Coalition Programs

Multi Partner Coalition Programs with Merit Loyalty Suite^®

The Merit Loyalty Suite architecture was designed to support large scale coalition loyalty programs.

Multi-industry

Merit allows coexistence and integration of partners from multiple industries, such as retail, petrol retail, banking, travel & hospitality, entertainment and telecommunications. Its industry-specific features recognize the need for industry-specific promotions, satisfying the strategy of each individual coalition partner, while preserving uniformity in administration and logistics.

For example, while a petrol retail partner needs to promote individual fuel types and convenience store items, a travel partner can base promotions on routes and the class of service. Merit supports all types of industry-specific promotions as well as generic promotions on the customer’s overall purchasing behavior. Moreover, it enables coalition partners to combine their offerings, capitalizing on cross-selling opportunities. For example, “Fly & Drive Offer: Fly with X airline, rent Y car and drive on Z petrol”.

Multi-currency Support and Cross Border Coalitions

Merit offers seamless multi-currency support, a critical feature for coalitions crossing the boundaries of a single country. It supports multi-currency transactional environments, with automatic currency conversion. For example, a banking coalition partner can introduce loyalty for transactions of its foreign currency accounts in local currency, as well as for foreign currency transactions of its local currency accounts.

Merit also provides various ways of cross-border issuing and redemption, which is achieved through a combination of Merit functionality and Axiom’s experience in designing cross-country logistics and billing processes.

Multi-lingual Communications

Merit’s multi-lingual features enable central administration of communications in multiple languages, recognizing the multi-ethnicity of European coalitions. Merit supports efficient, centrally managed and automated communications based on each individual customer’s preferred language.

Partner-specific Pricing and Promotions

Pricing and promotional schemes (such as discounts and points-based promotions) can be individually created per partner as well as centrally for the entire coalition.

For example, multiple retail partners selling the same item can have separate pricing and promotions, which can focus on a specific item or extend to a department, location or the whole country. Where desirable, a promotion can be extended to the entire coalition.

Logistics & Billing

Merit offers comprehensive support for all logistics processes of a coalition, which include redemption item order fulfilment and billing for points and services, all the way through custom interfacing with the main coalition partner’s accounting.

Open Interface Architecture

Merit has an open interface architecture philosophy that, apart from its standard interfaces and web services, allows for customization of input sources. Effectively this approach enables integration with any device capable of capturing transaction data and customer interaction, such as cash registers, EFT POS, kiosks, ATM, mobile phones and the internet.

Web Services

Through Merit eChannels module, Merit offers all web services needed for customer interaction with the loyalty program as well as for integration with electronic transaction channels, such as ecommerce and mobile commerce, enabling e-partners of the program to integrate loyalty processes in their online business.

Partner Portal

To provide support to coalition partners, Merit offers the Partner Portal. The Portal is designed to enhance the Partner’s experience and to minimize the partner administration effort of the coalition main administrator. It enables coalition partners to view and manage information regarding their participation in the coalition and for the program in general. Through the Portal, partners can perform transaction and billing-related inquiries, basic reporting and even manage their own campaigns. Governed by Merit security mechanisms, the Portal can be configured to provide access according to each partner’s level.

Axiom Coalition Experience

Axiom has extensive experience in designing and managing coalition programs. Our experience spans all aspects of a loyalty coalition, from partner selection and negotiations, to marketing, promotion design and logistics. Axiom offers such optional services before, during and after the implementation.