Kelly Hlavinka

Kelly Hlavinka

COLLOQUY
A partner of COLLOQUY, owned by LoyaltyOne, Kelly Hlavinka directs all publishing, education and research projects at COLLOQUY, where she draws on her broad experience as a loyalty strategy practitioner in developing articles, white papers and educational initiatives.
  • 0 comments 339 reads
    Posted on 2012-01-11

    Unexpected sources of program creativity

    I always have to suppress a big gulp of apprehension when I hear The Question.

    It comes all too often, from marketers and loyalty practitioners eager to spark up their programs: “What’s the best example of creativity in loyalty in my industry?” They’re looking for innovative strategies that that they can adapt to differentiate their own programs.

    After a hesitant pause, I have to be honest with my response. The answer is usually, “There’s just not that much creativity out there in your vertical.”

    It pains me to give such a disappointing answer, but that speaks to the larger issue of why I’m getting that question in the first place. Clearly, practitioners want to keep their programs fresh and evolving. They’re looking for creativity and imagination. But unfortunately, I see too many searching inside the box for out-of-the-box solutions. Why are practitioners so obsessed with only comparing themselves to...

  • 0 comments 658 reads
    Posted on 2011-09-28

    Groupon’s announcement of a new customer loyalty program follows on the heels of a rash of bad news that Wall Street is watching closely. Maybe that is why it seems that the program they just announced isn’t fully thinking through some of the most important loyalty marketing principles. The new program is thinking, as Wall Street does, in terms of dollars and not in terms of customer relationship equity.

    Here’s how Groupon says their customer loyalty program will work: the deep discounts that merchants serve up to acquire new...

  • 0 comments 558 reads
    Posted on 2011-09-14

    What company isn’t experimenting with the vast playground of social media platforms to cultivate word-of-mouth? The truth is that we all are trying out these new toys. And, it’s natural to have concerns about how social media can most productively work for engaging your best customers.

    That’s what makes six of the initiatives announced in the last 60 days so notable. These aren’t fleeting, experimental promotions. Instead, they seem to have staying power. Let’s review them based on COLLOQUY readers’ most frequently cited worries about social media efforts:

    1. "Communicating via social media is beneath the status of my brand." When companies like The Ritz-Carlton and American Express are fully in the social media game, it’s time to rethink this misgiving. For example, in late June, The Ritz-Carlton became the first luxury hotel chain to use a social media platform to deliver exclusive concierge services to their repeat guests. Using Foursquare as their platform...

  • 1 comments 1,010 reads
    Posted on 2011-07-27

    Who doesn’t have an airline travel fiasco story?  For business road warriors, it is like a badge of honor to complain about the time an airline lost your luggage just before the big agency pitch or missing a crucial meeting due to mechanical delays.

    My air travel story is no different than most – except for how United Airlines handled me.

    It starts like most travel-gone-wrong yarns:  gotta be at a business meeting by 11AM, up at 4AM, hit the 7:30AM flight … then, wham! airline mechanical delays.  My United flight to Toronto didn’t even take off until 3 hours after I was supposed to be at the meeting.  Oh well, stuff happens.  Relax and make the best of it.

    Then, the story takes a different turn.  Instead of letting a full plane of business travelers – most of them United Mileage Plus members – deplane & grumble all the way to their final destination, United nipped it in the bud.  As we taxied off the runway, cell phones powered up...

  • 0 comments 808 reads
    Posted on 2011-03-31

    People are talking.  Well, at least the COLLOQUY team is talking about the Breaking News item that Huggies is providing a unique choice to new parents. 

    Instead of just the traditional online coupon to drive more diapers off the shelf, Huggies is offering parents a 2-for-1 choice.  More precisely – that is a choice between a $3.00 or $1.50 incentive.  The “catch” is simple and pleasant – just tell 3 friends about the Huggies deal.  They also offer customers the choice of how to spread the news to other fellow parents:  via social networking sites like Facebook, via instant messaging or via a good old-fashioned email.  You can check it out yourself.

    In an environment where customers are having less product & service referral conversations (that’s right; read about one of the Word-of-Mouth...

  • 0 comments 569 reads
    Posted on 2011-03-17

    For months now, the FTC has been calling for a “do not track” list.  Similar to the past efforts to roll out the popular “do not call” list, the FTC had been urging businesses to self-regulate their monitoring of consumer activities on the web.

    But, the legislative tone on this issue just heated up.  Yesterday, Senator Kerry called for governmental legislation and indicated that he is working with Senator McCain on possible wording of a Senate “privacy bill of rights”. Add that to a bill that was proposed in the House of Representatives last month and you can see that there could very well be legislation on the way that affects the broad spectrum of web commerce, direct...

  • 0 comments 1,080 reads
    Posted on 2011-02-25

    Rising fraud?  Playing catch-up with international standards for US travelers abroad?  Conforming with our North American counterparts in Canada and Mexico?  Bowing to retailer’s demand for more protection against fraud at point of sale?

    Those are just some of the reasons that EMV compliance may be closer on the horizon for US financial services providers than previously predicted by analysts and industry experts.

    But the announcement by a third US credit union that they intend to adopt the EMV standards before they are mandated in the US have the team at COLLOQUY excited for an entirely different reason.  The latest EMV entrant in the US is the...

  • 0 comments 570 reads
    Posted on 2011-02-17

    If you are like me, you probably can’t help noticing the increased velocity of new American Express partnership offers.  As an American Express BLUE cardholder, I’ve always received a decent amount of special offers and communications.

    But, what was a babbling stream has turned into a veritable torrent of offers.  In my mailbox, it has reached a velocity of about 2 mailings/week on “earn points with this partner” or “get a special discount with that partner”. ...

  • 0 comments 981 reads
    Posted on 2010-12-20

    I guess I thought that the second week of December was a busy week for loyalty.  After all, Tibco bought Loyalty Lab and TeleTech bought an 80 percent stake in Peppers and Rogers that week.

    But — I was wrong.  Last  week ushered in news of an even bigger acquisition in the loyalty industry.  American Express announced the USD $660 million purchase of Loyalty Partner GmbH.  Besides acquiring the loyalty marketing services and capabilities of this loyalty service provider in Europe, the purchase includes the loyalty coalition Payback that currently operates in Germany and Poland.

    This move by American Express underscores just how attractive and increasingly competitive the loyalty space is becoming.  The “loyalty industry” is...

  • 0 comments 2,323 reads
    Posted on 2010-11-23

    Lessons from the Old World on Loyalty in Telecom

    The rate of change in the telecom industry exceeds nearly any other industry I can think of. New devices, smart phones, I-phones, mobile payments and 4G networks – that is just the beginning of a litany of continual changes and new product & service introductions that the telecom industry has unveiled to customers in the last few years.

    And – no surprise – we will continue to see the pace of new telecom product & service introductions accelerate even further.

    With such a keen focus on product innovations, it is easy to let the role of sound customer relationships get lost along the way. Certainly, when you really listen to what the major telecom companies in North America focus on, it is squarely centered on their virtual “arms race” of features and apps: Whose got the shiniest, coolest new device that you just must have this holiday season?