Steven Bocska gives a rebuttal to Denis Huré
Editor’s Observe:
The launch of the Google AI Purchasing Assistant impressed Steve Bocska, CEO PUG Interactive, to research the potential affect of that software on the fortunes of shops. We revealed Steve’s ideas on how model and buyer loyalty might be disrupted by this new software in a three-part collection.
Denis Huré, Founder & CEO, Reward the World™ responded with a passionate different view on this article Loyalty Is not Lifeless—AI is Its Best Alternative But and immediately we share a response to a number of key factors made in Denis Huré’s rebuttal to Steve’s authentic collection Loyalty Is Lifeless. Google Simply Killed It..
The controversy is worthy of your time and gray matter. We see knowledge in areas of every viewpoint right here however should say that the way forward for loyalty lies someplace in between the views of those two trade authorities.
The following step on this debate could also be to carry Steve and Denis collectively in a dwell debate. We’re engaged on that and hope to publish particulars of a dwell video occasion quickly. Name it a “loyalty cage match.” The controversy shall be fierce and we hope that all of us turn out to be a bit wiser in our views on the way forward for this rising trade because of this.
Keep. Loyal. At all times.
Counterpoint: Sure, Loyalty Actually Is Lifeless. The Emperor Has No Factors.
I’ve typically observed that in instances of disruption, there are these clinging to the consolation of custom, hoping the chaos will move with out consequence. After which there are these with the braveness to say what must be stated, even when it defies well-liked knowledge.
This second is simply too necessary and disruptive to permit outdated pondering to go unchallenged. I see a significant tectonic shift approaching in the way in which buyer relationships shall be created, maintained, and valued. And if we stubbornly view the world via a straw or misinterpret the risk, we danger changing into irrelevant.
I. ‘Loyalty Isn’t Lifeless — It’s Rising.’
Denis’s article cites trade forecasts that estimate loyalty advertising will attain $24 billion by 2029. Which will even be true, however additionally it is deceptive to level to this as a optimistic signal. Development in loyalty spending doesn’t suggest development in loyalty effectiveness. The truth is, when loyalty turns into more durable to win, manufacturers typically spend extra to compensate. The outcome? Extra finances, similar (or worse) outcomes. And sarcastically, the very in his article predicts that loyalty program “development” will gradual within the years forward. I do agree with this. I simply predict it’s simply going to occur sooner and extra dramatically than his chart dares to confess.
A sidenote, one of many unlucky points of Denis’s article is his use of graphs and statistics with out cited sources. This will likely have been inadvertent. However it does lead me to suspect that every one the projections referenced have been forecast previous to the very current (and surprising, to most analysts) updates to Google’s Purchasing Assistant and its early proliferation — a improvement that’s at the moment within the means of basically reshaping the shopping for journey in ways in which few would have predicted. In that case, his view is supported by outdated knowledge that describes a world that not exists.
II. From Looking to Screening: The Second Loyalty Loses Its Grip
Denis’s rebuttal additionally suggests the continued dominance of Google searches over AI assistants is proof in opposition to my claims. This overlooks an important actuality of buyer psychology: the cognitive transition that takes place when shifting from preliminary looking, to screening, to really transacting.
A Google search is the preliminary exploration section for a buyer. They’re curious, evaluating, and in management. However quickly sufficient, that very same buyer will quickly flip to an AI assistant to take over the exhausting evaluation required to totally consider the choices and making a closing buy choice. The second they’ve sufficient readability to ask, “What’s the very best working shoe?” or “Guide me the most cost effective flight,” they’re outsourcing the choice and eroding the fairness worth your loyalty program as soon as had.
This shift isn’t hypothetical within the context of AI — it’s already seen in how folks use instruments like GPTs. The immediate is simply the beginning line. The assistant then races forward and finishes the job. Customers aren’t even co-creating at this level. As an alternative, they’re relinquishing authorship.
Loyalty doesn’t die on the level of sale. It dies when the client stops remembering why your model mattered within the first place.
III. Multi-Program Non-Loyalty and Switching Price Erosion
The article additionally argues that loyalty packages create highly effective and efficient switching prices via perks, factors, and standing. However these enticements dramatically lose their effectiveness as soon as the client turns into loyal to a couple of program inside a given class. The second that occurs, the so-called “protecting moat” disappears.
Working example: I used to be as soon as fiercely loyal to Subway’s previous Sub Membership program. Bear in mind these cute, simply counterfeited little paper stamps? I certain do. No person else had them, and the sheer novelty of it drew me again to my native Sandwich Artist, repeatedly. However then alongside got here the digital period, with myriad flashy loyalty apps only a faucet away. I shortly discovered myself enrolled in packages from Quizno’s, McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and extra. Now I carry dozens of indistinguishable quick meals loyalty packages in my pocket. And if I’m actually craving a scrumptious, sizzling, juicy Triple Baconator™ immediately? I guarantee you that it’s going to take much more than shallow point-based persuasion to redirect me to Subway for a chilly, unhappy 6” BMT.
Naturally, manufacturers attempt to counter this fragmentation by sweetening the pot via all types of schemes — escalating reductions, bonuses, or limited-time provides to win consideration. However that shortly devolves into an financial race to the underside. At that time, you may as properly be handing out digital coupons on a road nook.
AI assistants will solely speed up this flattening. They don’t “honor” model loyalty — they optimize for availability, relevance, and on the spot gratification. And when clients have a number of memberships, the assistant treats these packages not as emotional connections, however as chilly inputs into a choice engine.
True loyalty is unique. However immediately’s customers aren’t. And neither are their AI assistants.
IV. ‘AI is Not the Murderer — It is the Accelerator.’
Denis’s framing assumes AI is right here to assist manufacturers. However the actuality is extra sobering. AI assistants like Google’s Gemini aren’t loyalty enablers. They’re loyalty intermediaries, introducing distance between the client and the model. These assistants reply the query on behalf ofthe buyer, typically with out even surfacing model choices. The AI will not be an enhancement to your program. It introduces complexity into the connection with its personal logic, preferences, and revenue motives.
Extra importantly, Denis’s argument right here fails to reply (and even acknowledge) the essential query I initially posed: Who does the AI work for?
V. ‘Loyalty Is Simply Evolving — AI Is the Subsequent Step.’
This view is essentially the most conceptually flawed and harmful to undertake. Third-party AI assistants resembling Google’s are not a part of your loyalty stack. They’re a completely new layer of abstraction that disintermediates the model. In prior loyalty evolutions, the model retained the connection. Now, it dangers being diminished to metadata.
We’ve seen this story earlier than, too. It wasn’t “evolution” when iTunes displaced report shops, when Amazon turned branded merchandise into algorithmic options, when Google Search made journey brokers irrelevant, or when Netflix quietly erased Blockbuster. These have been new layers of third-party management that successfully disintermediated legacy gamers in a single day. AI assistants are the following platform in that lineage, poised to not evolve your loyalty stack, however as a substitute to take up it.
VI. ‘Manufacturers Ought to Combine AI and Embrace It.’
It’s not that straightforward. Google’s assistant doesn’t merely combine together with your program. It subsumes it, leaving you a helpless bystander. There’s no API the place you get to manage how and when your provide seems. You don’t personal the algorithm, and more and more, you don’t personal the interface. You might be simply one other knowledge level combating helplessly for visibility inside a machine constructed by another person.
VII. Ultimate Phrase: Discover the Proper Battlefield
Respectfully, Denis’s view seems rooted in custom. Mine is rooted in what’s really taking place throughout us as AI quietly transforms enterprise. We’re not watching transactional model loyalty develop due to AI. We’re about to see it get bypassed and kicked to the roadside. If manufacturers proceed to measure success by dashboards as a substitute of choice journeys and engagement pathways, they’ll miss the shift solely.
One different factor typically missed on this debate: our fixation on the transaction itself. The purpose-of-sale is not essentially the most significant, and even sensible, touchpoint for monitoring, influencing, and constructing buyer loyalty. Manufacturers should take a extra direct path to the client’s coronary heart. This begins, after all, with delivering an distinctive services or products. However from there, loyalty can’t be sustained by a skinny layer of factors or reductions. It have to be earned via sustained engagement, emotional resonance, compelling narrative, and even gamified experiences that create a real sense of belonging. That’s the way you transcend transactions to construct a reciprocal relationship.
The excellent news is that we have already got the instruments to satisfy this second. There are platforms that may orchestrate relationships throughout all buyer touchpoints. This consists of our very personal Picnic platform, 15 years within the making and constructed upon the identical motivational psychology rules which have pushed deep engagement within the $300 billion online game trade for many years. These applied sciences are constructed exactly for the transformation we’re seeing immediately, enabling persistent, significant engagement that transcends the checkout display. If we let go of our previous assumptions and embrace this richer mannequin of loyalty, there’s nonetheless time to jot down a greater ending to this story.
