The Consumerism movement, which began in the 1950s as a reaction against predatory business practices, reached its zenith in 1962, when U.S. President John F. Kennedy outlined four rights to which all consumers were entitled.
Those four rights, later expanded to six, became the foundation of the Consumer Bill of Rights, which was adopted as a United Nations resolution in 1985. The moral: If businesses don’t police themselves, eventually the government will do it for them.
Today, newspapers and blogs are filled with tales of cold-hearted bankers raising interest rates, increasing fees, slashing credit limits and gutting reward programs. So how do you combat this negative image? Take a page from JFK and proclaim a Reward Cardholders’ Bill of Rights. If you did, it might look something like this:
Right #1: The Right to Be Safe
Kennedy was referring literally to the right not be killed or injured by the products we buy. For reward cardholders, this right refers to the right to privacy and data protection. Consumers must have assurance that their personal details are secure from fraud and will not be subject to improper use by the issuer or program partners.
Right #2: The Right to Choose Freely
This right was JFK’s warning against the rise of monopolies. For reward cardholders, this right assures consumers that issuers will not enact hidden fees or slash the value of reward programs secretively or arbitrarily, but rather will place such decisions in the hands of their cardholders.
Right #3: The Right to Be Heard
Kennedy believed that consumers had a right to have their concerns and complaints heard. Likewise, reward cardholders have a right to clear lines of communication with issuers to understand terms and conditions, earning options and data usage, and to understand to which communications streams they are opting in.
Right #4: The Right to be Informed
When consumers purchase products and services, JFK argued, the onus is on the seller to articulate contract and warranty terms, service fees and any changes to service agreements. Reward cardholders should expect the same rights when it comes to understanding any changes in program earning rates, expiry dates, redemption fees, etc.
Right #5: The Right to Education
This right was Kennedy’s admonition to businesses to help their customers make informed purchase decisions without being subject to misleading or deceptive sales practices. Fortunately for consumers, the wired marketplace now makes self-education easy. Any potential reward cardholder can compare your reward card’s value to competing card products with a few clicks of the mouse. But in today’s tough economy, consumers will also look for issuers who can help them make informed financial decisions about the types of rewards they can earn and the tradeoffs between revolving their balances versus paying them in full. Become a sound financial partner with your cardholders, and you’ll earn their trust.
Right #6: The Right to Service
The right to good customer service seems so fundamental that it seems pointless even to articulate it—until you recall the dire state of customer service in the U.S. Reward cardholders have a right to choose their preferred channel of customer service and to receive prompt, courteous answers to their questions and complaints.
Rewards card issuers can’t repair the damaged relationship with their cardholders overnight. But by adopting this Reward Cardholders’ Bill of Rights, you can certainly extend the first olive branch. After all, Kennedy was only articulating what all of us know in our hearts to be true.
Rick Ferguson is editorial director of LoyaltyOne. He can be reached at [email protected].
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