Reducing churn risk through tenure-based recognition

• Problem Discovery - reframing loyalty around trust
• Key Decisions - the choices that shaped the outcome
• Insights & Outcomes - what the research revealed

Discovery found that long-tenure customers with relatively few policies could perceive loyalty programmes as unfair. Newer customers with larger product portfolios often received more visible recognition, despite shorter relationships with the organisation.

The issue was not a lack of benefits. The issue was a lack of visible, timely and meaningful recognition. This created dissatisfaction, weakened emotional loyalty and increased churn risk among valuable long-term customers.

The challenge was to identify a response that improved customer perception while working within strict business constraints, including no new discounts and no changes to existing discount structures.

My role

I led product discovery, workshop facilitation, journey mapping, concept generation, prioritisation and customer validation. I worked across product, design, customer strategy, marketing and executive stakeholders to align on both the customer problem and the most appropriate first increment.

Reframe loyalty from rewards to recognition

The early discussion focused on new benefits, tiers and incentives. Research showed customers were more concerned with fairness and recognition than additional rewards. I helped shift the conversation from “what new rewards should we give customers?” to “how do customers know they are valued?” This fundamentally changed the direction of the work.

Prioritise visibility before adding new value

Rather than creating expensive new programme mechanics, we explored ways to surface existing value more clearly. This included relationship discounts, tenure milestones, renewal communications and loyalty recognition moments. It reduced delivery risk while addressing the primary source of dissatisfaction.

Use customer validation to prioritise concepts

Stakeholders generated multiple candidate concepts ranging from dashboards and anniversary recognition through to tier models, video calls and gamified rewards. We then validated the concepts directly with long-tenure customers using Kano analysis. Prioritisation became evidence-based rather than opinion-based.

Separate risk mitigation from differentiation

Analysis revealed some concepts protected against dissatisfaction while others acted as future differentiators. This allowed the roadmap to distinguish between features that customers expected and features that simply created delight.

What the research revealed

• Long-tenure customers associated loyalty with relationship duration and trust rather than product count
• Recognition often mattered more than creating additional incentives
• Visibility of existing discounts and benefits reduced perceived unfairness
• Priority assistance, relationship milestones and loyalty dashboards showed strong potential as differentiators
• Several highly visible ideas, including anniversary video calls and some gamified rewards concepts, tested poorly and were deprioritised

What changed

• Created executive alignment around a customer-centred definition of loyalty
• Established a prioritised roadmap for recognition and loyalty initiatives
• Identified high-priority concepts including discount visibility, loyalty-protected excess and lifetime recognition benefits
• Provided customer evidence for sequencing delivery into immediate, future and experimental workstreams
• Reduced the risk of investing in concepts customers did not value

Reflection

The most important lesson was that loyalty programmes are often designed around business metrics rather than customer perception. A programme can be economically rational and still feel unfair.

This project reinforced the value of defining the customer problem before investing in solutions. Once the team understood that recognition was the real issue, the roadmap became significantly clearer and easier to prioritise.