Safaricom a couple of days ago announced that they had about Sh4.5 billion in unclaimed underlying revenue from its customer loyalty programme, Bonga Points, as of March this year.
The Bonga points scheme was first introduced in 2007, where subscribers receive one bonga point for every sh10 spent on voice, mobile data, and SMS, and for every Sh100 spent on the network for M-Pesa transactions.
The telecommunication company has told their customers that all unredeemed Bonga points will expire after three years— meaning that those accumulated before December 31, 2019, will be invalid come January 1, 2023.
Safaricom giving its reasons said redemption of the royalty points was slow thus the move to put an expiry date on the Bonga points, a business decision aimed at encouraging redemption.
Some customers have also taken issue with the low value of the redemption coupons which kills their motivation.
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Customers failed to redeem their loyalty points from the schemes that are targeted at client retention, repeat purchases, and increased sales.
“The last time I redeemed my points was three years ago. It was worth Sh500 meaning from accumulated Sh50,000 worth of shopping from a leading supermarket. Sh500 can’t even buy cooking oil now. You can only pick a small juice, yoghurt, and a cake,” Ann Ndirangu, a resident of Nairobi told Smart Business.
“At the end of the day, it’s not worth it. It should be one point per Sh10 spent,” she added.
Spooked by the low redemption of Bonga Points, Safaricom has recently adopted a raft of strategies to try and spur customer interest in making use of the scheme’s redemption options.
Loyalty programmes have been majorly used by retailers and businesses such as supermarkets to retain patronage and get new customers.