The concept of languishing has come up a lot lately. Not just because I listen to psychology podcasts and am always drawn to something that explains curious patterns in human behavior. When things like cost of living challenges and increased political unrest or uncertainty are layered on top of our every day lives, it’s easy to see how people fall into a state of languishing. It’s particularly relevant as the summer season tails off, the kids go back to school and we’re all facing colder months with a long stretch before the next vacation.
Languishing isn’t depression. It’s the opposite of flourishing though. Getting by. Feeling Blah. Lackluster. Disconnected. People languish in prison. Teenagers are prone to a bit of languishing as they figure out their place in the world. The Covid pandemic was also the trigger for increased languish globally.
It isn’t just people who fall into a state of languishing. Businesses languish too. Sometimes they just become too big to notice that the daily grind isn’t doing it for anyone anymore—for the people who work there or the customers they serve. Sometimes the languish stems from just focusing on the BAU and failing to drive the innovation or change that keeps things interesting and moving forward.
An area of business across every industry that I see languishing today is the world of loyalty. When was the last time you got excited about a new loyalty program for a brand? There was a brief flutter of interest in subscription-style loyalty post-pandemic like “Club Pret” or “Barnes & Noble Premium,” but many of those have been diluted or dissolved altogether. Amazon Prime remains one of the most successful loyalty programs in the world, so there is definitely something in the subscription model. Prime may be languishing a little too though. It’s just flying cleverly under the radar so that nobody has noticed yet.
Loyalty hasn’t really evolved in the last couple of decades. Points programs for airlines, hotels and credit cards remain much of a muchness. Department stores and retailer programs have doubled down on what they know: undifferentiating deals and discounts. And membership schemes that once promised a different kind of loyalty engagement have fallen into the “meh” trap and now struggle to justify prime app real-estate on our phones (Nike, Nandos, Starbucks, I’m looking at you).
I rarely come across a business where loyalty is really driving commercial growth, customer engagement, or brand impact. It has become part of the furniture, often disconnected from the rest of marketing (sometimes not even part of the marketing department)—a source of frustration for CRM teams and something too complicated to unpick or disrupt. It usually washes its face, but isn’t setting the world on fire. Languishing.
So can the world of loyalty dust itself off and get back to becoming a critical driver of business growth? I think so, yes. But it isn’t as simple as just prodding the loyalty team to pick up the pace or give a facelift to an old program. Loyalty needs a ground-up rethink.
Sociologist Corey Keyes is an expert on “languishing” and has outlined 5 key strategies to overcome the sense of low-grade weariness that can invade our day-to-day. I think the same 5 strategies can be applied to languishing loyalty.
- Find purpose.
Loyalty programs need to have a clear commercial purpose in any business. Too many exist because “we should have a loyalty scheme.” And too many have fuzzy attribution or vague “customer engagement” objectives. If it isn’t changing the fortunes of the business, is it really worth the effort? Decide on an audacious and valuable commercial purpose and throw everything at it. Then measure religiously to ensure constant forward momentum towards something bigger than you even thought could be possible. Amazon Prime did this brilliantly in the beginning.
2. Seek spirituality.
Spirituality is rare in business. Very few brands come close. But loyalty programs can help brands to transcend the transactional, to build fans and followers who will advocate and evangelize. Sometimes this is achieved through new rituals: Duolingo and Peloton have certainly got me singing their praises. Sometimes it’s about offering a new way of life: Hello Fresh and Uber are changing entire industries one follower at a time. And sometimes the opportunity for collective worship is at the core of the brand’s success: the Harley Owners Group makes me wish I had a motorbike again.
3. Build warm relationships.
Loyalty should be all about customer relationships, but sometimes brands forget that relationships are a two-way street. Pushing twenty emails into my inbox every month does not a relationship make. Modern marketing technology means brands have the ability to really listen to every customer and to respond with the kind of empathy that creates connection and builds real community. What if the starting point was not “How do we get customers to come back and buy more?” but “How can we be more loyal to the customers who are valuable to us?” The telecoms, insurance or energy brand that does this first could blow their competitors out of the water.
4. Learn something.
A loyalty program should be a rich source of insight for a business. The data from your loyalty customers should be able to tell you something new and valuable every day. You have to ask the questions though. And if the answer isn’t forthcoming from the data, maybe just ask the loyalty customers directly? Customers love nothing more than to talk about themselves and a loyalty program is a direct line to a conversation about what matters to them. Monzo built their challenger bank business from scratch by asking customers to participate in business decisions like what the brand name should be and what product features should be developed.
5. Make time to play.
Stamp collections are not most people’s idea of fun. Sorry, philatelists of the world. There is no reason loyalty can’t be more playful. Loyalty is supposed to improve the customer value exchange. You don’t need to give away discounts or products to do that. People value fun, surprise, anticipation, distraction, joy and collective laugh-out-loud experiences. The KFC Rewards Arcade is a perfect example of play in loyalty. We learn through play too, so if you really want to tell customers about your products and services, don’t send them bullet points in an email—turn it into a game.
Languish is a feeling everyone knows to some extent and if you can identify it in yourself, your friends, family or colleagues, your business or your loyalty programme, you can do something about it. If there’s one thing to do, it’s take action now. Languishing doesn’t fare well against proactivity.