The Ryder RedZone B2B loyalty program, which launched in November 2014, surpassed 20,000 members last October. Ryder, the well-known operator of transportation supply chain management products and various rental truck services, has found that the high degree of success of its RedZone program stems from the flexibility and value it provides. Dollar for dollar, the program currently matches points with everything members spend on rentals and services.
Building membership was very important after the program launch and now Ryder officials are focused on engagement levels.
During her session, “Learn How Ryder’s B2B Loyalty Program is Driving Business Intelligence and Incremental Sales,” on Tuesday at the 9th annual Loyalty Expo, presented by Loyalty360 – The Association for Customer Loyalty, Stephanie Wicky, Director of Marketing for Ryder System Inc., told attendees that her company partnered with Cogensia to address the following questions:
-How to assess the value of your B2B customers?
-How to better understand the business segments Ryder serves?
-How to assess the Ryder RedZone program and determine its ROI?
-How Ryder RedZone compared to other loyalty benchmarks?
“Our main customers are businesses that have rental truck needs,” Wicky explained. “We wanted to know its ROI and is it creating customer value? I needed a customer case to bring to management.”
Barb Olson, SVP, Loyalty & 1:1 Solutions, Cogensia, told attendees that her job was to establish a customer base assessment and draw implications from it.
“We wanted to understand Ryder’s rental customer base and its revenue contribution, and understand behaviors across and between account types,” Olson said. “Are they satisfied and do they trust the brand? We built a customer analytic data set to find out who the RedZone customers are, and we looked at value tiers. We learned that the top tier of customers is so valuable. But how do we get upward migration from the other three tiers? We were honed in on each segment very important to understand your channels in B2B.”
Following the assessment, Wicky came to the same conclusion as well.
“The top 10% of our customers were really our bread and butter,” she said.
As a result, further assessment was conducted to find out:
Who is enrolled in RedZone? Focus on “lookalike” customers.
-How members compare to non-members?
-When and where customers enroll”
-How many points are customers earning and who is qualifying for rewards?
-Are rewards achievable? How do we show value through program rewards?
-Who is redeeming for which rewards?
-How redeeming customers differ from non-redeeming?
Although she could not disclose specific numbers, Ryder’s RedZone loyalty program has been highly successful, Wicky noted.
“The program has been successful because of the data Cogensia brought to us,” Wicky said. “Some companies are terrified to speak to their companies. Repetition (in targeted communications) is important. There is value being added and benefits being added. We have a new RedZone Champions, which launched earlier this year to drive frontline engagement. It will help retain our best customers and grow mid-tier customers, and move customers up a level.”
In addition to spend, RedZone also engages customers across channels by allowing them to participate in regular opinion polls. Members not only receive 50 bonus points, the feedback allows Ryder to continually enhance the customer experience if offers. Each month, RedZone members also earn 10% off their organization’s net rental spend in points, and those points are valid for 18 months. Finally, until the end of this month, new members will receive 400 bonus points and 20% off all merchandise just for signing up.
Participation in the program is simple. New member can easily register online for an account, which is accompanied by a streamlined portal that tracks points and rewards. This also eliminates the need for a physical membership card. After registration is complete, members can begin earning points immediately. Thousands of rewards from numerous categories including sporting goods, home decor, garden supplies, electronics, and lifestyle products are available.
“The first year of the program it was all about building membership,” Wicky said. “Now, we’re more about engagement levels.”
Olson said that analytics are nothing without action.
“Get your frontline engaged,” she said. “Customers want to hear from you. We identified how Ryder measures incremental sales. It’s imperative to measure incremental sales to find the impact of RedZone loyalty program members. We’re seeing a good return.”
At the 3rd annual Loyalty360 Awards ceremony held Wednesday, Ryder took home the Gold Award in the Measurement category.
Loyalty Expo was held May 24-26, 2016, at the DoubleTree Universal in Orlando, Florida.