Client is a U.S.-based national newspaper with daily circulation of more than a million copies. The parent company is a diversified media organization operating newspapers, television and radio stations, magazines, databases and Internet businesses.

Client restructured its existing offline loyalty program to expand its reach, enhance the benefits delivered and align the program’s structure with overall loyalty objectives. Client wanted to reinforce retention among subscribers, encourage repeat purchase, provide unified registration experience and leverage product assets for cross-sell and up-sell opportunities through its marketing programs.

We assembled key stakeholders (some with differing points of view), gathered requirements and implemented the project, followed by support. Some of the key components of the application were:

• Enrollment of subscribers through credit card registrations.
• Online shopping through participating online shops.
• Points redemption through subscriptions or merchandise.
• Complete account management for each subscriber.
Administration for handling customer care and queries.
• Interface with publisher’s subscription systems and with the global user profile.
• Interfaces with external systems such as rewards partner, payment gateway, shipment and fulfillment partners.

We offered expertise in IBM’s Websphere Commerce Server (WCS) by providing a technical architecture that inherits the WCS technical framework coupled with custom-developed components. A key challenge for the client was to bring different departments together, especially the digital and print arms. This, coupled with integration of different participating partners and vendors proved most challenging. We have engaged with this client for more than four years and completed multiple projects across different portions of their business.

• Increased online usage across client properties and increased earning of points.
• Improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Free access to premium digital content for client’s online and offline subscribers.
• Two-tiered points program with escalating rewards based on subscription status.
• Improved and consistent user experience and centralized profile management.