February 05, 2026
Loyalty Programmes No Longer Feel Valuable to Anyone
Traditional loyalty programmes have a problem, which is that nobody wants what they’re offering anymore. According to new research from Info-Tech Research Group, the issue isn’t missing features or outdated technology. The programmes have simply lost touch with what makes customers stick around.
The firm’s latest blueprint, Modernise Your Loyalty Program Through a Digital Strategy reveals that, while customers sign up for more loyalty programmes than ever, they ignore most of them.
“Loyalty modernisation requires more than a platform upgrade. It requires cross-functional alignment on what loyalty is meant to achieve and how the organisation will measure it,” says Donnafay MacDonald, research director at Info-Tech Research Group.
Why Nobody Engages Anymore
Brand loyalty has collapsed because consumers finally figured out that most loyalty programmes treat them like interchangeable data points. The old points-for-purchases model feels mechanical and impersonal. What customers actually want is recognition and personalisation, proof that a brand sees them as individuals, not just another account accumulating rewards.
Delivering on that expectation has become an IT problem whether CIOs wanted it or not. The personalisation and recognition customers demand requires integrated data from POS systems, ecommerce platforms, CRM tools, and marketing automation. That puts IT leaders right in the centre of loyalty transformation, expected to build sophisticated customer experiences while wrestling with legacy infrastructure, confused business stakeholders, and success metrics that prove nothing.
Nobody agrees on what success looks like. Business teams throw around words like “growth” and “retention” without defining them, leaving IT with no stable target. When loyalty impact spreads across departments, proving ROI becomes impossible, which kills any chance of prioritising investments intelligently.
What Actually Works
Info-Tech’s blueprint recommends a three-phase approach that forces CIOs and business leaders to define goals together, evaluate initiatives based on feasibility and impact, then break plans into concrete execution with clear ownership and metrics. The framework treats alignment and shared accountability as prerequisites, not afterthoughts.
Modern loyalty demands relevance, recognition, and real personalisation. As consumers abandon programmes that feel generic, organisations need to drop transactional incentives for experiences that mean something.
Leading brands embed loyalty throughout the customer journey, integrating data across channels and using digital tools to deliver immediate value. This strengthens engagement, improves retention, and connects loyalty spending to business results.
The blueprint argues that when IT and business teams co-own loyalty, technology drives outcomes instead of just supporting them. Organisations can escape isolated initiatives and build loyalty ecosystems that customers actually use.
The path forward demands honesty about what’s broken, collaboration across functions to fix it, and new ways to measure success.
