Nordstrom’s New Rewards Program An Apparent Hit

As spring was getting set to give way into summer, Nordstrom set about revamping its rewards program with an eye toward upping its brand focus on personalization and engagement. As summer is now drawing to a close, it looks like Nordstrom is finding the rewards redesign, well, rewarding.

According to the first round of figures released by the department store chain, 1.7 million new members have singed on since its launch in May.

“We heard from our customers that they wanted a more personalized and flexible Nordstrom loyalty program,” said Chris Holloway, VP of loyalty for Nordstrom.

Features of that newly more personal platform include loosening up of points requirements such that shoppers get points no matter how they choose to pay (as opposed to early incarnations which required a branded store card). Nordstrom has also simplified signing up. Customers can join with no more than a name, mobile phone number and email address.

The program was also designed to give Nordstrom better visibility into how its customers are actually interacting when they shop. With a boost from digital marketing and loyalty analytics firm Aimia, Nordstrom now centrally tracks customer interactions in real time. That data can then be used to better understand the customer’s needs and perhaps generate better real-time offers that are more likely to entice the customer into a conversion.