Customer Reward Programs (CRP) have increasingly been used in many industries and markets worldwide with the purpose of gaining customers and retaining their loyalty through repeated purchases in exchange of rewards. Currently, most of the retailers in the Swedish grocery store sector have implemented CRP of different types, from simple discount-based programs to complex multipartnership structures. Previous works have been carried on the competitiveness of the grocery retail market in Sweden, but these haven’t addressed the role of the CRP. Therefore, the objective of this thesis was to analyze the performance of the CRP offered by Ica, Coop, Citygross, Willys and Hemköp from a customer loyalty perspective. The discount store Lidl was also included although they haven’t implemented a CRP. The retailers included in our study covered approximately 93% of the market share in Sweden.   Data was collected through anonymous online surveys that included 12 questions addressed to households living in several Swedish cities. The online surveys allowed us to gather demographics data and info about CRP memberships, purchasing habits, customer loyalty, reward preferences, and customer awareness. In total 134 households replied the survey.   We found high store loyalty among the respondents. However, the strong preference for conveniently located stores indicated that most customers enroll in the CRP to take advantage of the repeated visits they already do to a certain store, which has a favorable location. In other words, we suspect customers become store loyal and then they enroll in the CRP. This attitude is masked as true loyalty but in fact it only implies a behavioral loyalty. Further deeper analysis shall be performed to confirm this finding.   We observed a clear increase of the customer loyalty (measured by share of wallet and purchase frequency) in respondents enrolled in CRP compared to not-enrolled counterparts. Households with children and households with high income had a greater tendency to participate in CRP and these two groups exhibited higher customer loyalty. Our results showed that the package of benefits and rewards offered by the CRP alone does not capture many customers into the CRP. Instead, customers looked for store location, quality and price as the appealing factors to enroll a CRP.   The survey results confirmed the dominance that Ica has over the Swedish grocery retail market. Further analysis combining level of expenditures and frequency of purchase showed that Lidl, Hemköp and Citygross performed quite similar within a group that does not capture great portion of the customer expenditure combined to a low purchase frequency. An output of our research showed that Lidl compete quite well with retailers that have CRP in place like Citygross and Hemköp, or on the contrary, that Hemköp with an advanced CRP does not attract customers sufficiently when compared to Lidl. An analysis based on the double jeopardy effect theory showed that Willys exhibits an “excessive loyalty”. This means, Willys had a higher frequency of purchase and level of expenditure than expected when compared against its market penetration level. Therefore, we identified that Willys overachieve results compared to the others retailers and also to Coop, its closest competitor. We concluded that a CRP with larger benefit scheme does not necessarily increases the customer loyalty to the store. Moreover, boosting CRP with multi-partnership programs that offer several experience rewards (spa, ski resorts, music events and travel tickets) could be inefficient for the grocery retailers since customers feel primarily attracted to immediate rewards related with groceries discounts.

Consumer loyalty programs are a key marketing strategy implemented across multiple industries in the United States. A successfully implemented loyalty program can benefit both the consumer and the company. The purpose of this single case study was to explore strategies that grocery store managers use to successfully deliver consumer loyalty programs. The theory of planned behavior was used as the conceptual framework to guide the study. Semistructured interviews, guided by the theory of planned behavior, were conducted with 4 participants who had direct involvement with the delivery of the consumer loyalty program, in Ocala, Florida. Data were also gathered from loyalty program documents and from reviewing the grocery store chain website. Data were transcribed and coded via Yin's 5 phases of analysis to identify themes. Mobile technology, consumer involvement, and lack of social media applications were the prominent themes that emerged during data analysis. The study findings are of interest to grocery store managers because they provide information for use in increasing store revenue, consumer satisfaction, and cost savings for grocery store chains implementing successful loyalty reward programs. Implications for positive social change include positive community initiatives and cause-related marketing campaigns.

[pt] Frequent flyer programs (FFPs) - programas de viajantes freqüentes, mais conhecidos como programas de milhagem - é um indutor de lealdade do consumidor. Ao premiar o cliente por acumular compras na companhia de forma não-linear, estes podem alterar a intensidade da competição no mercado. Estudos empíricos passados já tentaram estimar os efeitos dos FFPs nos preços. Entretando, a maioria focou em fazê-lo via dominância do aeroporto, aliança e outros. O objetivo deste trabalho é investigar o impacto da fatia de consumidores capturados nos preços correntes, causados pela introdução de custos artificiais de troca no mercado. A forma reduzida estimada sugere uma correlação de aproximadamente 13% entre preços correntes e a variável construída que representa um índice de fidelidade passado. O resultado é robusto a estimativas adicionais. / [en] Frequent flyer program is a type of consumer loyalty program. By rewarding consumer in a non-linear way for accumulating purchases, it may alter the intensity of price competition. Empirical studies have measured the impact off FFP in prices. However, they focus on its impact through airport dominance, alliances and other features. The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of the share of locked in consumers on prices, caused by the introduction of artificial switching costs in the market. The reduced form estimates suggests a correlation of approximately 13% between current prices and the constructed variable fidelization index. The result is robust to additional estimates.

This thesis deals with the reward system in educational institutions. The theoretical part is focused on the reward system of employees. Then it describes how to perform a successful employee evaluation and how to avoid mistakes that can come during the evaluation. Other part mentions forms of remuneration, motivation, and what is the role of wage in employees motivation. The theoretical part is completed with topic of educational institutions. The practical part is based on qualitative research, which is done in private elementary art school in Čecké Budějovice (První soukromá základní umělecká škola s.r.o. v Českých Budějovicích) and in the centre of ecological and global education Cassiopeia. For my research I used the analysis of provided manuals for staff remuneration and semi-structured interview. I surveyed the informations about evaluation of employees, if they are the basis for the subsequent remuneration in specific organizations.I created improvement proposal of evaluation, remuneration and motivation based on comparison of the discovered informations.