Sam’s Club Customer Loyalty Case Study: Pushing Membership to an All-Time High

Initiative leaders realized their targets would be easier to achieve with customer loyalty experts on their side. They reached out to CCG for support.

Step 1: Set the foundation with research.

We kicked off the partnership by providing Sam’s Club with CCG’s internal retailer loyalty program benchmarking research. And we provided an extensive review of 22 other membership and loyalty programs, including competing warehouses, best-in-class retail programs and non-retail associations.

This information gave Sam’s Club a view into what other loyalty programs were offering, including the biggest-draw benefits that were most motivating for member enrollment and retention. And it revealed the “secret sauce” advantages above and beyond benefits that helped these programs succeed.

Throughout this process and what followed, CCG lent our experience and expertise by participating in the retailer’s loyalty initiative team meetings.

Step 2: Brainstorm ideas but watch the bottom line.

With a foundation in place, we were ready to begin the work of imagining and evaluating potential new membership benefits. Along the way, we’d also explore the possibility of adding a third membership tier to the existing Regular and Plus tiers as a way to fold in additional premium benefits for most valuable members.

In keeping with Sam’s Club objectives, we wanted to identify benefits that would motivate customers to increase trips and basket size. But we also wanted to maintain a sharp eye on margins so that any new benefits made financial sense. This was particularly important since the two most popular benefits of Plus membership — 2% cash back (up to $500 per year) and free shipping on most items with no minimum — were hard, monetary perks.

So, we keyed in on low- and no-cost benefits, including “soft” perks that don’t rely on discounting. We also sought out unique benefits that complemented the Sam’s Club distinctive voice and branding.

We made sure that key Sam’s Club personnel were part of the benefits brainstorming. For instance, we conducted a guided loyalty workshop with the Sam’s Club team to develop a raw list of potential benefits. And we interviewed more than a dozen store managers to obtain their benefit ideas.

Step 3: Narrow it down and prioritize.

From these brainstorming sessions, we pulled together a giant list of potential benefits, and then culled it down. We still had more than 70 ideas for the Sam’s Club team to consider. To make their decision process easier, we broke the list into categories based on the retailer’s brand pillars and the type of benefit, such as value/quality, convenience, experience, target-driven and immediate. Then we prioritized each benefit as first, second or third level of importance for re-energizing the membership loyalty program.

We also provided team leaders with industry metrics they could use in developing a financial business case to demonstrate to stakeholders the cost and revenue impacts of the benefits.