It was a massive awards haul for Wyndham Rewards at the second annual Loyalty360 CX Awards held Tuesday at the Engagement & Experience Expo, hosted by Loyalty360.
Wyndham Rewards’ impressive performance included Platinum awards in the following categories: Best Brand Messaging and Communication in Customer Experience; Best Employee Engagement; and the 360-Degree Award.
The winning brands excel at creating meaningful and memorable customer experiences that build and sustain customer loyalty.
Loyalty360 CX Awards are presented to brands that have demonstrated excellence in the following categories: Best Brand Messaging and Communication in Customer Experience; Best Customer Insights in Customer Experience; Most Customer-centric Culture; Best Measurement in Customer Experience; Best Technology & Trends in Customer Experience; Best Employee Engagement; and the comprehensive 360-Degree Award.
“Customers are talking more than ever before,” Noah Brodsky, SVP Worldwide Loyalty and Engagement, Wyndham Hotel Group, explained. “When we can listen to them truly, it’s an advantage to be had. We heard loyalty programs were too complicated. That’s why we simplified ours.”
In May, the Wyndham Hotel Group launched a revolutionary new loyalty program that is easy to understand, provides valuable and attainable rewards, and is accessible to everyone. It’s the new Wyndham Rewards that launched with the tagline, “You’ve Earned This.”
With the new Wyndham Rewards, 15,000 points gives a customer a free night at any Wyndham Rewards hotel in the world with no blackouts and no restrictions.
It’s still 10 points per dollar, but now the program guarantees a 1,000-point minimum per stay. What’s more, the third component is called “Go Fast” and that’s for people who want to use their points more quickly. “Go Fast” only requires 3,000 points, plus some cash for a reward night.
“This is a program built for the masses,” Brodsky said. “It really does democratize loyalty. Because even if you aren’t a heavy traveler, you still get this incredible benefit, which is easy access to our upscale properties across the world. Nobody else does that. Others have made it so that you have to be a super user to earn enough points to actually redeem for something valuable.”
Brodsky explained that the company looked at the trend of point devaluation and decided that it couldn’t do that if it wanted true differentiation.
“In the past, we knew that we weren’t the strongest program out there,” he said. “But we want to be. And in order to be a real game-changing program, we wanted to do something that is incredibly innovative and, frankly, very difficult to copy. We have a really unique portfolio, we have the most hotels in the world, very broad distributions, and a great mix of value-oriented brands and upscale resorts in major cities. So we have a product that we think no one else can match and a really powerful value proposition.”
Other Platinum winners were: EMC (Best Customer Insights in Customer Experience); Guardian Life Insurance (Most Customer-centric Culture); Ryder System (Best Measurement in Customer Experience); and Chili’s Grill & Bar (Best Technology & Trends in Customer Experience).