Hi there. This is Zsuzsa Kecsmar, 
CMO and Co-founder of Antavo. 
And I'm Jörn Roegler, 
VP of Strategy & Insight at Antavo. 
I love loyalty programs. I really do. 
But there are 
cases when they drive me to the edge. 
For example when my points expire just before I 
wanted to use them. Also I'm not happy when 
I spent all my points and I get back to 
square one just like a new customer. Even though 
I've been buying for years. Well there is 
a cure to this frustration 
which is introducing customer loyalty tiers. 
Yeah it's true you're not really alone 
with your frustration there. It's a lot of 
customers that have these problems. They complain 
about it. Points expire before they can 
be used. People were looking forward to reward. 
They can't get it. But also the fact that 
as you described it I've been loyal for years 
and years and years but once I spend the 
points there's nothing left in that relationship 
that I get nothing back from the 
company. So frustration.Tiers are great to do 
that. First of all it's much easier to 
communicate and it's much easier to memorise 
or to remember from a customer perspective. 
I mean in a tier, I can use those benefits. 
The other thing is because I'm not using any 
points I have a status I am a valued 
customer a loyal customer I have access to these 
benefits that I can take. They don't expire 
and I'm never back to square one and I'm never 
treated like a new customer. And finally like 
from a company perspective they give a huge 
arsenal of things that make 
a loyalty program much more effective. 
Is it connected to gamification? 
Gamification is one of those elements. So 
in fact there are actually four things that 
tiers can do to a company or from a company 
perspective that make the loyalty program better. 
For one it's a new way of engaging 
customers. So you have another layer of namings 
branding color schemes imagery that you can 
create around tiers that can bring just more 
excitement more emotional 
engagement to a client. 
For example, you can have these bronze, 
silver, platinum tiers, right? 
Correct! Or according to 
whatever industry you are in, you can 
adjust those names to be even more 
meaningful. Fashion insider. You can have VIPs, experts.
Naming can be unlimited. And 
it works well with your brand. 
It's a wonderful branding asset. 
The second thing for a company perspective it's 
actually a lot simpler to manage a program 
that doesn't have any expiratoins to 
deal with. Point expiration needs communication. 
You need the constant reminders. You have 
to update your terms and conditions. All those 
things change and depending on your rules 
it can get really really complex. With tiers 
it's simple. You join a tier and then 
you're in a tier. And there are moments where you 
downgrade again from a tier but they are 
few and far between. So it's easier to manage. 
And of course it's also less bugging for 
the customer. Because it's 
never nice to receive that hey your points 
are expiring again even though it might be 
really effective. But wit tiers this 
doesn't apply. You remind them the benefits 
that they can use instead 
of threatening them with losing something. 
It's positive. It's nice. Yeah. The third thing 
is when you have a tier and you have 
benefits that a customer can get without 
using a currency like points it's much more 
powerful in defending against competition. Because a 
customer now has things that are like 
inherently linked to the transaction. Say 
free delivery. Say express delivery. Say extend 
return rights. These make it actually 
better to buy with you as a company because 
other competitors can't offer that and because I 
don't have to spend points for it they 
feel like a free benefit. So I'm much 
more likely to buy again if I have these 
benefits immature than if 
I have to spend points. 
This is especially useful for retailers who 
want to differentiate themselves with a loyalty 
program because retailers are usually selling the 
same thing. I know it's not exactly the 
same thing but for example if we see fashion 
retailers, they all sell fashion goods from different 
brands and having a real great 
membership program can be a true differentiator. 
I mean if you read the statistics 60-70% 
of customers would never buy with a 
company that doesn't offer free delivery options. 
So having those things in a tier: very powerful. 
Coming to the fourth element then 
what is really good about a tier. 
You have another way of segmenting your 
customers. So we associate traditionally just money 
spent or points based tier structures. So 
the more points you have the higher you move 
up in a tier.  You know from a basic member 
to the top VIP. But that's not because points are 
the only way you can use structured tiers. 
It's just how how it evolved. You can create 
tiers based on very different behavior 
so very different characteristics. For example you 
can create something called badges. Certain 
things that engage with a brand regularly 
could have a very engaged badge. That is 
a segment of people that you know are promoters 
or advocates. They're really engaged. You can 
give them special benefits to make it even 
easier to engage and even easier to become an 
advocate. We had an example as well in a 
program where we created special status around 
people that went regularly on a run to 
exercise. That way we could create a community 
of people that we know are interested in sports. 
And the brand that way would know 
that these are people that are interested in 
let's say athleisure products. 
Exactly or sportswear which are 
by nature areas where it's a bit competitive. 
It's true. But then by targeting you have 
means to get much more performing or much more 
powerful marketing campaigns out there to these 
people. And then you can go a step 
further and actually get these people to 
start engaging with each other. Create a 
community create a tribe. The sense of belonging 
that you that you get by being a member 
in a tier, that you know the brand 
really takes care of you. It's a very powerful 
emotional bonds wonderful. 
And also if you think of the big picture, tiers 
are so great that there are ways to run a 
loyalty program without points and using 
actually only tiers and this can be 
especially valid in luxury fashion 
when using points might look cheap. 
There's a perception there are 
certain industries where you know purely points 
based program could actually devalue a brand 
that's positioned itself very much on let's 
say quality on high end fashion and creativity 
and not very much on price. So suddenly 
introducing a currency into a program 
might be really counterintuitive from a brand 
perspective. Having tiers just allows you to 
get rid of points completely. Put people into 
these you know let's say tribes, groups, 
communities where they feel a sense of belonging 
therefore reinforcing that whole brand 
positioning about value about quality about 
exclusivity and 
removing that risk altogether. 
That's wonderful. Thank you so much. That's 
about tiers if you wanted to learn more please 
visit the link below or above depending on 
where you watch this. It's more details about 
how to use a loyalty program successfully 
with tiers. Thank you so much for watching. 
See you next time. Bye-bye! 
Thank you, by-be! 
