The AA: driving engagement throughout the lifecycle

With its vast membership base, the AA knows that an effective customer relationship management strategy is essential for growth. OLIVER has played a central role in developing and executing the AA’s CRM strategy and identifying new growth opportunities, especially in customer reactivation and retention.

The Challenge

The AA’s membership lives as the heart of the brand’s business model. Engaging members with user journeys that feel personal to them is essential for customer retention and digital advancement. When setting out to build a new, bespoke and entirely in-house marketing solution to unlock additional revenue using CRM, the AA turned to OLIVER.

OLIVER was tasked with driving retention for the AA by optimizing the brand’s CRM strategy. The team discovered that if the AA was able to convert half of their ‘irregular users’ into ‘regular users’ of membership rewards (which are available primarily via the AA app), they could increase membership renewals and uplift revenue. Given the size of the AA’s 14 million-strong membership, a 2% increase in renewals would translate into millions. 

The Solution

OLIVER examined each stage of the AA’s customer lifecycle to find opportunities to drive greater regular usage and boost loyalty. As a result, the agency team developed a new offering called Smart Benefits. 

It included:  

A new monthly newsletter full of exciting rewards and interesting content, tailored by geolocation, membership tier and customers’ usage of services.

Updates to the onboarding journey to educate and drive engagement.

Surprise and delight gifts tested before critical renewal windows (based on propensity to churn) to increase positive sentiment ahead of the critical renewal window.

The Results

OLIVER was able to deliver significant results for the AA, both in revenue generation and qualitative customer insights 

A significant revenue boost of £4.8 million driven by member engagement and renewals.

Membership-driven income rose from £162 per acquisition to £165 in the last financial year – the average acquisition cost is £115.

A 9% increase in newsletter engagement, from a 29% typical open rate to 38%.

A 1.26% increase on retention rates across the business.  
Strategically important customer insights were gained into the nature of the AA’s membership: 34% of the base said that our rewards are an important part of why they are with the AA.