Can Customer Loyalty Programs Optimize Customer Journeys? A Study on Customer Loyalty Programs in the Airline Industry

Abstract

Comprehensive research has been conducted within the concepts of customer journeys and customer loyalty programs in existing literature. However, the two concepts being studied together remains unexplored, which represents an opportunity for further research. This thesis seeks to examine how airlines can optimize the customer journey through customer loyalty programs by investigating airline loyalty programs of different airlines. More specifically, it is investigated how airline loyalty programs can optimize and create additional touchpoints along the customer journey, enhance the customer experience, and enable value co-creation. In order to provide an adequate answer to this thesis’ research question, qualitative data has been collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with members from different airline loyalty programs. The results indicate that airline loyalty programs have significant opportunities in terms of optimizing the customer journey for their members, although certain negative aspects about the programs can be observed. As a result, this thesis concludes that airline companies can optimize the customer journey through loyalty programs by creating additional touchpoints, optimizing ordinary ones, and by enabling value co-creation. This can ultimately lead to an optimized customer experience for airline loyalty program members.