MSI's gamification-based loyalty program drives engagement with tiered reward

Project summary

MSI, one of the most trusted gaming hardware producers, decided to implement the MSI Rewards Program. Their goal was to stay connected with their end customers, build an engaged community and, in the process, increase the cross- and up-selling of products. In addition, the loyalty program was to operate internationally and require considerable adaptation over time. Keeping these major technical and business requirements in mind, the MSI team chose Open Loyalty as the default loyalty engine for their project.

Key results

• Successful implementation of a direct-to-customer (D2C) loyalty program that allows direct communication with each customer who has purchased MSI products.
• Creation of a centralized loyalty application that works in 10 key countries and is based on a single, multi-tenant loyalty system.
• Quick and smooth migration to the new loyalty engine in just three months.
• Full ownership of customer data with on-premise deployment.

About MSI

MSI is a world leader in gaming, content creation, and business & productivity solutions with a wide-ranging global presence spanning over 120 countries. The company delivers top-notch laptops, graphics cards, monitors, motherboards, desktops, and peripherals.

By providing the finest product quality, intuitive user interface, and design aesthetics, MSI shapes the future of technology. In addition to its own online store, MSI also markets its hardware through partners, resellers, and resellers.

The challenge: Encourage to repurchase gaming gear through long-term customer relationships

The MSI team wanted to increase cross-selling and up-selling of their products, so they came up with the idea of creating their own loyalty program called the MSI Rewards Program. Of course, from a business standpoint, boosting sales was the main objective, but there were other equally important goals that the MSI team wanted to achieve, such as:

• Stay in touch with their end customers and lead proactive communication with them.
• Nurture customers and strengthen relationships to keep them coming back for other product lines and categories.
• Better understand customer buying behavior and how it differs across markets and customer segments.
• Foster engagement and build a community of gamers and fans of cutting-edge solutions.
• Make the marketing technology more cost-effective.
  

On top of that, to achieve key cross- and up-selling objectives, it was necessary to move the loyalty program from legacy technology to a more flexible and scalable loyalty engine. So, from a technical perspective, the essential criteria for selecting a new loyalty program provider was its ability to:

1. Create a customized loyalty program based on points, rewards, and referral mechanisms. The delivered solution had to be feature-rich to cover all the current and future needs of the business.
2. Implement a new version of the loyalty engine in just three months. This was a time-sensitive case and required the full attention of Open Loyalty.
3. Maintain multitenancy and provide multi-country support on a single Open Loyalty instance. Ensure the customer base is properly segmented between different countries because each location has separate policies, maintenance rules, and access to specialists.
4. Ensure scalability and ease of future extension of the referral loyalty program.
5. Deliver an API-based infrastructure for easy vertical and horizontal integration with other systems.
6. Provide a headless solution because the interface had to be a dedicated front-end application. Loyalty program elements had to be visible in the customer portal, MSI stores, and in the future, all other MSI services.
7. Provide full data ownership and allow the loyalty system to be hosted on in-house servers.
   

Clearly, the list was complex, and Open Loyalty had what it took to run and complete this project. It perfectly matched MSI's needs and met the criteria above. So, once Open Loyalty was officially selected as the loyalty program provider, the entire implementation process began.

"We migrated to use Open Loyalty because it provides the business and technical flexibility needed by an enterprise-sized company like ours. With the Open Loyalty integration framework, we could match the loyalty engine with our custom needs."

Karen Shen
MSI‍

The implementation process for MSI's loyalty program

The loyalty program pilot was initially developed as a bespoke solution. After validating the business assumptions of the program, MSI decided to take the loyalty technology to the next level. Since the MSI team was seeking a future-proof loyalty solution, they first conducted an in-deep analysis of the loyalty program’s requirements for today and the future.

Next, the MSI team researched the solutions available on the market. After that, it was time to put Open Loyalty to the test. The MSI team undertook a thorough analysis of the Open Loyalty solution from a business and technical viewpoint. After confirming that all key business cases would be covered and that the API of the new loyalty engine was flexible enough, MSI decided to partner with Open Loyalty.

The Open Loyalty team helped migrate from the legacy loyalty system to the new Open Loyalty engine. Along the way, the loyalty platform was connected to three back-end systems integral to the entire loyalty program:

1. MSI's Market Management Systems
2. Business intelligence system
3. Marketing automation solution

Open Loyalty was integrated into the existing web portal at the front-end level. Also, the loyalty program features were embedded in the official customer portal, so they were ready to be explored by loyalty program members.

The solution: An engaging and gaming-driven loyalty program

The MSI team set out to build a cohesive loyalty marketing strategy for all the company's international branches. They created a gamification-based loyalty solution to attract new customers and nurture existing ones using industry specifics. The result was a marketing campaign that exceeded all expectations, with the MSI Rewards Program at its very core.