How to turn holiday shoppers into loyal friends, not one-time buyers

The holidays bring a flood of one-time shoppers — and a chance to turn them into long-term customers. Most brands focus on discounts and points, but genuine loyalty comes from connection, not coupons. Here’s how to build relationships that last beyond the holiday rush — using a lesson from an unlikely loyalty experiment.

The postcard experiment that proved people over points

Loyalty grows when your customers feel like you care. Between 2012 and 2014, La Quinta did something most hotel chains would never risk: it let its VP of Loyalty write personal postcards to guests — not to everyone, just to high-value customers or those who seemed ready to drift away.

The postcards looked handwritten. Mike Case signed them and included his real email address. When guests wrote back (and many did), Mike replied himself. No autoresponders. No form letters. Just a personal note.

La Quinta tested this against a control group, and the results were significant. Guests who heard from Mike stayed loyal — not because they got points or discounts, but because someone noticed them, cared enough to ask and actually listened to the answer.

Dig deeper: 7 ways to boost customers’ emotional connection and loyalty with your brand

Most loyalty programs in 2012 looked nothing like this. They were points engines and discount ladders — transactional systems built to modify behavior, not build relationships. Customers earned rewards but rarely felt rewarded. They accumulated points, received emails, but never felt valued. “Talk to Mike” proved something radical: the conversation was the loyalty program.

And the impact wasn’t just emotional — it was financial. Over seven years, revenue from La Quinta Returns members grew from 25% to as high as 50% of total revenue.

Friendship theory: The psychology behind real loyalty

This is what led to the friendship theory: people stay loyal to relationships, not rewards. When brands communicate with the consistency and care of a good friend — asking real questions, listening to answers and showing up when it matters — customers don’t just buy again, they advocate.

What does that look like in practice? It starts with how you talk to your customers. Approach them like you would a friend you haven’t seen in a while. Ask what’s changed in their life, what they’re excited about, what’s frustrating them — not just what they think of your product.

The same principles that make friendships last can make loyalty programs work. Here’s how those tenets come to life in brands I’ve helped build across retail and travel.

Friends make life easier

The best loyalty programs remove obstacles that waste time or create stress. They offer free shipping to eliminate surprise costs, enable automatic reorders to remember what you need and provide one-click booking that respects your schedule. Amazon Prime bundles speed and convenience into a single promise. The emotional message isn’t “we’re efficient” — it’s “we value your time as much as you do.”

Friends remember what matters

True personalization is about paying attention. The best brands remember your birthday, your favorite order and the milestone you mentioned last time. Starbucks rewards your go-to drink or Chipotle reveals your doppelganger. Personalization should feel personal, not algorithmic. When a brand remembers what matters to you, the message is clear — you’re not a transaction, you’re a person they know.

Dig deeper: Marketers must deliver value and trust to shoppers facing higher holiday prices

Friends ask and listen

Real friends check in because they care how you’re doing. Great brands do the same with:

• Simple follow-ups after a purchase.
• Easy ways to share feedback.
• Responses that show someone actually read what you wrote. 

Chewy turns every customer question into an act of care, often surprising customers with handwritten notes or unexpected gestures. When brands listen and act on what they hear, customers feel heard — and that builds trust nothing else can buy.

Friends invite you to things

Friends think of you first. Exclusive early access, curated events or special previews say, “I knew you’d want to see this before anyone else.” Vincero Watches, Nike’s Member Drops and Sephora’s Rouge previews create genuine excitement because they make customers feel chosen, not just targeted. The loyalty isn’t to products — it’s to the brand that made you feel like an insider.

Testing the friendship theory

Pick a single segment, such as your best customers who haven’t purchased in 90 days or your newest customers in their first 30. Design one intervention that reflects how you’d treat a friend in that situation. Run it for 90 days against a control group.

Measure response rate, repeat purchase rate and something most programs ignore — how many customers write back unprompted. That last metric reveals whether you’re building a relationship or just running a campaign.

This matters especially now. The holiday season brings first-time buyers and customers you haven’t seen in years. Most brands will blast them with promotions. You can do something different and treat them like the friends they could become. That’s how you turn a November purchase into February loyalty.

La Quinta didn’t reinvent loyalty marketing. It simply refused to let it become impersonal — and kept methodically testing. The result: member revenue doubled. That’s rare. And in a world of easy automation, rare wins.

Dig deeper: Acquisition gets the attention, but loyalty drives the results