SVM LP, the global leader in gift cards and prepaid cards for businesses, announced the formation of a new business unit that will utilize its core competencies in gasoline rewards and stored value card management. The new business -- named FuelCircle --will initially leverage SVM’s relationships with BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Sunoco to create the first branded, nationwide network for the redemption of stored value fuel rewards. FuelCircle will align multi-channel reward issuers that recognize the value of its collaborative loyalty platform and desire to use the power of gasoline as the ultimate consumer reward.

SVM’s CEO, Marshall Reavis, said, “We’ve been humbled by the strong support we’ve received from the oil brands and as a result of their support we will be able to launch our new FuelCircle reward and loyalty division with nearly 40,000 fuel redemption locations in our network.” Reavis said that the 40,000 locations represent an estimated 450,000 redemption devices across the network.

PunchTab Inc., the loyalty experts, powering social and mobile-enabled reward programs for bloggers and businesses, announced the launch of a new solution, CRUSH, to help businesses analyze visitor engagement, and measure social influence. The service tracks user-behavior related to a business's website and social networks, providing an initial "CRUSH Score," along with suggestions to improve engagement and influence such as more frequent visits, longer visits and word-of-mouth evangelism in social channels. You don't have to run any PunchTab loyalty programs to take advantage of CRUSH. Web analytics company KISSmetrics is already piloting the service for its user base. "Understanding user engagement and activity is an essential component in making better business decisions. Solutions like CRUSH allow website owners to improve customer retention and satisfaction," said Hiten Shah, Co-founder & CEO of KISSmetrics.

On March 7 and 8, the PunchTab team demonstrated how CRUSH worked at the Launch Festival in San Francisco. "Thanks to hundreds of millions of data points, the CRUSH score offers a relevant representation of user engagement on a website, comparing it against a broad range of online properties," said PunchTab founder Mehdi Ait Oufkir.

German customers are placing ever higher demands on loyalty programmes and customer cards. According to a recent TNS Emnid survey, successful loyalty programmes must feature several attractive companies and also offer coupons that deliver tangible savings and benefits on purchases. These factors are a must for over 60 percent of respondents. Consumers are also interested in exclusive services and benefits available only with the customer card (56 percent). On average, Germans carry 4.4 cards in their purses or wallets. However, 35 percent of respondents now want to be able to use a loyalty programme not only in store but also online and while on the move. Payback is Germany's most popular loyalty programme. The subsidiary of American Express is trusted, likeable and well-known.
Most consumers carry between two and five cards in their wallets or purses, with four percent even carrying between eleven and 15 cards. Seven percent do not use cards or at least don't carry them in their wallets. Payback is the leading customer card, with more than eight out of ten Germans familiar with the programme and almost half of all households (46 percent) owning a Payback card. Cards such as the Ikea Club card (20 percent), the DeutschlandCard (18 percent), the Tchibo and Shell ClubSmart cards (twelve percent each) and Miles and More (nine percent) are also widespread. 39 percent of respondents said that Payback offers by far the greatest personal benefits, followed by the DeutschlandCard (twelve percent), the Ikea Club card and Miles and More (six percent each) and Groupon (four percent).

Loyalty and rewards programs vying for the attention of online shoppers should be focusing on miles and cut back on offers like free shipping when developing programs. These are among the results of a new analysis of online shopping behavior conducted by Billeo, Inc., creator of apps that help consumers save time and money while shopping or paying bills online.

"Miles, free shipping or points -- the options for online shoppers are many. And still, the majority of these offers go unused," said Murali Subbarao CEO of Billeo, Inc. "Online shopping presents a huge opportunity for brands and merchants looking to increase customer loyalty and financial institutions that need to drive card use. The marketing professionals who run loyalty programs just need better insight into what shoppers prefer."

The data, released by Billeo today, indicates that the rewards being offered by a loyalty program have a direct impact on where the person shops, what brand they chose and what card they use to make a purchase. According to the online shoppers in Billeo's network, people prefer miles to any other rewards offer they were presented with during the past year.

"Our analysis shows that online shoppers are almost six times more likely to use an offer that includes miles, compared to one that does not, " continued Subbarao. "The rising cost of airfare has turned earning miles into a significant motivator for consumers who are shopping online."

Alliance Data Systems Corporation, a leading provider of loyalty and marketing solutions derived from transaction-rich data, announced that BenchmarkPortal, in conjunction with the Center for Customer-Driven Quality™ at Purdue Research Park, has again recognized Alliance Data Retail Services with a "Center of Excellence" certification -- the most prestigious ranking attainable from BenchmarkPortal -- for the level of service achieved across the company's customer care centers. This recertification marks the seventh year Alliance Data has been certified as a Center of Excellence for the quality of its operations -- the most number of times of any company or organization in the financial services/credit industry to receive this designation.


Call centers ranked in the top 10 percent of those surveyed by BenchmarkPortal are awarded the Center of Excellence distinction, based on best-practice metrics for efficiency, effectiveness, quality, cost, and superior performance. These metrics are drawn from the world's largest database of objective and quantitative data, which is audited and validated by researchers from BenchmarkPortal in conjunction with the Center for Customer-Driven Quality, founded at Purdue University.

Heritage Bank has outperformed a competitive line-up of Australian banks to top the nation in customer satisfaction ratings.

Canstar Blue announced Heritage as the winner of the 2012 Challenger Bank award for the most satisfied customers. Canstar Bluer CEO Andrew Spicer presented the award to Heritage Bank CEO Mr John Minz in Toowoomba.

Heritage Bank received five star ratings for overall satisfaction, branch service, call centre service, internet banking, products and services, problem solving and friendliness.

Heritage outperformed ING Direct, BankSA, Suncorp, ME Bank, Bendigo Bank, Bankwest, BOQ, St. George and Adelaide Bank to take out the award.

CEO Mr John Minz said: “Winning this national award for customer satisfaction is gratifying but not surprising.

“As Australia’s largest customer-owned bank, our whole focus is on providing the best banking experience possible for our customers.

NICE, announced that it has integrated its NICE Interaction Management platform with its NICE Fizzback real-time customer feedback solution. The combined offering automatically generates requests for customer feedback at the end of an interaction and correlates individual customer feedback results with related interaction data. By consolidating this information into a single view, enterprises can gain deep and valuable insight into the root cause of specific customer dissatisfaction as well as the different aspects of the customer experience.

NICE Interaction Management customers can now automatically trigger post-call surveys, without the need for integration to their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. In addition, when a customer responds to the post-call NICE Fizzback survey, call center managers will be able to simply click and access the actual voice interaction from NICE Interaction Management. By gaining a more holistic picture of the interaction, organizations can quickly respond to individual customer needs as well as discover new best practices, improve operational processes and proactively reduce churn.

Astute Solutions, a provider of customer service and support CRM, social media and knowledge management solutions, and Transcend United Technologies, a managed services firm, have announced the finalization of a new partnership. With Transcend United serving as a value added reseller of Astute Solutions’ core product offerings, including their social media marketing solutions, the partnership will serve to globally broaden the initiatives of both companies.

With multiple offices located across both North America and India, Transcend United will begin as a reseller of Astute SRM™, a social relationship management solution. This partnership, however, is expected to evolve to include other core solutions, such as Astute Solution’s ePowerCenter™ and RealDialog™. Through this relationship, Transcend United will expand upon their already strong lineup of unified communications, network infrastructure, wireless, and backup, recovery and availability solutions, helping them serve their customer base in previously unexplored ways.