Overview of Siebel Loyalty

This chapter provides an overview of Oracle’s Siebel Loyalty. It includes the following topics:

About Siebel Loyalty

Oracle’s Siebel Loyalty is a multichannel application that enables companies to create dynamic, cross-industry loyalty programs that drive strategic customer initiatives. Companies can drive desirable member behavior and foster long-term customer loyalty by creating reward programs and promotions. For example, it can be used to create and manage:

Airlines' frequent flyer programs
Hotels' frequent guest programs
Retailers' frequent shopper programs
Cruise Lines' and Railways' frequent traveler programs
Telecommunications firms' loyalty programs

Any of these programs can include promotions, which give members extra rewards for specific behavior. For example:

A promotion can give members bonus points for purchasing a specific product during a specific month.
A program can include promotions that give a member a set number of points for completing a purchase, additional points for being part of a high-level tier, and more points after three items are bought.

Siebel Loyalty Members

The members of programs can be:

Individuals. Each individual has a unique Membership number. Most business-to-consumer programs, such as programs for airlines, hotels, and retailers, enroll individuals as members.
Households. Each household has a unique Membership number. Multiple individuals can be part of the household, and an individual accrues or redeems points through the household's membership For example, a grocery store or retail store might enroll an entire household in a program, so the household gets the bonus no matter which member of the family makes purchases.
Accounts. A company or an organization is the member. The account is generally used for business-to-business loyalty programs. For example, some companies, such as transportation firms, run loyalty programs that only have companies as members, so the company gets the reward whenever any of its employees makes a purchase. Some airlines' frequent flyer programs provide rewards to the individual who flies and to that individual's employer, which is an example of a mixed individual/account loyalty program.

Siebel Loyalty Users

Siebel Loyalty can be used by:

Host Organization’s Employees. Sales employees and member service representatives can enroll customers as members in loyalty programs, sell products that give rewards to members, redeem members’ rewards, and resolve members’ service requests. Other employees include administrators that configure server components and engine parameters. In addition, the relationship marketing manager can set up programs, partners, products, and promotions.
Partners. Partners can use the Siebel Loyalty Partner Portal to work with Siebel Loyalty through the Web. If it is appropriate to the business model, then partner companies can deal with members in the same way that the host organization employees can. For example, in the automobile industry, it is typical for dealers to sell products to customers and enroll customers as members in reward programs. In addition, you can reward partners based on their sales of your products.
Customers and Members. Customers can use Siebel eLoyalty to sign up as members in programs through the Web. Members can use eLoyalty to check their point balances, redeem their points for rewards and perform other activities through your Web site, such as updating profiles, generating statements, referring friends, and logging service requests.

All of these users share information in the same database, and they are all able to view information that the others entered when appropriate. For example, when members use eLoyalty to self-enroll, your employees can see the information they entered.

Roadmap to Working with Siebel Loyalty

The life cycle of a loyalty program typically has three phases—design, implementation, and measurement.

Designing a Loyalty Program

To design a loyalty program, you must do the research and analysis to determine who your best customers are and how you want to affect their behavior.

Depending on your business model, you might want to increase the frequency of a customer's interactions, the total dollars spent for each transaction, how often members use the Member portal rather than phoning the call center, or other behavior.

For example, a major airline might find that 10 percent of its customer base generates more than half its total revenue. When the airline recognizes that frequent flyers are the major source of revenue, it can design a loyalty program to appeal to frequent flyers, which would increase the frequency of their transactions.

Oracle Business Intelligence can help you analyze your customer base. A smaller research effort might just select the target customers, design the program, hold focus groups to get feedback, and then roll out the program. A more advanced effort can include simulations of customer segments, reward thresholds, and financial analysis to maximize the program’s impact on customer behavior across the customer base.

Implementing a Loyalty Program

To implement a loyalty program, perform the following tasks:

Setting Up Siebel Loyalty. You must install and configure the product. For more information, see Getting Started with Siebel Loyalty
Setting Up Programs. You can design one or more loyalty programs, such as frequent flyer programs for airlines, bonus point program for supermarkets, or other programs appropriate to your industry. For more information, see Setting Up Siebel Loyalty Programs
Setting Up Memberships and Other Loyalty Services. You must define memberships for various member types and define other loyalty services. For more information, see Working with Siebel Loyalty Program Members
Setting Up Promotions. Within the program, you can design special promotions, such as extra bonus points to encourage customers to buy a new product that you are trying to promote or to make purchases during the slack season. For more information, see Setting Up Siebel Loyalty Promotions

Measuring a Loyalty Program’s Results

After a program is in place, you measure its results to see whether it is achieving the goals you set during the design phase.

For example, if the goal was to make your most frequent customers increase the number of transactions, then you would measure:

How much these transactions have increased?
What effect the increase has had on revenue and earnings?
What is the ROI of the program? (ROI is defined as the increase in earnings divided by the cost of implementing the program.)

This measurement of the results can help you improve the design of the current program. Like the design phase, the measurement phase can use Oracle Business Intelligence.