Balancing New Members and Non-members: Insights into the Impact of Loyalty Program Enrollments on Service Provider Performance
研究忠诚度计划新会员注册对服务提供商利润的影响，发现新会员增加利润但降低非会员消费，非会员可能因感到不公平而减少支出，管理经验与规则清晰度可缓解负面效应。
Loyalty programs remain a cornerstone in the relationships between customers and service providers. While most previous research focuses on comparing the effectiveness of loyalty programs by comparing the consumption behaviors of members and non-members, few papers have investigated whether new enrollees are profitable and how such enrollments affect non-members. Results across data from two different firms demonstrate that enrolling new members in a loyalty program can increase profits. However, additional studies provide evidence that increased new member enrollment is associated with decreased non-member spending, with new members seeking more discounts than other customers. We show that non-members may feel that member benefits are undeserved, thus decreasing their own spending. Adopting a service management approach, we argue that non-members should not be neglected as they also form an important asset class. Also, we find that experienced managers and greater clarity about loyalty program rules may mitigate some of the negative effects of higher enrollments. The results suggest that managers of loyalty programs may need to more actively assess the return on investment of established reward members, new enrollees, and even non-members.