How to Change Your Loyalty Program Without Losing Customers(or Your Job)

Written by Pavel Los, a loyalty and CRM practitioner with 20+ years in marketing and loyalty, leading large-scale programs across local and international environments (including Shell and Oracle).
I help brands audit, redesign, and activate loyalty programs—improving time-to-value, engagement loops, and measurable ROI through practical frameworks, workshops, and hands-on consulting.

We’ve all seen loyalty program changes go disastrously wrong, from major brands facing public backlash to customers abandoning programs overnight. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

The year of 2025 is shaping up to be a challenging year in quite a few areas including loyalty programs. With tighter margins and rising customer expectations, brands need to think bigger and act boldly. But how do you make radical changes without losing customers or facing internal resistance? That was the central question on the latest Loyalty podcast by The Loyalty Podcast , where I joined Iain Pringle and David Cantyy to discuss how brands can successfully rethink their loyalty strategies.

Here are my key takeaways from our conversation. There is loads more, but I felt these are most critical.

1. Think Big: Loyalty Needs to Solve a Real Problem

Loyalty programs often fail because brands focus too much on copying competitors instead of truly understanding customer needs.

David Canty put it best:  "Sometimes you need to be a little bit courageous... You don’t necessarily need to be going out and looking at what everybody else is doing and saying, ‘I need to do that.’ You need to actually understand what is the problem that you're looking to solve for your business and for your brand."

Key Takeaways:

• Start with data - what’s actually happening in your current program?
• Listen to frontline staff - they hear customer feedback daily.
• Look beyond your industry - fintech, gaming, and retail are shaping the future of loyalty.

2. Stakeholder Buy-In: Speak the Language of Profit

No loyalty transformation succeeds without executive support, but too many loyalty teams talk about engagement rates instead of ROI.

Make it about profit, not about points. Senior management wants to hear the impact. Quantify what you're going to achieve, talk ROI, use real-world benchmarks, and speak in commercial terms.

How to Keep Stakeholders Onside:

• Frame the change as a business necessity, not an experiment.
• Create an “Executive Advisory Board” - get key leaders involved early.
• Align with company-wide KPIs - make loyalty a core part of the business, not just a marketing initiative.

3. Managing Customer Backlash: Expect the Storm

Customers hate change, even when it’s ultimately in their best interest. The moment a loyalty program is adjusted, expect resistance, whether from long-time members who feel they’re losing benefits or from new customers who don’t yet see the value. Or just those who feel like commenting.

The biggest mistake brands make? Underestimating the emotional connection customers have to a loyalty program. When you change how people earn and redeem rewards, you're altering a habit they’ve built over time. That’s personal to them.

Best Practices for Communicating Change:

• Be brutally transparent - Customers respect honesty. If perks are being reduced or adjusted, tell them why.
• Give enough notice - Sudden changes cause frustration. A transition period of 3-6 months helps ease adoption.
• Craft clear messaging - Avoid marketing spin. Explain exactly how the program is evolving and why.
• Anticipate the outrage, and ride it out - Social media will always amplify dissatisfaction, but the storm will pass if the program delivers real value.

The Reality: Even the best-planned changes will receive pushback. The key is not to panic. If your program change is backed by strong data, a solid strategy, and clear communication, the backlash will fade, and the long-term benefits will outweigh the short-term noise.

The customer communication deserves a whole article of its own. So watch this space.

4. The War Room: Handling Internal Resistance

Even if leadership is on board, middle management can quietly kill a project if they don’t feel ownership.  What worked for me was creating an Executive Advisory Board... Make them feel important, get them involved, and let them validate key decisions.

How to Keep Internal Teams Aligned:

• Hold “War Council” meetings, where teams openly discuss challenges and solutions.
• Test decisions internally before presenting to executives.
• Make middle management champions, not blockers.

Iain Pringle and the Avios team held “family dinners”, sessions where they discussed objections before facing leadership. This approach with an attitude of what happens here stays here ensured they had answers to tough questions before presenting ideas.

Final Thought: Loyalty Success = Courage + Execution

"Nothing is ever set in stone. Loyalty is a continuous evolution. Being nimble enough and flexible enough to evolve is critical to the health of any program." David Canty

Key Takeaways for Loyalty Leaders:

• Start with data, understand what’s working and what’s not.
• Think big, but don’t just copy others, solve real problems.
• Get executive buy-in by proving ROI, not just engagement.
• Over-communicate with customers, transparency builds trust.
• Prepare for internal resistance,middle management can make or break success.
• Measure & adjust based on data and feedback.

2025 will be a make-or-break year for many loyalty programs. Customers expect seamless, personalized, and meaningful rewards, while businesses face budget constraints and shifting consumer behaviours.

The brands that will succeed are the ones that dare to think big, align their vision with measurable business impact, and communicate transparently with customers. As a loyalty leader you can get it right, and you’ll be seen as an innovator. Or get it wrong, and you’ll be the case study no one wants to follow.

• Loyalty transformation isn’t just about tweaking a program, it’s about rethinking the entire value exchange.
• Internal buy-in is critical, if stakeholders don’t champion the change, it won’t succeed.
• Customer trust is built through honest, proactive communication, backlash is inevitable, but it can be managed.

The key to success? Be bold, be strategic, and most importantly, be customer-centric.

Now over to you: what challenges have you faced when making big changes to loyalty programs?

Thanks for reading. Follow me on LinkedIn