Companies With Customer Reward Systems

Customer rewards programs are one of the oldest phenomenons in retail sales. From about the time when a societal middle class started to appear and assert itself, the number and variety of merchants in most parts of the western world increased. Eventually, merchants understood that in order to survive, they had to find new ways of luring and keeping customers.

New times, new ideas

Apart from advertising, merchants also understood they needed to retain the customers they already had. There were two ways to do this. The first was through exclusive contracts, such as when certain classes of workers were paid in scrip, rather than cash, the scrip only redeemable at the company store.

Offering incentives

Of course very few merchants were ever lucky enough to have an exclusive contract. For most, customer loyalty was earned. Many merchants therefore started to offer gifts or discounts to their loyal customers.

Many hands make light work

The drawback is that a competing merchant might offer something better than the first merchant. Hence, reward and loyalty programs shared by a number of companies gained popularity. The earliest of these was the S&H Green Stamps program launched in 1896, with trading stamps handed out at participating retailers, and eventually redeemable for catalog merchandise.

Bucks, points and miles

Eventually, most retailers offered some form of reward plan. Many of the major airlines offer travel or frequent flier miles earned by and redeemable for air travel, and have often paired with credit card companies or selected retailers to offer further bonuses. Major retailers themselves offer "points" programs, or "cash" coupons towards the next purchase.

In addition to the the programs already mentioned, perhaps the most common customer reward program is the humble manufacturers coupon. In these tough economic times, the rise of so-called "extreme couponing" shows just the valuable nature of customer reward programs.