In January, I blogged on the results of an ACI Worlwide study revealing how ineffective customer loyalty programs are. ACI has now followed up with fresher numbers, mostly indicating that customers feel unappreciated by many programs:

• Three out of four Americans are members of at least one retail loyalty card program.

• The majority of American consumers (62 percent) join retail loyalty programs so they can get discounts on the things they buy most, yet only about one third of Americans (36 percent) received a reward or promotion that made them come back to the store again, and 1 in 4 (27 percent) of consumers complain they have received a reward or promotion for something they would never buy.

• A mere 27 percent of Americans have received a loyalty program reward or promotion that made them feel valued as a customer.

• Eighty one percent of American loyalty program members are enrolled in a program that they don’t completely understand. They don’t even know the basics, such as “What benefits do I get and when do I get them?”

• Like a disappointing date, many loyalty programs leave consumers feeling underappreciated; 85 percent of members report that they haven’t heard a single word from a loyalty program since the day they signed up.

• Whether it was a reward they didn’t want (27 percent) or a reward that was too small to take seriously (22 percent), more than 2 in 5 (44 percent) consumers have had a negative experience from a loyalty program.