A Deloitte Research Report, “Making blockchain real for customer loyalty rewards programs” found that using blockchain technology can help build brand loyalty by delivering real-time updates, facilitating tracking of goods, providing security & reducing costs.
According to the Colloquy Loyalty Consensus Report market research shows that “55% of consumers spend higher amounts and increases purchase frequency due to loyalty initiatives.” This makes developing a loyalty rewards program a revenue driver for brands in today’s online economy.
The Poste Italiane Group—with its banking services, partnership with merchants and logistics across a wide supply chain—sits in the middle of the loyalty ecosystem.
Poste Italiane began working with the loyalty programs in 2017 when, in partnership with SIA, it created the Extra Sconti App that enables cost savings to debit card holders that also use Postepay cards. Instead of starting with a network of big shops, it created a platform called Sconti BancoPosta that initially served over 30 thousand small merchants and soon grew to other well-known brands. The cashback system rewards users with money deposited directly into their account for purchases of brands recommended by the app.
“The reality is that it is seven times more expensive to acquire new customers than retain existing ones, and over half of us are motivated to spend more and increase the purchase frequency due to loyalty initiatives,” Vernini shares.
As the center of commerce & online transactions, Poste Italiane wanted to support the companies within their supply chain with customer acquisition and retention. They also wanted to encourage customers to engage with the merchants and follow their recommendations or accept offers through them.
Poste Italiane saw this as a big opportunity in the market. The traditional postal system is bound together by an expansive and complex supply chain. This results in tech sprawl where there are way too many programs and they are not interoperable. This means the programs can’t communicate with each other and share data. With the plethora of programs and lack of interoperability between them, the management of the accounts and the rules on earning rewards are not clear. What makes Poste Italiane’s service delivery platform stand out is the creation of a single point of access to multiple loyalty schemes and formation of a loyalty point exchange.