Driving growth through re-planning channels

The brief

Customer membership programmes are an important part of the operations of Hertz Europe in car rental, covering over 40 markets but with most customer members living in the major European markets.  Members accounted for over 25% of all revenues, from one in 10 of all Hertz customers actually buying products.

The rate of growth in membership was established at net growth of +2% to +3% year on year.  To change the role of the membership programmes for the business for the long term, a stepchange in membership growth would be needed.

Strategy

In markets outside Europe such as the United States, the role of membership programmes was up to six times larger in scale and in proportion of revenues.  This provided a proven model for driving growth in membership in Europe.

Actions

The growth plan started with understanding the channels for finding new members outside Europe.  The mix was focussed around three main channels – new members found through major corporate accounts, through promotions with partners and thirdly through customers qualifying for upgrade from one membership tier to another.

Armed with this understanding we focussed our efforts around building three action plans for the three channels, carefully measured and performance managed against prior year results.  We carefully crafted growth targets by channel, then negotiated buy-in with each channel owner together with an agreement for regular performance reviews.

Informal and action-oriented monthly performance reviews confirmed a shared understanding of performance and of the actions to drive performance from one month to the next.

The big difference

Within six months the three part growth engine was working well and starting to deliver.  By the end of year one new member acquisition had increased +20% versus prior year.  By year 2 growth increased again to a further +80% year on year.  Cumulatively the membership base grew to it’s largest on record, delivering a true stepchange in growth.

Click here to read more case studies about our work in the travel sector.  Click here to find out more about our Membership Marketing expert, Adrian Robertson.

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