Loyalty Program is needed on the one hand to get incentives and recognition to the customers who use Zipcar on the permanent basis and on the other hand to support the company’s long tern sustainability.
| Hours of travel needed to get the special card (cumulated) | Reduction from the base price | Bonuses | ||
| “Happy Birthday” | “Happy New Year” | |||
| Silver Membership Card | > 20 hours | -10 % | + 15 min. | +10 min. |
| Gold Membership Card | > 60 hours | -20 % | + 30 min. | + 20 min. |
In addition, some promos and special conditions are going to be introduced.
| Students | – 10% |
| “Friends are welcome!” (introduce Zipcar service to your friend and get 20 minutes for free) | + 20 min. |
| Leaving the car at the special parking slots | + 15 min. |
| Recharging the car at the gasoline (the fuel costs are compensated) | + 15 min. |
| Public Transportation card* | + 60 min. |
*Partnership with public transportation
Idea: If a person who is signed to Zipcar service, has decided to purchase the transportation card for public transport, he gets one hour for free to use a Zipcar service – “Start your journey on public transport – complete it with Zipcar”.
- Supplementing, not replacing existing transit networks
- Locating Zipcar parking slots near mass transit stations
What do you think about these options? What kind of promos can make Zipcar carcharing service more attractive?
Car-sharing in Russia 
Hi, good idea about loyalty program
About promotion: It is not very useful to promote it in public transport, because I do not think in Russia it can really be replacement of pt, because your target audience is people who has already had cars and want to replace it when they are in the city center, for long distance they will use their own cars.
I would recommend you to promote it in places where your potential target consumer can be, as example (business center and restaurants)
One more question: how you are going to control, that the loyalty card is using by person for whom it is concern (even if it is personal card), since there is not person to check?
Hello!
Let’s first of all overcome the misanderstanding about our target group. It is not “the prople who have already had the cars and want to replace them”. We target people who take advantage of all methods of transportation, both cost-oriented customers (public transport users) and convinience-oriented customers (car owners, taxi passagers, car rental customers) – 21-45 years old. They are point-to-point users (mobile professionals, shoppers, students) as well as daily users who travels at fixed timing (working professionals). In addition, the service itself doesn’t imply to long distance trips as it will be too expensive for users.
I am fully agree with promotion at the business centers, and we have already mentioned that there will be billboards and other types of ads near/in business centes in addition to allocated parking slots. Moreover, probably, we will introduce Zipcar-to-Business model, so big сompanies can introduce our service to their employees.
Well, now let’s think what we can do with loyalty card. The fact what the whole concept of how Zipcard works, makes it neally impossible to be used by random people.Don’t forget that to use the car, you have to book it in advance online or on your phone via mobile app. In addition, just imagine the situation that you give the card to your frined…so you become fully responsible for the all payments and for his life as well:)
Thank you!
You have done a great job working out this loyalty scheme, thank you!
What is suprising to me is that you get a bonus for your Zip card for buying a public transport card. I understand that you target conscious consumers who want to get the best of various means of transport, but public transport is a direct subtitute for car-sharing, so basically you encourage your consumers to use your competitor’s product (i.e.public transport). Or do I misunderstand something?
Irina, thank you for the comment!
The idea is to make people move from car-ownership to car-sharing and to motivate people to use our service.Car-sharing won’t be used for long distances inside of the city as it would be too expensive, but it is really convenient to take a car near the metro station and reach home/shopping mall/business centers. Public transport does not imply direct connection to the desired destination point. In addition, we need parking places not far from metro stations, so we have to negotiate with municipalities to get them and probably they can like the idea of cooperation with public transport to reduce number of cars on the roads.
I think it is a good idea and it matches the fact that your zip car stations are close to metro or railroad stations (on the map above). That’s how it is done in Switzerland, where they are special parking slots next to any public transportation (the next step would be to have the same system for bicycles next to it, so that the choice range is ultimately complete^^). Nice job on the reductions, they seem generous in terms of time but I guess in Russia people take public transport for long distances to work.