Key Takeaways
- Long-term engagement depends on giving customers meaningful reasons to return without adding unnecessary complexity or demanding more of their attention.
- Brands are moving beyond spend-based loyalty by using recognition, personalization, and AI to create experiences that make members feel understood as individuals.
- The future of loyalty will require brands to turn customer data into action, empower frontline employees, and integrate loyalty more deeply across the customer experience.
Preventing loyalty fatigue requires brands to think beyond rewards and redemption. As customers divide their attention across more programs, maintaining engagement depends on continually delivering value without making participation feel like work.
Building lasting relationships means recognizing customers beyond their transactions, using data and technology to create more relevant experiences, and evolving loyalty strategies alongside changing expectations.
In Part 2 of this Supplier Perspectives series, leaders from Engage People, Group O, Baesman Group, Switchfly, ITA Group, and FIS share how brands can sustain engagement, strengthen customer relationships through personalization and recognition, and prepare their loyalty strategies for what comes next.
Contributors
- Nick Relph, VP Client Success & Head of Marketing, Engage People
- Paul Flemr, SVP, Incentive Marketing, Group O
- Sydney Shapiro, Strategic Account Executive, CRM & Loyalty, Baesman Group
- Rachel Satow, Senior Marketing Strategist, Switchfly
- Max Kenkel, Sr. Manager, Customer Loyalty Solutions, ITA Group
- Mladen Vladic, Head of Product, Payment Networks, FIS
Making Loyalty Worth Coming Back To
As consumers participate in more loyalty programs, brands are competing for more than spend; they're competing for attention. Keeping members engaged requires giving them meaningful reasons to return without overwhelming them with unnecessary communications, promotions, or program mechanics.
“I think brands should approach relationship building with customers the same way they would approach friendships or dating,” said Max Kenkel, Sr. Manager, Customer Loyalty Solutions at ITA Group. “Relationships take work, so put in the work.”
For Kenkel, maintaining that relationship requires brands to continually evolve the experience rather than relying on the loyalty program itself to sustain engagement.
“If the loyalty program is always the same, it’s never going to capture the attention of the majority,” Kenkel said. “So leverage data for personalization, empower your frontline to make in-person connections, find reasons to extend additional value to customers, make the program easier, embrace test and learn culture, and find a way to surface what’s working locally on a national scale.”
At the same time, giving customers more reasons to engage doesn't mean adding more complexity. Excessive communication and complicated program structures can contribute to the fatigue brands are trying to prevent.
“Too many programs rely on constant promotions, excessive communication, or overly complicated earning structures that customers eventually disengage from,” said Sydney Shapiro, Strategic Account Executive, CRM & Loyalty at Baesman Group.
Shapiro emphasizes that long-term engagement should feel natural rather than requiring customers to constantly manage their participation.
“Sustainable engagement comes from simplicity, consistency, and rewarding meaningful behaviors while ensuring every interaction reinforces value without requiring customers to actively think about the program itself,” Shapiro said.
The challenge for brands is to balance evolution with simplicity. Programs need to give customers new reasons to return, but those efforts should make loyalty easier and more valuable, not demand more time and attention from members.
Beyond Spend: Creating Value Through Personalization
Building stronger emotional connections requires brands to rethink how they recognize and reward their most valuable customers. Rather than defining customer value primarily through spend, loyalty programs have an opportunity to create experiences that make members feel understood and valued as individuals.
“Brands are evolving tiers, recognition, and personalization in a way that shifts loyalty from a more mechanical status to an emotionally connected relationship,” said Paul Flemr, SVP, Incentive Marketing at Group O. “It not about the investment that the customer makes financially or the commitment to a brand that they are asked to make but instead about recognizing and rewarding customer in ways that feel more humanistic and unique.”
Delivering that level of recognition increasingly depends on a brand's ability to turn customer data into more individualized experiences. As AI capabilities advance, brands have greater opportunities to move beyond broad segments and engage members based on their individual behaviors and preferences.
“Hyper personalization through AI is driving the greatest interest and investigation helping programs connect with members,” said Nick Relph, VP Client Success & Head of Marketing at Engage People. “This creates a feeling that the brand understands the member, rather than being treated as a segment.”
For loyalty leaders, there is an opportunity to use personalization and recognition to make customer relationships feel less transactional. Translating data into experiences that make members feel known and valued can help create stronger connections that extend beyond individual purchases.
Building for the Future of Customer Loyalty
As loyalty leaders evaluate long-term changes to their strategies, the opportunity is to use data, technology, and human interactions more intentionally to understand customers and strengthen relationships.
“Loyalty leaders have more technology and data available than ever, so the opportunity is to create more of a conversation with members instead of relying on one-way communications about what the brand assumes people want,” said Rachel Satow, Senior Marketing Strategist at Switchfly. “Look at how individual members are earning, what they’re browsing, what they’re redeeming for, and where they drop off. Then use those signals to adapt promotions, communications, and redemption options in a way that feels specific to your brand.”
Technology alone, however, won't create lasting loyalty. Brands can also strengthen relationships through employees who interact directly with customers.
“I would encourage brands to look for ways to amplify the in-store experience by doubling down on frontline enablement tactics that bring the program to life in a very human way,” said Max Kenkel, Sr. Manager, Customer Loyalty Solutions at ITA Group. “Empower your frontline teams to show appreciation and use them to motivate cross-sell and upsell opportunities. Our research shows that customers who feel both benefitted and connected to a brand are 8x more likely to visit, spend and give market share to that brand.”
Together, these strategies reflect a broader shift in the role loyalty plays within organizations.
“Loyalty is quietly becoming less of a ‘program’ and more of an operating capability—the intelligence layer that makes every interaction smarter,” said Mladen Vladic, Head of Product, Payment Networks at FIS. “The leaders who treat it that way will pull away from the ones still tuning their points table.”
As loyalty evolves, preventing fatigue will require brands to do more than introduce new features or engagement mechanics. The programs that last will be those that turn customer data into meaningful action, keep relationships human, and continually adapt without making loyalty feel like work.