Nearly 9 in 10 Italians are enrolled in a loyalty program. It’s one of the most frequently cited figures in the sector, often treated as a health check. But it’s worth separating enrollment from loyalty — they’re not the same thing.
Someone enrolled in a program has accepted a card, downloaded an app, left an email address. Loyalty — the kind that drives repeat purchases and holds firm even when a competitor offers a better deal — requires more. And it’s far less common than participation numbers suggest.
The Loyalty Observatory at the University of Parma puts hard numbers on this: only 11% of Italian companies with an active loyalty program say they’re very satisfied with results. 65% would start again from scratch. On average, 40% of program members are inactive. High penetration, weak delivery.
A diagnosis that misses the point
When a program underperforms, the default response targets technology, data or mechanics. Better algorithms, more touchpoints, smarter personalization. That diagnosis is partly right — but it misses the more fundamental issue: many Italian loyalty programs fail because they have nothing meaningful to say.
A customer accumulates points for months, hits the redemption threshold and faces a catalog that doesn’t excite them. They have gone through a mechanic, not experienced anything memorable. The brand has effectively said “thanks for being a customer” in the same language as a standard discount. No real difference felt. No real bond built. That’s not a technology problem. It’s a content and narrative problem.
When communication and strategy work together
In the programs we run, one pattern repeats: the gap between programs that generate real engagement and those that don’t has little to do with technical complexity or budget. It comes down to coherence between mechanic, prize and communication. When these three are designed together from the start — when the prize is chosen for a reason the customer can genuinely perceive — the initiative stops being a promotion and becomes an act of recognition.
With Q8 we built a membership program designed as an ecosystem of exclusive experiences — with its own identity, distinct from the base points scheme — so that the perception of value made price comparisons with competitors irrelevant. In both cases, communication wasn’t an execution phase: it was part of the design from the start.
What the data says
Recent research points to a structural shift in consumer expectations: experiential rewards are replacing monetary ones as the primary loyalty driver. Consumers increasingly expect genuine personalization — not a name in a subject line, but experiences shaped around their actual preferences and behaviors. Analysts consistently find that well-designed behavioral segmentation improves performance across acquisition, retention and satisfaction.
Italy is moving in that direction — but unevenly. The Parma Observatory flags the main trends: digital wallet integration, omnichannel evolution, the growing weight of first-party data. All necessary. But none of it will be enough without a shift in how programs are conceived. Investing in technology on top of a defensive loyalty model — one designed to make switching harder rather than to build genuine preference — will only go so far.
The starting point that’s often missing
Italy has the resources, the technical capability and the market maturity to run genuinely strong loyalty programs. What’s missing, in most cases, is the starting point: a strategy that defines what value the program is there to create for the customer — before anyone picks a mechanic or a platform. The difference between a program that tries to hold customers in and one that makes them genuinely want to stay may sound subtle. In results, it isn’t.
