Powering Rewards
Delivering explicit value to drive customer loyalty.
Electric Ireland’s vision was to create a Loyalty Strategy that recognised and rewarded their loyal customers in a meaningful and generous way. By developing a Customer Loyalty Strategy that was driven by deep customer insights, seamless integration across the entire business and partnering with an iconic Irish Retail brand, Electric Ireland has delivered just that.
Electric Ireland is the country’s largest domestic electricity provider and second largest gas provider.
Following the deregulation of the electricity market, Electric Ireland still had a solid base of more than one million customers and so it became a strategic imperative to recognise and thank their most loyal customers for staying with them.
They appointed Leanne to develop a Loyalty Strategy that was built on solid customer insights, a robust business case, but most importantly, one that would be meaningful and generous to their customers.
As a result, Leanne worked with all areas of the business, including the Senior Management Team, to translate their commercial objectives into customer loyalty objectives and then ran numerous workshops with the teams in order for them to gain complete clarity on what a Loyalty Strategy could actually deliver for the business.
Three bespoke loyalty programmes were developed and taken into research with customers to truly understand what their needs, motivations and loyalty triggers were.
Solid insights were gleaned from the customer research, most notably: Customers wanted a combination of everyday explicit value and occasional spoils – which they had complete control over!
In other words, customers wanted to get something back for paying their electricity and gas bills that their entire family could benefit from, whether that be everyday value or an occasional spoil.
As a result, the Electric Ireland Loyalty Strategy was developed to specifically deliver on these insights, by giving customers what they wanted – and more! The Loyalty Business Case clearly set out the financial implications and expected return on investment from what would be a major step-change for the brand.
Electric Ireland’s Powering Rewards, launched in mid-2014 and gives members the choice as to how they would like to be rewarded.
Explicit value comes in the form of a partnership with SuperValu, which allows members to use the points that they earn on their energy bills to get either a 5% voucher at Supervalu or €10.00 to put towards their electricity and gas bills, allowing them to save up to €120 per year.
Spoils come in the form of exclusive seasonal rewards from relevant core partner brands, but most importantly, the occasional spoils give members get access to key Electric Ireland sponsorship events i.e. Electric Picnic – where they can stand the chance of winning tickets and exclusive access to this iconic event.
Within its first year, Powering Rewards delivered on the business imperatives and loyalty metrics that were set out in the Loyalty Business Case, including exceeding their registration target and, decreasing churn by more than half – for those customers that took part in Powering Rewards and as a result increased their overall retention rates.
Most importantly, since its launch, Powering Rewards has helped members save more than €1 million in energy costs and delivered thousands of occasional rewards. As a result, Electric Ireland has completely delivered on their vision of giving customers a meaningful and generous Loyalty Programme that they have complete control over.
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