A loyalty program built on purchase data kept Bridgestone close to customers between tyre purchases. The headline figures are real, but they do not show what most people assume they show.
Tyres are one of the least frequent purchases a household makes. In a case study by Customology, the agency that developed the program, published on the Australian Retailers Association website, a Bridgestone customer's tyre purchase cycle is put at up to four years. Over that interval a customer can easily forget which store fitted their last set, and choose on price or proximity next time.
Bridgestone Australia, with more than 300 franchise-owned stores, set out to close that gap with a program called Bridgestone Benefits. It is a useful case for any brand whose customers buy rarely, both for what it did and for what its results can and cannot tell us.
For a brand with a short purchase cycle, retention is mainly about satisfaction. An unhappy customer leaves, and a satisfied one comes back next week. For a brand with a multi-year cycle, the problem is different. A satisfied customer can still drift away, simply because nothing reminded them of the brand when the need returned.
Before the program, Bridgestone relied on direct mail to remind customers about tyre checks, according to the case study. The aim of the new program was to keep customers engaged across the full cycle and to raise their lifetime value through more store visits and additional services.
It joined up the data. Point-of-sale data from every store was brought into a single customer view. That allowed the business to study buying behaviour, estimate when each customer was likely to need tyres again, and record how each preferred to be contacted.
It timed contact to the customer's cycle. Customers who bought new tyres were offered free tyre checks at milestones through the life of those tyres. An onboarding message went out within 24 hours of purchase, reminders followed by email or SMS, and at around 30 months customers could opt in to further reminders so that those not yet ready to buy stayed connected.
It made the next visit easy. Each reminder linked to a personal page where the customer could confirm a free check and book a time directly into the local store's service calendar.
It gave members reasons to stay. Benefits such as free puncture repairs, accidental damage cover and discounted products added value between tyre purchases and gave franchisees a reason to talk to members when they came in.
The case study reports two results: members come into store 30 per cent more often than non-members, and each member spends on average 16 per cent more than a non-member. Bridgestone Select has also been recognised for service. It was named joint first in Canstar Blue's 2018 Most Satisfied Customers award for car servicing, according to Bridgestone.
These are encouraging figures. They are also comparisons between two groups that were never alike to begin with. Customers who choose to join a loyalty program tend to be the ones already more engaged with the brand: they visit more, they live closer to a store, they are more likely to come back anyway. A gap between members and non-members will appear even if the program changes nothing, because joining is a sign of loyalty as well as a possible cause of it.
The case study does not say how the figures were measured, over what period, or whether members and non-members were matched in any way. That is common in vendor case studies, which exist to show a program in its best light. It does not mean the program did not work. It means the figures cannot, on their own, show how much of the gap the program created.
The question a CFO will ask is not whether members spend more. It is whether the program made customers spend more than they otherwise would have. Answering that takes a design built in before launch.
We set out how retention connects to the wider set of brand measures in brand health metrics.
Treat retention as a memory problem. If customers buy every few years, the risk is not that they dislike the brand. It is that they do not think of it when the need returns. Contact should be timed to the moments the need is likely to come back.
Use the data you already hold. Bridgestone's program started from its own transaction data, not from a new survey. Most businesses with a point-of-sale or booking system already know when each customer last bought.
Make the next step easy. A reminder that leads straight to a booking does more than a reminder that leads to a phone call.
Decide how you will judge it before you launch. Once a program is live and everyone eligible is in it, the chance to measure its effect cleanly has gone.
Do loyalty programs increase customer retention?
They can, but the evidence most programs publish does not show it. Comparing members with non-members mixes the effect of the program with the fact that loyal customers are more likely to join. A random holdout group, or a before-and-after comparison of the same customers, gives a much more reliable answer.
What should a business with an infrequent purchase measure?
Behaviour, such as return rate and time between purchases, alongside memory, such as whether customers can recall the brand they used last and whether it comes to mind first when the need returns. In long-cycle categories, the second often explains the first.
Was Bridgestone Benefits based on brand research?
The published case study describes a program built on transaction data, timing and channel preference rather than on a brand research study. Survey research would add what transaction data cannot: how customers who never joined see the brand, and whether the program changed what people remember.
Bridgestone Benefits is a sensible answer to a real problem: keeping a brand remembered across years in which the customer has no reason to think about it. The reported figures suggest it is helping. Whether it is helping as much as the figures imply is a question only a measurement design can answer.
For any business running or planning a loyalty program, the useful lesson is to build that design in from the start, so the program's value can be shown to finance rather than assumed. Brand Health helps marketing leaders design measurement that separates what a program caused from what was already there.
Tom Morris is the Managing Director of Brand Health, an Australian brand research consultancy. He works with senior marketing leaders to design measurement programs that connect brand performance to commercial outcomes.