Insights from The Big Handshake 2025 - Europe's friendliest loyalty event

Living in an age of mobile loyalty

Hold the phone, I hear you cry. You Apadmi folks would say that - you’re experts in everything mobile after all. Well, in our defence it wasn’t just Apadmi banging the mobile drum. The message was coming through loud and clear.

Ahead of her brilliant overview of the work they’ve done with Flying Tiger, Antavo’s Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder Zsuzsa Kecsmar highlighted that 59% of consumers prefer to interact with loyalty programmes via their mobile.

That was just one of many mentions of mobile being the platform of choice for loyalty, including Joe & the Juice, Zalando and Domino’s. But more of that later.

Stakeholders and senior buy-in

Despite the sense of momentum behind loyalty, a topic that came up more than once was the need to get the board onboard.

With a stat like the one shared by Marigold’s Nick Watson suggesting that 68% of loyalty programmes are being eroded by discounts, the need to get away from loyalty being perceived as just a cost centre has never been more important. 

Several experts suggested picking your boardroom backer well is an important first step, but it needs to be followed by several more steps which see you sticking to your guns and being clear on the value.

Building the business case relies on numbers with data often the best driver to demonstrate that value, but there were also some interesting examples of how changing customer behaviour is also playing its part.

Behaviours to change behaviours

Hearing from Joe & the Juice CTO Nicolai Schnack, the company is on the up, with new PE ownership seeing it scaling from 300 to more than 1,000 stores. An updated loyalty program and corresponding app is supporting that.

While good for business, the busy period over lunch used to be a fixed window for the juice and coffee shop. By looking at ways of delivering offers to known customers, they were able to encourage customers to come either immediately before or after the usual rush, extending the busy time and creating behaviours to change behaviours.

To further explore the ways in which customers act, Principal Behavioural Economist at Allianz, Adam Flitton shed some light on the nuance of why people do what they do. A great example being when trying to make perhaps the ultimate behaviour change - retention.

The obvious question to the request of I want to cancel my contract or leave your program is ‘why’. But that’s actually the worst thing you can say given that what follows will be a verbalisation of all the reasons the customer wants to leave. This only serves to reinforce their resolve and stubbornness to go through with it; much better to ask what might make then stay.

Or, in the words of Marc Lilienthal, Product & Tech Lead at Tonies, better to create a great digital experience that enables you to track interactions so you can read customer signs before they reach the point of wanting to leave. The best reactivation happens before the customer even realises they’re about to churn.

A three point plan for success

One of the clearest pieces of loyalty advice came in the form of a three point plan from Lego’s Global VP Membership and Personalisation, Aaron Mitchell. Having honed his craft at organisations like Ikea, Ford and now the world’s favourite brick maker, the three pillars of purpose, context and impact rang true.

Purpose

What purpose is a brand offering everyone and what does the loyalty proposition do to complement that? Lego’s members' programme used to be all about VIP, which didn’t feel very Lego. It’s now called Lego Insiders, shifting away from exclusivity towards being more inclusive and part of something.

There were similar stories from Shell, which has seen its programme change from Shell Drivers’ Club, to Miles and Me and now finally Go+, which is focused on the things people like about fuelling or charging at Shell, whether that’s the quality of the fuel, the associated Air Miles or service station sandwiches - all delivered through their app.

The purpose for gift and flower service Bloom & Wild’s app-first loyalty comes from a very simple mantra based on driving advocacy first. Deliver second-to-none customer experience and loyal customers will follow. 

Context

The context is driven by making sure that rather than focusing on how to get customers to spend 10% more - look at how you can find more places to be useful? If the focus becomes how to make things better, then the customer will want to keep coming back.

At Apadmi we talk a lot about utility and engagement, aiming to deliver usefulness and interest in any mobile experience will create inherent loyalty. This was further reinforced by Antavo’s work with Flying Tiger with a seamless in-store sign-up process for its new app-based loyalty program offering immediate rewards to customers.

Impact

Finally the all important impact. The numbers don’t lie with an additional half a million dollars of revenue in a month for Joe & the Juice, 60% higher basket size for Flying Tiger and 2x multiplier on the number of orders being made by the 13m members of Zalando’s Plus.

And the thread between them all? You’ve guessed it, mobile.

Want to unpick these themes further? Join our upcoming Big Handshake Debrief, a virtual webinar for Loyalty Leaders to unpack findings and thoughts from last week's event.