• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.5-14
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• 2015

Purpose - Loyalty programs enable retailers to maintain longer and better customer relationships. In successful services, customers actively use and value these programs. As the proximity to the goal (goal gradient) might signal active participation, this study empirically examines customer's goal gradient behavior in a multi-vendor loyalty program. We also consider the effect of customer's accrual diversity on goal gradients, which is a differentiating feature in a multi-vendor loyalty program, and is further examined. Research Design, Data, and Methodology - The data consists of6,646 OK Cashbag members' individual transaction records from 2006 to 2009. The goal gradient hypothesis was tested as an increase in both the speed and the amount of accumulated award points. Result - The findings suggest that the goal gradient is also observed in a multi-vendor loyalty program, occurring more strongly among members with high accrual diversity. Conclusions - The results indicate that customers with high accrual diversity attend strongly to goal gradients in multi-vendor loyalty programs; hence, it is important for such program managers to better inform members about affiliated partners.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.77-98
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• 2017

This research explores two key facets of behavior (reward point accrual and redemption) that consist of a loyalty program. It focuses on assessing the impact of accrual effort level on three types of redemption behavior: speed, unit size, and hedonic preference at the individual level by using large scale transaction data from a multi-vendor loyalty program providing flexible environment for point accrual and redemption. Findings from this research demonstrate that customers tend 1) to speed up point redemption, 2) to enlarge the size of redeemed points, and 3) to prefer utilitarian rewards as the level of effort at the accrual stage of reward point increases.