CVS Makes It Easy to Reap the Value of Loyalty

Making Savings Relevant, Easy, and Obvious!

December 11, 2014

Does your organization offer a rewards program that encourages loyalty, spending, and makes customers feel good about doing business with you? There are lessons to learn from the CVS ExtraCare Rewards program: tie your rewards to your core mission; make it extremely easy for customers to reap rewards; and proactively reach out to program members and show them how they have benefited from doing business with you.

NETTING IT OUT

Rewards programs should entice customers to spend more and stay loyal. CVS’s ExtraCare Rewards does a good job of achieving this in a number of ways:

Bonus rewards are given for customer behaviors, actions, and purchases that are relevant to the company’s commitment to helping people become more healthy.
Finding out about, obtaining, and redeeming rewards can be done easily in a variety of ways that can appeal to the different ways customers like to shop.
Individual reward program members are proactively notified of how much they have been saving over the year, which encourages loyalty and gives customers a sense of pride for being such smart shoppers!

So Many Savings Opportunities!

So Many Savings Opportunities!

CVS EXTRACARE REWARDS

I’m a fan of the CVS ExtraCare rewards program. Unlike some rewards program, where you have to spend and spend and then can only redeem rewards after accumulating $50 or 20,000 miles or a million points, CVS gives you Extrabuck rewards each quarter based on what you have spent.

In addition, you are regularly offered discounts either in-store or online via email, register receipt coupons, and in-store kiosks. CVS makes is easy to save a lot, and other businesses could learn from its model.

Oh, sure, I have issues with some aspects of the rewards program: you can’t use your Extrabucks to pay for prescriptions, you get a lot of irrelevant offers among endless streams of coupons (can’t remember when or if I ever bought diapers, so don’t need $1 off), and often the spending threshold is high to get a reward (I don’t usually buy $10 worth of Band Aids at once—I’m not that clumsy).

But, over all, I am very happy with my ExtraCare rewards. Here are some of the reasons why.

RELATE YOUR REWARDS TO YOUR COMPANY’S RAISON D’ÊTRE

Rewards for Wellness Activities

CVS is a company that, according to its website, is dedicated to “Helping people on their path to better health.” That’s a very noble mission, and the company encourages better health by offering rewards for health-related actions and purchases, including... (more)