# Laurent Guinand

Laurent Guinand writes and advises on loyalty strategy, including how loyalty programs can support customer retention, growth, and business economics. Guinand is the author of *Strategic Loyalty*.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/laurent-guinand/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/guinand
- LinkedIn followers: 8,057
- Topics: customer-retention
- Based on 10 dated posts, latest 2026-10-04

## Summary

Laurent Guinand is most useful for loyalty strategy content on retention, growth, and making the economic case to finance leaders.

- Best for: A loyalty technology company planning a webinar on CFO-ready loyalty program economics for program managers and finance stakeholders.
- Not for: A fast-moving consumer-goods product launch needing short-form video and promo-code redemptions.
- Check first: Confirm audience breakdown, speaking examples, and commercial terms before contacting them.

### Takeaways

- Loyalty programs are strategic infrastructure; managers should make the case in the CFO's terms.
- Strong programs run two engines at once: retention efficiency and acquisition growth.
- Winning a customer is not the same as creating loyalty; judge the relationship after the switch.

## Main ideas

- **Loyalty programs are strategic infrastructure; managers should make the case in the CFO’s terms**: Guinand argues that loyalty programs are often underfunded or cut because leaders present them as a marketing cost rather than strategic infrastructure. In budget conversations, make the financial case: present the program’s two engines with the right KPIs and lead with CFO-grade numbers, not engagement language. Drawing on experience on the program side, they note that many capable program managers struggle to make the case to senior leaders. The post also argues that loyalty beats blanket price cuts, which erode margins, and generic advertising, which stops working when spending stops.
- **Strong programs run two engines at once: retention efficiency and acquisition growth**: Guinand argues that most programs are built on one engine, while the best run on two. The first is operational and always on: it reduces churn through habit and reward conditioning, lowers the cost to serve loyal customers, drives repeat purchase frequency, and protects margin through switching costs. The second is deliberate and forward-looking: it uses the program to convert prospects through social proof and referral loops, attract new segments with aspirational tiers, and build differentiation that advertising spend alone cannot buy. Over-index on acquisition and the program becomes a leaky bucket; focus only on retention and growth is left on the table. The two must be architected together.
- **Winning a customer is not the same as creating loyalty; judge programs by the relationship after the switch**: Guinand questions acquisition tactics that bring customers in without giving them a reason to stay. Letting customers carry elite status over from a competitor makes sense as an acquisition tactic, but the loyalty it creates is unclear, and existing members may resent newcomers receiving benefits they spent years earning. The strongest strategies, they argue, go beyond an attractive reason to switch and build an increasingly valuable relationship afterward, with switching costs resting on value rather than status alone. The test is whether the proposition creates genuine behavioral loyalty, deepens the relationship over time, rewards existing customers fairly, and makes customers want to stay.
- **Cities and destinations are running loyalty programs without calling them loyalty, raising the question of who owns the customer**: Guinand’s broadest argument extends loyalty beyond corporate programs to places. Destinations remove friction to make a first visit memorable, turn city passes into destination CRM platforms, and experiment with tokenized, behavior-driven rewards—all without points, tiers, or redemption catalogs. The strategic question is ownership: if cities build the end-to-end visitor relationship, the loyalty industry must decide whether to partner in those ecosystems or stand by.

## Work to read

- [Loyalty Program Managers: Are You Speaking Your CFO's Language?](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/guinand_loyalty-program-managers-are-you-speaking-activity-7453087673273065473-UVcH)
- [Understanding Dual System Thinking in Loyalty](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/guinand_strategicloyalty-loyaltyprograms-customerretention-activity-7434694954230120448-Pevy)
- [Acquisition vs. Long-Term Loyalty](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/guinand_loyaltyindustry-customerengagement-travelindustry-activity-7442581844308590592-9Hhz)
- [The City as a Loyalty Platform](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/guinand_loyaltyindustry-customerengagement-travelindustry-activity-7442581844308590592-9Hhz)

## Partnerships

Laurent Guinand provides strategic consulting and thought leadership on loyalty programs, customer retention, and business economics. Their published posts demonstrate deep industry expertise. Ask about commercial partnership formats, sponsor policies, and inquiry routes.

## Alternatives

- Lee McDermott: Choose McDermott when the webinar needs to show the channel mechanism rather than re-argue the budget case. The two posts reviewed explain how loyalty and membership passes in Apple Wallet and Google Wallet can carry live points balances, instant tier upgrades, personalised offers, lock-screen pushes and location-triggered notifications, with no app download, and note integration with existing CRM, loyalty, eCommerce and marketing stacks. A second post records Litecard being named Dotdigital's Innovation Partner of the Year 2026 and describes brands looking beyond email and SMS for engagement, giving vendors a recent, dated channel-credibility hook tied to a named event. That suits a session for loyalty and CRM practitioners deciding whether to add a wallet channel.
- Tom Peace: Choose Peace when the need is personalisation mechanics and data rather than program economics. One post walks through the Bowtie of Personalisation, described as a central model in Rasmus Houlind's Hello $Firstname AI Edition, and argues that personalisation needs customer insight and marketing content together—which moment the customer is in, what to say, and which content supports it—resting on first-party and zero-party data for moments of truth. The other argues that Apple and Google Wallet beat a brand app for loyalty reach and asks what download-to-active rates actually look like, pointing to customers who manage brand relationships through notifications rather than inboxes. Both posts are conversational and question-led, and one is tied to a video conversation, making this a better fit for a practitioner session seeking discussion and a takeaway diagram than for a room of finance stakeholders.
- Naga Vara Prasad S: Choose Naga Vara Prasad S when the vendor wants a session on AI-driven retail personalisation and cost reduction instead of loyalty economics. One post describes KFC's multilingual AI drive-thru assistant in Dubai, developed with Sodaclick and Intel and powered by Americana Restaurants, citing 75% acceptance of upsell suggestions and dialect-aware switching between Arabic and English, and argues that feeling heard drives engagement. The other lists AI's operational payoffs in retail—inventory prediction, 24/7 service automation, supply-chain optimisation and personalised journeys—and cites cost reductions of up to 30%. The concrete retail and Middle East and Africa operating context suits a session for retail operators weighing AI deployment.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/