Invite members who pile on the miles to an exclusive "hidden" tier

We're human beings. We crave exclusivity, especially with a dash of intrigue thrown in for good measure. The backroom poker game limited to the highest rollers. The after party with the band and just a few of their closest friends.

Having a hidden tier imbues your loyalty program with a sense of exclusivity. No one knows about this tier. It's not mentioned in any of the program's promotional materials. No one knows, that is, until they're invited to join. And this invitation establishes them as an insider, deepening their bond with your brand. For example, the hidden tier for an airline could offer early boarding or discounts on upgrades to first class. As insiders, these high-value members are motivated to spend even more with your brand to maintain their exclusive status.

Strategy

Award entrance to a "hidden: tier to members who fly 25,000 miles in one year.

Here's the scenario: Sunny Skies has recently expanded into Caribbean. They want consumers to see them as the luxury airline for flights to the islands. As they plan their loyalty program, they want to add a hidden tier - the Platinum lounge - to their program for members who fly over 25,000 miles within a single year. The tier is not mentioned in the program's promotional materials. Entrance to this tier is automatic as soon as members reach the threshold for miles flown. No waiting for tier entrance rules to run. Boom! You're invited. This is surprise and delight at its best.

Let's look at how to do this in the SessionM platform.

This strategy leverages the Loyalty Programs module's advanced rules engine. The legacy Economy Rules module does not support the functionality described in this article. Contact your SessionM Customer Success team for more information on implementing the Loyalty Programs module in your program.

SessionM solution

The SessionM loyalty platform enables you to forge stronger, more loyal and more profitable relationships with your members. The platform provides an integrated set of capabilities - including data management, loyalty management, offer management, campaign orchestration, and analytics & optimization - that enable you to build compelling member loyalty programs.

Key modules

The strategy described in this article uses the following module:

Loyalty Programs

Point banking
Rewards for high value behaviors, advocacy and spend
Status and tiering rules plus outcomes
Benefits management with frictionless redemption
Extensive tracking on point liabilities

See SessionM Features for a full discussion of SessionM platform features and functions.

Implementation workflow

The following procedure describes the workflow for implementing the loyalty program described in this article. The procedure captures the workflow at a high-level, providing you with a sense of the scope involved in implementing this program in the SessionM platform.

Take note

This strategy leverages the Loyalty Programs module's extensible data schema, which enables you to tailor transactions to meet both current and future data schema requirements. With this new schema, you can add custom objects that add segment-specific data to your program. You can then use this custom data to build loyalty rules.

In this scenario, Sunny Skies needs to be able to track miles flown and, when members amass the required number of miles, automatically promote them to the hidden tier. By default, the standard SessionM transaction schema does not have a property recording miles flown. This scenario requires a custom object. Sunny Skies extends the base transaction schema to add a Miles Flown custom object, which track miles flown and automatically triggers the invitation to join the hidden tier.

For step-by-step procedures for implementing the functionality in a SessionM module, see the Procedures section in the SessionM Help Center.

Step 1. Loyalty Programs module: Initial Sunny Skies program implementation

Assume that the Sunny Skies has the following components of its loyalty program in place:

The Miles Flown custom object has been added to the schema. See About the SessionM transaction schema for more information.
The point accounts are set up. See What are points in loyalty programs? for more information.
A loyalty program with three tier structure has been created. See What is a loyalty program? for more information.

Step 2. Loyalty Programs module: Add the "hidden" tier to the program

In the Sunny Skies program, select Add Tier and name it "The Platinum Lounge".
Define the rules for tier. Note that the outcomes defined in the tier entry rules are awarded to members who earn the Tier Change outcome (specified in the purchase rules defined in step 3).

Step 3. Loyalty Programs module: Define the purchase rule in the other tiers

Define the purchase rule that triggers entrance to the "hidden" tier in the Bronze, Silver and Gold tiers.

For the condition, specify that Miles Flown is greater than 25,000 points and that the miles have been flown in the past calendar year. Note that this condition uses the Miles Flown custom object.
For the outcome, select the Tier Change outcome and promote the member to the "Platinum Lounge" tier. The outcomes defined in Step 2 above are award to the member.

Analysis

Successful loyalty programs adapt and evolve. It’s crucial to determine where your program is performing well and where it needs to improve. Built on a series of intuitive dashboards, the SessionM Insights reporting & analysis tool enables you to evaluate program performance by measuring key indicators such as customer spend and customer frequency.

This strategy focuses on how to use tiers in a loyalty program to deepen member engagement. Within Insights, you can use the Summary dashboard and the Incentives tab to dig deeper into how tiers are performing in your loyalty program.

For example, the Summary dashboard provides interactive visualizations that track revenue generated by different membership tiers and other powerful metrics. For example, the visualization below tracks average order value, average revenue per user and transaction frequency for each loyalty tier.

As another example, the Incentives tab provides a detailed breakdown of total points by current loyalty tier. Performance for each tier can be analyzed with the points status counts. Lower-performing tiers can be further analyzed and improved. For example, you can quickly answer the question: Are most of the points for tier X being redeemed before expiration?

For detailed information on SessionM Insight features and functionality, see About Insights in the SessionM Help Center.

Key takeaways

Future proof your loyalty program with SessionM's extensible transaction schema

Nothing is constant except for change. And nowhere is this more true then in today's constantly evolving marketplace. You need a loyalty program that can adapt to meet new and changing demands. SessionM's Loyalty Programs module features an extensible transaction schema that adapts to your loyalty program's evolving data requirements.

Add a dash of mystery to your loyalty program

Human beings crave exclusivity, especially with some intrigue mixed in. Having a hidden tier imbues your loyalty program with an air of mystery. No one knows about this tier until they're invited to join. And by joining they become an insider, deepening their bond with your brand. As insiders, they're motivated to spend even more with your brand to maintain their exclusive status.