In this weeks episode of Let’s talk “a little” loyalty Tom Peace reviews the original podcast where Paula was joined by Karlijn Van Den Berg, HEMA’s Loyalty & CRM Manager, based in the Netherlands., who shares her insights on how drive customer loyalty the old-fashioned way.
With an incredible heritage of almost 100 years, HEMA’s approach to business showcases some of the key principles that drive customer loyalty – values like simplicity, consistency, and fairness.
3) #269: HEMA’s Heritage and Values Drive Customer Loyalty
Paula: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals. I’m Paula Thomas, the founder of Let’s Talk Loyalty. Today’s episode is hosted by Tom Peace, Managing Director of The Loyalty People, a strategic consultancy with a laser focus on loyalty, CRM, and customer engagement.
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Tom: Hi, I’m Tom Peace, Managing Director of the Loyalty People and presenter of Let’s Talk a Little Loyalty. Welcome to this week’s short summary show. In this week’s episode of Let’s Talk a Little Loyalty, I review the original podcast where Paula was joined by Karlijn van den Berg, HEMA’s loyalty and CRM manager.
Based in the Netherlands, who shares her insights on how to drive customer loyalty the old fashioned way. With an incredible heritage of almost a hundred years, HEMA’s approach to business showcases some of the key principles that drive customer loyalty. Values like simplicity, consistency, and fairness.
For those listeners not aware, HEMA is a department store originally from the Netherlands and now in several global markets. HEMA focuses on clothing and housewares but also other services such as insurances, electronics and photos. The business is nearly 100 years old and has recently taken private equity to drive global expansion.
HEMA is an established and well loved brand. Karlijn talks about how important design is to their business. And this is something that we all know the people of the Netherlands are extremely good at, but this is also reinforced by product quality across the HEMA range of products and services. And these elements are extremely important for a HEMA customer.
Knowing that the products will be well designed and of a high quality is a great way to secure customer attention and advocacy. Karlijn speaks at length through the original interview about how the brand makes people feel. I have never heard so many emotive adjectives used in an interview. Words such as inclusion, simplicity, subtlety, pragmatism, and optimism.
This is a brand that really cares about people’s emotional connection to their brand. The discussion covers traditional tiered based programs, and it’s clear that this was not going to be the right approach for HEMA.
HEMA wanted to inject fun into the engagement, yet another positive emotional response. This manifests itself as a gamified strategy, particularly a swipe to win game that provided members with all sorts of prizes, including Tompouce, a Dutch layered cake with pink icing.
I love this interview and I would highly recommend a listen. HEMA have 100 percent invested in loyalty at the very heart of their business. And I’ve added on some very clever gamified solutions to aid the engagement and fun. It’s not about rational value. It’s all about emotional connection. You can find the main show at www. letstalkloyalty. com. I’m first aired on the 31st of August, 2022, episode number 269. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed my summary show all the best and speak to you soon. Tom.
Paula: This show is sponsored by The Wise Marketer, the world’s most popular source of loyalty marketing news, insights, and research. The Wise Marketer also offers loyalty marketing training through its Loyalty Academy which is already certified over 500 executives in 38 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.
For more information, check out thewisemarketer.com and loyaltyacademy.org.
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