Airtel Thanks
Loyalty Program for Airtel
Airtel Thanks started as a loyalty program and turned into an overall Airtel app experience now. Idea of the campaign was to benefit our customers with great offering based on their Airtel service uses. Some of the offerings was: Free Netflix subscription, Amazon Prime Subscription, Wynk TV & Airtel TV Subscription.
Fortunately, I was part of the core strategy team for this project and contributed in ideation and execution of the whole program.
Problem Statement
Expectation from this project was to solve a business problem while keeping user’s experience at priority.
Primary goal was to retain existing customer and make them upgrade to a high value plan. Secondary goal was to increase data consumption.
Design Process
I’ve followed text book rule of product designing - Discover, Define, Ideate, Prototype and then Test.
Who is our Target User?
Anyone who is a prepaid or postpaid user and spending below ARPU value with us. They are online content consumer and need loads of data to do so.
Based on above mentioned criteria, we invited multiple Airtel customers (focus group) for an interview to learn their perception and observe patterns.
Market Research
Loyalty program in the telecom industry primarily falls into four categories. They typically use partnerships with other brands to provide exclusive benefits to their customers and/or take up tiered system and point systems to build long term contracts and more purchases over time.
By reviewing of current loyalty program in market, we have prepared this list of loyalty strategy.
- Tiered reward program
Tiered rewards system present small rewards as a base offering for being a part of the program and then encourage repeat customers by increasing the value of the rewards as the customer moves up the loyalty ladder.
2. Point system
Returning customers are rewarded in a point system, the more they buy, the more they are rewarded.
3. Social proof system
This system let the members know what other members are doing in the program: whether they are earning points, increasing their member level or receiving rewards.
4. Partnership with other brands
Strategic partnership with other businesses allows customer to redeem and pool their rewards from various retailer.
5. Gamification
Process of using game dynamics and mechanics to engage an audience and solve problems.
6. Upfront fee for VIP
In a VIP system that requires upfront fee, customers are entitled to exclusive deals and better services.
Offering rewards through partnership with other brands is the most common practice in the industry.
Entertainment and retail products are often given out as rewards.
There are multiple latitude to measure loyalty. In the telecom industry, being loyal can mean sticking to a provider for a long time or use providers product where applies.
Recommendation
Consider using Tiered reward system for foster long-term commitment and attract low-value customer to purchase high value plans.
Because purchase of telecom service are not very frequent (specially in postpaid business). Our customer research shows that customer desire more rewards for their loyalty to Airtel.
Solutions (Tiering)
Segmented our customer into 3 tiers based on their uses (plan value).Silver category for low value customers with normal benefits to lure them to GOLD or PLATINUM category. Offering was more higher in the top tier, so user can upgrade their plan to get there.
Design
Branding
We wanted an identity for this campaign to help connect with the user and thank them for their trust in us. We (Airtel) love you for your trust in us and our services. We did a user survey with 3 version of logo and here is the first final logo for Airtel Thanks.
Customer Journey
Entry points: A user gets to know about their #airtelThanks membership and tier on app dashboard.
Thanks Landing: Clicking on Thanks card lead to Landing page where users can see all the tier and respective benefits.
- Benefits — User see a list of benefits eligible for current tier. They can claim these rewards with a single click.
- Upgrade — User have option to explore other tier and their benefits. They can upgrade their current plan to get to higher tier.
Result
#airtelThanks has turned out to be a hit campaign for Airtel. It increased High value customers number and based on the overwhelming result, Now Airtel has renamed My Airtel app as Airtel Thanks app.
