For Shawn Stewart, Associate Vice-President, Loyalty, Canadian Tire, customer loyalty is a major vehicle that helps drive business, customer retention, and acquisition across all channels.
“For Canadian Tire, customer loyalty has always been about rewarding customers for choosing us as their retailer, but as things have evolved over the years, the idea of a “one-size-fits-all” program is no longer a reality,” Stewart explained to Loyalty360. “As it evolves, our program will help us get to know our customers even better than we do today by using data to drive engagement through relevancy. As we learn more about them, we’ll increasingly personalize the overall shopping experience – everything from customized rewards to the digital flyer and our website. Whereas loyalty may have once been just about the rewards, it’s now very much a tool to drive business, customer retention, and acquisition across all of our channels.”
Canadian Tire’s iconic loyalty program−My Canadian Tire ‘Money’−went digital in November. The program will complement paper Canadian Tire ‘Money’, which will remain in circulation. Canadian Tire money is known for its fictional Scottish character known as Sandy McTire.
“Meeting customer needs has always been at the heart of our innovation strategy and ensures that everything we do has a positive end benefit for our customers,” Stewart said. “Our customers told us that they wanted a more convenient, value-driven program that rewards them for their loyalty and allows them to get more from shopping at Canadian Tire. With this understanding, we created My Canadian Tire ‘Money,’ combining the best attributes of our iconic paper Canadian Tire ‘Money’ with the benefits of a digital rewards program, including enhanced flexibility and the ability to collect Canadian Tire ‘Money’ easier. The program gives our customers the power of choice, as they can now choose to go digital, or continue collecting and redeeming our paper ‘Money,’ which will remain in circulation.”
Stewart said that the customer feedback gathered by Canadian Tire is used in the short term to escalate any urgent customer issues for timely resolution and to acknowledge positive feedback whether it involves outstanding in-store staff or other successful programs.
“Beyond that, we love direct customer feedback and input to help shape and refine programs,” Stewart explained. “The design of our new loyalty program was largely based on learning and customer feedback from our pilot program in Nova Scotia. We shifted away from a points system because feedback we received from our Nova Scotia customers confirmed the need to maintain one of the most beloved aspects of shopping at Canadian Tire – Canadian Tire ‘Money’. We kept the best aspects of our existing loyalty program, combining them with digital enhancements that make it easier to collect and redeem.”
Canadian Tire leveraged customer panels to help test products and readily shares customer feedback with its marketing, merchandising, store ops, and dealer partners.
“This thoughtful approach to innovation is how we’ve maintained our position as Canada’s Store for more than 90 years and exemplifies our ongoing test-and-learn culture,” Stewart added. “With that in mind, we’ll continue to incite feedback from customers in a variety of ways, ensuring the program is meeting their needs.”