UK: ON THE LOYALTY BANDWAGON.

Loyalty marketing is de rigeur - it may also be misplaced.

It's a truism that the cost of acquiring a new customer usually far exceeds the cost of keeping an existing one. (Studies by Bain and Co suggest that a 5% increase in the rate of customer retention can produce a dramatic increase in profit, in certain cases as great as 85%.) Hence the enormous current interest in customer retention programmes. Yet some experts maintain that most 'loyalty marketing' is misplaced and self-defeating.