As customer expectations shift and competition intensifies, brands are rethinking how they design and deliver loyalty programs that stand out. Loyalty360 reached out to Max Kenkel, Customer Solutions Manager at ITA Group, to explore how brands can create more impactful and emotionally resonant loyalty strategies. Drawing on over 12 years of experience across customer, channel, and employee engagement, Max shares practical examples, research-backed insights, and strategic guidance on what it takes to build loyalty that goes beyond transactions, and drives meaningful, long-term value.
Loyalty360: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself — your role with ITA Group and your background?
Max Kenkel: My name is Max Kenkel, and I serve as the Customer Solutions Manager at ITA Group, where I help lead our customer loyalty practice. With over 12 years of experience at ITA Group, I have worked across customer, channel, and employee loyalty programs. Customer loyalty has always been a passion of mine, and I’ve truly enjoyed building and growing a dedicated practice in this area.
L360: For those who may not be familiar with how ITA Group supports a brand’s customer loyalty efforts, can you give us a brief overview of what you do and the industries you work with?
MK: ITA Group offers four core solutions within our family of companies, supporting brands in engaging their audiences at every stage. Our Events solution helps brands plan and execute a wide range of experiences, from intimate 50-person top performer trips to conferences with 15,000+ attendees. Our Channel Partner and Employee Experience solutions keep employees and independent partners engaged, informed, and focused on delivering exceptional service with your brand at the forefront. Finally, our Customer Loyalty practice partners with brands to design and manage effective customer loyalty and engagement programs.
From an industry perspective, we serve clients in nearly every sector across all of our solution lines. Our primary areas of focus include retail, CPG, automotive, financial, tech, pharmaceutical, telecom, and QSR.
L360: How do you define customer loyalty, and what does it mean to your organization?
MK: We view loyalty as an outcome – the result of a brand’s ongoing efforts to build meaningful relationships and foster emotional connections with its customers. All of our platforms, programs, solutions and services are intentionally designed to keep audiences engaged and emotional connections high. Customers who feel emotionally connected to a brand are more likely to visit more, spend more, and give more share to our clients. By building strong brand equity in the minds of the customers, we increase the likelihood that they will choose our clients over competing brands.
L360: What do you think is working for your clients right now when it comes to building successful loyalty programs and strategies? Can you provide an example or two?
MK: Two key insights stand out from our recent work: the importance of conducting robust test-and-learns and leveraging non-branded, non-discount awards. For our largest QSR client, we began running weekly tests with 100 learning segments about six months ago. Since then, we have significantly improved promotion take rates, demonstrated that even subtle adjustments—such as offer wording—can yield substantial cost savings, and empirically confirmed that loyalty program members deliver far greater value than non-members. As a result, driving loyalty enrollment has become a renewed priority for the brand. For example, our testing revealed that a "$10 off" offer drove higher activation than "half price"—even though half price represented greater savings to the customer. This simple insight saved the client $2 per activation while generating a stronger response.
Additionally, our recent self-funded research uncovered that value and ease are the two primary drivers of loyalty program success—with value being three times more important than ease. The research also highlighted a growing customer fatigue with branded, discount-only programs, and a rising preference for experiential and aspirational rewards. We have helped clients address this need through our award solutions; one such client increased close rates by 30% after shifting from cash discounts to themed, tangible awards. These experiential rewards not only deliver better performance, but also create more memorable, positive brand impressions than single-use cash payouts.
We are currently fielding the second wave of this study, with results expected in September. This next phase will benchmark retail and QSR brands against previous findings and explore emotional drivers and ways brands can enhance their programs to build stronger, more positive emotional connections with loyalty members.
L360: What’s one piece of advice you would give to a brand that seeks to adapt or innovate its customer loyalty efforts? Are there any quick wins or consideration points a brand could implement into its current program to enhance the customer experience and keep customers coming back?
MK: There is so much convention in categories, and even across categories; meaning, loyalty programs are all basically the same. The outliers are those brands who have created some kind of signature moment that ties back to the brand strategy and brand promise. These outliers capture attention by differentiating the customer experience in memorable ways. To help our clients achieve this level of distinction, we developed a proprietary methodology called EPIC Design, which is specifically focused on delivering exclusive, brand-defining moments.
Even without a comprehensive overhaul, brands can make a significant impact by enhancing the value they provide to loyalty members. Customers are most responsive to genuine value, and brands that get the value exchange right can see up to six times more visits, spend, and brand share from their loyalty members. Effective segmentation is key; by offering high-potential customers unexpected value with minimal barriers, brands can drive conversion and long-term loyalty in a truly meaningful way.
L360: What barriers do brands face in achieving real-time personalization, and how can they overcome these obstacles?
MK: Legacy technology remains one of the most significant problems we see today, closely followed by brands taking on too much with already lean teams. This is a recipe for the status quo, resulting in program stagnation and eventual customer boredom. In our experience, most brands possess the necessary data, but are either too resource-constrained or face operational hurdles that make it difficult to act on insights effectively.
To overcome these barriers, find a partner that has flexible technology to meet changing customer needs and the horsepower to manage the day-to-day aspects of a successful loyalty program. This approach allows brand stakeholders to focus on strategic initiatives and the long-term vision, rather than getting bogged down in executional details.
L360: Among new technologies like AI, gamification, and zero/first-party data collection, which do you believe will have the greatest impact on loyalty in 2025? Why?
MK: Each of these approaches has a role to play in driving desired outcomes well into the foreseeable future. While AI will increasingly make it easier to deliver personalization at scale, and optimizing your ZPD strategy will meaningfully power that engine, I would advise brands to prioritize investments in upgrading their technology and delivering incremental, experiential value to customers.
Brands should begin offering additional value to key audience segments immediately—even while assessing the right partner for future technology upgrades. Enhancing program value, particularly through more compelling and experiential reward options, delivers up to three times the impact compared to simply improving ease or overall experience. To put it plainly, a brand that currently offers only in-store point redemption could achieve substantially greater results by introducing engaging, experience-based rewards right away, even before implementing any new technology. Our research supports that enhancing perceived value will drive significantly higher engagement and program success.
L360: Are there programs you admire/are loyal to from a customer loyalty perspective? What do you like about their offerings?
MK: I find it frustrating when brands operate loyalty programs that are disconnected from their broader marketing strategy or messaging. For example, there’s a local grocery store in my area that offers fuel discounts through a points program. However, the program name doesn’t align with any of the store’s strong marketing messaging, creating a disconnect for customers. Additionally, due to a long-standing partnership established at launch, a significant portion of points are actually redeemed at a competitor’s gas station.
Conversely, I’ve always been a fan of brands like The North Face who reward members with experiences that directly tie to the products customers buy from the brand. I also think Lowe’s and Omni Hotels are doing some really unique engagement opportunities this year that create lasting memories and repeated positive impressions for loyalty members.
L360: How do you think consumer expectations will continue to evolve in 2025, and how should brands prepare to meet them?
MK: I may have a somewhat simplified perspective, but I believe that if brands offer a quality product, deliver an excellent in-store and post-purchase experience, and keep their loyalty programs fresh and engaging, most customers will remain loyal. I’m concerned that ongoing market disruptions may limit customers’ discretionary spending over the next few years, but given the frequency of disruption, some level of volatility has become the new normal.
Perhaps the hardest thing to navigate will be how brands respond if customer wallets have significant compression. It’s critical that brands look for ways to create value without appearing opportunistic. One way might be to create value through necessities as the award. For instance, programs could deliver rewards centered around essential items, or offer unexpected value and larger, bundled savings during key sales periods. Even if overall consumer spending declines, brands can still increase their share by focusing on delivering genuine value. Ultimately, investing in customer value—in whatever form it takes—will almost always lead to stronger customer loyalty.
L360: Do you have any closing advice or thoughts? What’s next for ITA Group as we move forward in 2025?
MK: We have an aggressive roadmap of new features in development for Horizon, our customer loyalty platform, and we are constantly evaluating additional award partners that we can integrate to give participants the latest in experiential offerings. The second wave of our research will be available later this summer, providing fresh insights to further inform program strategy. Over the next eighteen months, we will also be attending numerous conferences, giving brands ample opportunities to connect with our team and discuss the evolving loyalty landscape.
ITA Group continues to be one of the most stable and financially secure organizations in the loyalty space, enabling us to serve as a long-term, growth-oriented partner. In fact, our longest client relationship spans more than 30 years, and our average partnership is a decade—demonstrating the loyalty our clients feel in return.
My biggest advice? Treat loyalty members like friends, and they will become enthusiastic advocates for your brand. If they feel valued only for their latest transaction, they’ll know it—and engagement will reflect that reality. Prioritizing genuine relationships unlocks powerful advocacy and enduring loyalty.