SAS EuroBonus – Automated up- and downgrading email

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Challenge
The SAS EuroBonus program is the very popular loyalty program with a total of 500,000 members who earn points every time they travel with SAS. The general idea behind the EuroBonus program is to motivate travelers to choose SAS for more of their trips. The program is divided up into categories, each with a number of advantages to achieve. In order to keep one’s status in the EuroBonus program, one must travel a certain number of times and/or earn a number of points.

The challenge was to increase sales by honing in on the communication in the up- and downgrading letter for the approx. 1,000 members per month who are right on the edge of either having enough points to upgrade or are about to fall a level down due to lack of activity. Formerly, communication had simply been a reminder that if one didn’t travel more often, one would be downgraded/if one traveled more often, one would be upgraded with a short overview of the new advantages one could achieve as a Gold member, for example.

Solution
“Help the customer understand what needs to be done”
By telling the customer what he or she needs to do in terms of what trips need to be taken to maintain status/be upgraded, we help the customer change lack of points into action.

Using past travel behaviors, we relevantly and precisely illustrate what needs to be done to attain the missing points. The communication is easy to decode and we help the traveler translate the point system into trips that he/she is familiar with.

Before: (former EuroBonus letter)
Former communication was simply a reminder of up- or downgrading without showing what the receiver had to do and how much of it in order to achieve/retain Gold status, for example.

Now:
You’ve earned 13,600 points – you’re missing 4,800 points. That is equivalent to 2 business trips to Paris (where you usually travel to).

The up- and downgrading program is aimed at members who are right on the “point border” between two card levels, i.e. potentially they will be:

• Downgraded if they don’t travel a bit more in the next 3 months

• Upgraded if they travel a bit more than they usually do with SAS in the next 3 months

Target groups:
• Keep Gold membership – test group + control group

• Upgrade to Gold membership – test group + control group

• Keep Silver membership – test group + control group

Creative idea

Imagine the Gold/Silver member card – and how to get it
The idea was to make it as easy as possible for the individual member to see what he needed to do to get upgraded to a Silver/Gold membership or to keep his Silver/Gold membership. We did this in three ways. By:

• Individualizing the message according to travel behavior (branch in points and past travel destinations)

• Use 4-color print – and branch in graphics, text, points, travel history, suggestions for trips in order to ensure 100% individualization

• Automate the program 100%

Beyond individualizing the letter text and destinations, we printed for example a cutout of a Silver membership card to those who could achieve Silver membership before their earning period ended. And for those who could achieve a Gold card, we printed the Gold card of course. In other words, the text and pictures worked together to show them that “it is possible – you can achieve it”, as we also tempted them with on the envelope.

1,000 letters are sent out per month.

Results
• Increased sales compared to former communication:

• Keep Gold membership: +26% DB with communication improvement
  
• Upgrade to Gold membership: +14% DB
  
• Downgrade to Basic membership: +23% DB

• Increased sales across the card levels: 14% per month

The new communication proves its ability to change travel behaviors. It gives a strong sales increase to an already-existing program simply by optimizing communication. This communication also demonstrates that there is great potential for growth among customers who are already regarded as the most loyal.

ZAPERA tested the previous and the new communication forms among 1,002 recipients and found that:

• More people appreciate the new communication – and will travel with SAS next time

• Liking has gone up from 66% to 80%

But, as they say at SAS: “It’s the sales that count”

The program is 100% automated and therefore only take a few hours to maintain.