"Loyalty grows when your customers feel like you care. Between 2012 and 2014, La Quinta did something most hotel chains would never risk: it let its VP of Loyalty write personal postcards to guests - not to everyone, just to high-value customers or those who seemed ready to drift away. The postcards looked handwritten. Mike Case signed them and included his real email address."
"When guests wrote back (and many did), Mike replied himself. No autoresponders. No form letters. Just a personal note. La Quinta tested this against a control group, and the results were significant. Guests who heard from Mike stayed loyal - not because they got points or discounts, but because someone noticed them, cared enough to ask and actually listened to the answer."
The holidays produce many one-time shoppers and create an opportunity to convert them into long-term customers. Most loyalty programs focus on points and discounts and therefore change behavior without building emotional connection. La Quinta experimented with handwritten postcards from its VP of Loyalty to select high-value or at-risk guests, using real signatures and personal email replies. Recipients who received personal outreach became more loyal because someone noticed them, cared enough to ask, and listened to their responses. The experiment increased loyalty membership revenue share dramatically over seven years. The friendship theory frames loyalty as attachment to relationships rather than to rewards.
Read at MarTech
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