[Anonymous]

[dchamra]

Greetings!

I am a grad student at Auburn University – and I need your help! I am working on my final research project & need 200 survey responses by Wednesday, Oct-26th. I would greatly appreciate if you could help me out by completing the survey at the following link – it is anonymous & takes about 5 min to complete. My project is on the ability of restaurant & hotel loyalty programs to create customer commitment.

Here’s the survey:

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22DJ4GJGD6E

Thanks for paying it forward and helping this student graduate in Dec!!! Please forward to anyone who you think would complete.

-d

[VintageKrug]

To make the link “live” you need to ensure it’s on a separate line all on its own.

[dchamra]

Thx! Please feel free to take my survey. 🙂

[NTarrant]

I am happy to complete your survey, but can you change the income question to include “prefer not to say”

[Why_use_a_silly_name?]

It’s a mistake to make answers to questions mandatory – especially the question about income, as previously noted. As it stands, if someone, for whatever reason, does not want to complete 100% of the questions you can only get a 0% response, which seems a bit counter-productive to me.

[VintageKrug]

I wouldn’t worry, NTarrant – it doesn’t ask for any identifying info, at most they’ll capture your IP address, which isn’t hugely useful.

I’ve no idea where Auburn is…!

Anyway, I just took the survey; I think you’ll put a lot of people off by saying it takes 15 minutes to complete. 5 minutes at most!

I’m not sure what restaurant loyalty programmes are – American Airlines’ AAdvantage scheme runs iDine across a range of different restaurants globally. Other than that, I can’t think of a true restaurant loyalty scheme here in the UK.

My comments related to hotels, and I’m sure I’d have given a different answer were restaurants my specialist subject; one can stay at the same hotel all month and spend a great deal of money, it would be mind numbing to use the same restaurant every day, and the financial outlay would likely be significantly less.

You mentioned “hotel” in the singular quite a lot, but I’m sure you’re aware that we sign up to loyalty programmes for many global chains – Marriott, Hilton, Starwood, ICHG being the main providers of these programmes. Though it does happen, I rarely stay in the same hotel all the time.

I answered your questions as if relating to a programme as once again I cannot think of a single-property programme which doesn’t have a wider loyalty affiliation with one of the larger groupings.

On the matter of loyalty, I actually think it’s all a con. Most people are relatively fickle, and with the profusion of so-called “loyalty” opportunities, many people (especially people like BusinessTraveller posters whose travel spend will be in the tens of thousands of dollars per annum) game the system. I am a participant in 12 airline loyalty schemes, three of which I am regularly (by which I mean use at least monthly) active in, with well over a million miles extant. For hotels, I am a member of 7 schemes though am similarly focussed on two in which I regularly use.

From my perspective, these schemes are a given; a baseline which I expect. To choose a flight or hotel without such an offering is an exception, and interestingly it’s usually only justified on the basis of it being extremely good value, innovative or having exceptional motivators to use the product (e.g. a luxury six star hotel). So particularly where hotels are concerned, it’s only really the mainstream, mid range brands which need these loyalty schemes.

Others compete on price at the lower end, or quality at the higher end.

I would be concerned if anyone genuinely “cared” about their loyalty scheme; there are more important things in life!

Some of the questions did seem somewhat repetitive, especially #s 24, 25 and 26 towards the end; I wondered if you’d been required to ask 30?

Having spent the time answering the questions, it would be great (if permitted) you could share you findings on here, as I’m sure they’d generate some commentary; that might even be an interesting way to make your project “stand out” from the crowd!

[PatJordan]

Survey completed, good luck with your studies.

Pat

[dchamra]

Thx All!!! I am down to needing 23 more…so if you know of anyone who can complete, please forward the survey link…much appreciated!!!

@NTarrant – Unfortunately, I cannot change the questions b/c the survey is revalidation of a survey conducted by researcher named Russell Lacey. Otherwise, there are several questions that I would have added and others I would have taken out.

@Why Use a Silly Name? – Unfortunately, Zoomerang does not let me allow people to N/A at some point in the survey. I totally agree with allowing folks to drop at any point – but the survey site forces you to either 1. complete all questions (even if it’s a “Don’t Know”) or 2. drop the results completely and opt out of the survey

@Vintage – I love your insight and feedback! Your viewpoint on customer loyalty programs follows the majority of the academic research – and that is customer loyalty programs are not, in fact, creating commitment. You do mention in your commentary that you are willing to go outside of a loyalty program for an innovative approach – can you give me an example of that?

And I will show my results, but cannot “publish” my paper due to University restrictions.

@PJordan: Thx!!!

Please forward!!! Help this student graduate!!! 🙂

Oh – and Auburn University is located in Auburn, AL in the US.

Thanks again for paying it forward!!! Much much appreciated!!!

[VintageKrug]

Well, I don’t choose restaurants based on loyalty schemes. Ever.

However, on hotels, I would give the example of the Yotel! capsule chain (Gatwick Airport, Amsterdam Schipol Airport and NYC) as a property/chain without a loyalty scheme which I chose purely on the basis of the fact it was “different”:

http://www.yotel.com/

I’d also highlight that poorly managed loyalty schemes can have the opposite effect; Dubai Based Jumeirah Group’s will be one of the largest luxury hotel groups within the next decade. Its Sirius loyalty scheme is very opaque, it’s extremely hard to redeem anything, and, the steps between being a mid range elite tier and a top rate are too high, there’s very little online functionality and it’s very Dubai focussed, which isn’t great if you are a regular at one of their other properties.

https://www.jumeirah.com/en/Sirius/

As a consequence of this, though I enjoy staying at their properties, I consciously avoid staying there becuase I know my loyalty will be recognicsed more fully by Ritx-Carlton (via Marriott) or Intercontinental Hotels (via Priority Club).

As an example of a quality property, I would highlight one of my favourite hotels http://www.beverlyhillshotel.com/ although that is part of the Dorchester Group and I do get “loyalty” benefits there, though that is based on an informal loyalty scheme.

Four Seasons Group is another luxury brand where no formal “loyalty” scheme exists (though it does exist behind the scenes), and they do have a very close tie-up with American Express which can give significant benefits.

[judynagy]

I just completed the survey, sorry I’m tardy but I figure it’s Friday and you’ll work over the weekend, right? I am pretty equally divided between HHonors and Priority Club and have top status with each. Hilton treats me like a queen and I’m amazed how much this girl from Miltona, Minnesota has grown to enjoy that … Priority Club is much more sketchy with VIP treatment, but between the two I always find a hotel that I like for a good price. I make a couple of trips to Europe a year, but most of my travel is in America. Probably the most fun these last couple of years is watching my husband, who would insist that he’s indifferent to it all, bask in the attention he gets as my “guest”. When you couple the elite bonus points with the affinity credit card, it’s hard to want to stay anywhere else.

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