A supermarket has written to holders of its loyalty card who have accumulated points but not redeemed them for over ninety days, inviting them to complete a brief verification process to confirm their ongoing commitment to the scheme before their balance is released.
The letter, sent to tens of thousands of cardholders this week, explained that the company’s loyalty systems had flagged a segment of accounts displaying what the team described internally as a “points plateau” — a pattern of collection without conversion that, after analysis, was found to correlate with what one internal document called “diversified shopping behaviour.”
Customers falling into this category are asked to complete a Loyalty Commitment Review via the retailer’s app, a short questionnaire estimated to take between six and twelve minutes. The form asks cardholders to confirm that their primary grocery spend is broadly reflected in their card activity, to indicate whether they have recently purchased fresh produce at a different location, and to describe in no more than one sentence what loyalty means to them personally.
Accounts completing the review receive a decision within five to seven working days. Cardholders who are awarded a Confirmed status have their points immediately unlocked. Those requiring further context are transferred to a Loyalty Review Pathway, which requests the approximate dates and values of any purchases that may not have registered to the card due to, among other listed explanations, being in a rush, forgetting, or what the form describes as “ambient shopping.”
A company spokesperson said the review was not punitive, and was designed to give loyal customers the opportunity to reaffirm their relationship with the scheme. The company had always taken loyalty seriously, the spokesperson added, which was precisely why it felt right to offer this process to those who had perhaps allowed the connection to become slightly less legible to the system.
Points cannot be redeemed during the review period but continue to accumulate. The company confirmed that accumulation would not be affected, and that customers who engaged fully with the process would find their balance ready to use on something nice at the end.
A further group of accounts, classified internally as Loyalty Ambiguous, will receive a separate communication in due course.
