Want your customers to be loyal? Develop a members program based on what they want.

For TGI Friday's, it's the Give Me More Stripes guest recognition program that equals free food for participating members. For Choice Hotels, it's helping members who frequent the online portion of the company earn points toward free nights, gift certificates, and airline rewards, while at The Ritz-Carlton Club, it's the Give Back Getaways initiative enabling guests to volunteer in communities they visit frequently.

The common ties between the lot? They're all member programs, and each was developed focused on not what was best for the company but what would draw in and satisfy each company's
customer base.

Beth Ridenour, director of public relations for Ritz-Carlton Club, explained that Give Back Getaways, which was developed by the lodging side of the business-Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC-was rolled out in response to customer requests to do something more than visit and shop in the communities they'd grown to love.

"We heard feedback from our customers and our guests asking how they could give back to the communities they visit at least six times a year," she said. "Many of them wanted to find ways to bring their kids into the community spirit experience while on family vacations."

Ritz-Carlton Club, a fractional or full-ownership real estate association option that gives members second-home ownership benefits with Ritz-Carlton-style personalized services and amenities, also took into account that the trend of people wanting to do charity work and volunteer has grown over the years.

"Ritz-Carlton Club is the fractional brand of the hotel company, and we said 'Okay, the hotel side is putting this program together. What can we do that is valuable to our Ritz-Carlton Club membership?' We talked to our boards and our members and asked what they care about and how they'd want to give back," Ridenour said.

Each of the programs are specifically tailored to a destination. In San Francisco, the Ritz-Carlton Home and Residences location supports Glide Memorial Methodist Church, serving meals to the city's numerous homeless, elderly, and underprivileged residents. At Colorado's Bachelor Gulch, members of the club can collaborate with youth organization Snowboard Outreach Program, work with Habitat for Humanity, or help maintain a national forest trail.

Recently, Give Back Getaways broadened its scope beyond environmental and social focuses to include cultural preservation for the Abaco Club in the Bahamas. Club members can work with the local community to help celebrate their Junkanoo heritage.

Said Ridenour: "The activities are different in every location because you have to be relevant to where your vacation home is. These organizations were tapped based on the needs of that community and how we feel we could contribute as a club and membership base."

Stronger ties
At TabletHotels.com, founded in 2000 by Laurent Vernhes and Michael Davis as a way to help people find unique, boutique luxury hotels online at the lowest prices, the Tablet Plus Members Only Program not only offers members across-the-board benefits, such as upgrades, free breakfast, free WiFi, and late check out, but also customized benefits based on which hotel the member chooses to visit.

Just as with Give Back Getaways, the amenities offered by Tablet Plus program were developed based on customer response. However, in some cases, the hotels already offered some items for free, such as free WiFi and late check out. In those instances, the company left it up to the hotel to develop a unique offering for the Tablet Plus program.

"Some hotels offer a discount at the spa, complimentary airport transfers—things that wouldn't normally be included in a booking," said Julie Waters, director of marketing.

By approaching the program from this angle, TabletHotels.com is able to draw in customers while creating stronger ties with corporate partners. The company tallies a meter score for each of the hotels listed on its site based on feedback from a survey sent to guests after they check out of a hotel. The compilation of these results is developed into the Tablet Meter Score, where 20 is a  perfect score.

For a hotel to stay on TabletHotels.com, the score must remain above 15. But for the hotel to be a member of Tablet Plus, it must have a score of 17 or higher.

"We contact the hotels that are 17 and higher, letting them know we think they'd be a perfect fit for Tablet Plus," said Waters. "We explain what they need to do to participate, and they get extra marketing in exchange for that relationship. They also get many more bookings, typically from ideal customers because these are the customers who travel the most, so they tend to develop loyalty for these hotels."

The annual membership fee is $195, which more than pays for itself with the first use, and includes three installments of the company's Tablet 10: Top Ten New Hotels book series. The series includes the 10 best newly built or renovated hotels across Europe, the Americas, and Asia, Africa, and Oceania.

"Members of Tablet Plus are people who book frequently, so it's an easy investment, but we also have some value-added programs, such as discounts for gyms and an online reservation system for hard-to-get-into restaurants," Waters said. "We have a customer base that's unique in terms of price being a factor, but  taste determining where they stay."

Branded trust
For Ritz-Carlton Club, Give Back Getaways is simply about offering another valuable experience to the club's membership base. "We all know we feel good about working with organizations that create goodwill," said Ridenour. "When you believe in a company, you feel better about shopping with them."

Ridenour said the club has always contributed to the local communities in which club destinations are located, starting when the the company begins building the project. From doing a canned food drive for a local food bank or doing fundraising for a local organization, volunteerism is an integral part of Ritz-Carlton Club. Now it's simply a matter of bringing members in and hoping they'll spread the word.

"We were already doing good work in our communities through the bigger umbrella community programs," Ridenour said. "Now we can continue to generate and give back to our local communities in a valuable way that enables our members to see the fruits of that labor and participate in it."

For both companies, when looking to create a members program, the important piece was understanding the customer base and finding ways to add more value to the relationship. By making members happy, companies are creating brand evangelists without sacrificing their image.

"My recommendation," said Waters, "is for companies to focus on what their customers want to make their member program valuable to their specific customer base."

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The RedCoat Publishing editorial department recently received five Eddie awards from Folio Magazine, including one for a feature story in the Spring 2009 edition of Welcome. Written by RedCoat editor Amanda Gaines, it won for best single article in the food service/hotel category.