£9m staff rewards to mark Tesco Clubcard milestone

Debate may be raging about who were the true architects of the Tesco Clubcard loyalty scheme but the retail giant is ploughing ahead with the programme’s 30^th anniversary by handing a £30 voucher to all staff, in a group-wide gift totalling £9m.

Over 300,000 Tesco employees will get the reward, which includes free Clubcard vouchers as a “little extra” thank you.

Just last week former Tesco Clubcard chief Grant Harrison finally attempted to set the record straight over the design and launch of the loyalty scheme, insisting that media coverage in the run-up to the programme’s anniversary had been beset by “fake news”.

In particular, he seemed to be somewhat miffed about claims that DunnHumby had devised the programme, saying: “No, DunnHumby did not design Clubcard. But they did a great job of data analysis. I brought them in to help us when they were a team of about 16 people – most especially because I got on so well with Simon Hay – who marshalled his team to deliver for us.”

Harrison went on to explain how the original idea had come from “a Tesco board who wanted to push competitive boundaries and from [marketing chief] Terry Leahy who fixated on customer-driven change”.

He added that DunnHumby was just one of the suppliers, which also included agencies Evans Hunt Scott (now Havas CX Helia) and Lowe Howard-Spink; as well as ID Data, which made the personalised Clubcards for the trial period; BPC, which transformed its printing business to deliver personalised mailings and coupons; and Siemens Nixdorf, which worked with Tesco’s IT team to ensure the card scanning worked.

Today, more than 23 million UK households use a Tesco Clubcard, and the scheme accounts for 82% of the supermarket’s sales.

Tesco group membership and loyalty director Shama Wilson told the Grocer: “Our colleagues have been a key part of the success of Clubcard, doing everything from signing up new members and helping answer their queries, to reminding shoppers to use their Clubcard at the checkout.

“With that in mind we wanted to give them a little extra thank you for the role they have played helping Clubcard deliver more for our customers today and over the past three decades.”