The Synergy Effect of a Corporate-Level Loyalty Program Integration on Customer Equity

Abstract

This study empirically examines the synergy effect of a corporate-level loyalty program on customer equity (CE) known as the lifetime value of current and future customers (Blattberg et al. 2009). A corporate-level loyalty program refers to a company-wide integration loyalty program at the corporate-level in which subsidiaries (multi-divisions) participate as program members. It does not merely examine whether there is an integration effect of a corporate-level loyalty program from the CE perspective, but it provides practical implications for a firm’s strategic focus by identifying which value creation channels (i.e., acquisition, retention, and cross-selling), brand characteristics (i.e., size of the customer base before integration, diversity of products, and sales channel type), and consumer characteristics (i.e., customer relationship stage, transaction amount before integration, transaction period, and number of purchased brands) are affected the most by the synergy effect.

Keywords

• loyalty program
• customer equity
• customer acquisition
• customer retention
• cross-selling
• partnership