic change in office layout and a fresh collaborative structure between HR and marketing has significantly boosted performance and created a genuine customer-centric culture at Hoyts, according to the cinema chain’s general manager of people, performance and culture, Jodi Paton.

Sydney-based communications agency The Core Agency announced it appointed former Anytime Fitness CMO Rob Kain as its new CX director.

Customer loyalty remains a hot topic for marketers with the ever-evolving tech, data, social and demographic changes, but what does it all really mean for customers?

Big brands spend millions on branding, packaging and marketing their wares. Yet when empty plastic bottles and bags end up scattered along beaches and parks, all that brand equity looks like nothing more than garbage.

One issue with the gambling industry is that it’s very promiscuous, William Hill’s head of mobile CX, Mark Bradshaw, claims. Unlike a bank or insurance, it’s very easy to move between providers, so customer retention and making sure they don’t have a bad experience is really critical to your bottom line, he says.

While marketing and IT decision makers agree a fully comprehensive digital marketing platform is crucial for customer loyalty and business growth, the lion’s share of brands are unprepared for driving the growth of online commerce, according to a new global study.