Shukran Loyalty
Redesigning loyalty for 13.9M+ members — from passive earn & burn to a tier-based engagement platform that drives retention and spend.
Role:
Product Design Lead
Scope:
Strategy, Research, UX, Design System
Markets:
GCC, Egypt & Jordan
The impact in numbers
1M+
Members upgraded to higher tiers
25%
Revenue uplift among top-tier customers
18%
Increase in cross-brand shopping
65%
Higher spend from engaged members
Designing loyalty decisions for millions of customers
Shukran is Landmark Group's flagship loyalty ecosystem, serving 13.9M+ active members across six countries and 20+ retail brands. In 2023, the program needed to evolve — it had strong brand awareness but declining engagement, relying heavily on a passive points & cashback model that gave customers little reason to engage beyond basic transactions.
As Product Design Lead, I led a team of four designers and partnered with Product, Analytics, Marketing, and CRM to transform Shukran from a static earn-and-burn program into a tier-based loyalty platform built around customer behavior, recognition, and measurable business outcomes. I owned the end-to-end design lifecycle — from initial customer research through to post-launch optimization across all markets.
The problem with transactional loyalty
Despite millions of active members, Shukran was losing relevance. The program offered flat cashback with no differentiation between a first-time shopper and a loyal customer who had been spending for years. There was no visible progress, no recognition, and no reason to engage beyond redeeming points.
Three core problems surfaced:
No emotional connection
The program was purely transactional. Customers only earned and burned points but felt no attachment to the brand or motivation to deepen their relationship.
One-size-fits-all experience
A customer spending thousands a year received the same experience as someone who shopped once. High-value members had no reason to stay loyal, and low-value members had no incentive to spend more.
Inconsistencies
The loyalty experience felt different depending on whether a customer was in-store, on the app, or receiving a CRM message. There was no unified language or system tying it together across brands and markets.
The business goal was clear: shift from a passive program that rewarded past purchases to a proactive engagement platform that drives future behavior — increasing annual member spend, retention, and cross-brand shopping.
The Process: Turning insight into action
Step 1
Qualitative Research: Listening to Customers
Before designing anything, we needed to understand how customers actually perceived the program. We conducted qualitative research across five territories to uncover pain points, unmet expectations, and what members genuinely valued.
Key findings
Customers saw Shukran as "just another loyalty programm" functional but forgettable.
High-spending members felt unrecognized. They had no visibility into their value or status.
Members wanted to feel progression — a sense that their loyalty was building toward something meaningful.
The earn-and-burn model created a passive mindset.
Step 2
Stakeholder Alignment: Defining the Vision
Armed with research insights, we ran multiple ideation sessions with stakeholders across Product, Marketing, Analytics, and CRM to align on a shared vision for the new program.
The core strategic shift we aligned on: move Shukran from an earn-and-burn passive program to a proactive engagement enabler — one that visibly rewards customer behavior and drives annual member spend.
This meant the new program had to:
Recognize and differentiate customers based on their engagement level
Create visible milestones and progression that motivate continued spending
Be grounded in real behavioral data, not assumptions
Step 3
Quantitative Research: Understanding Behavior
With the strategic direction set, we partnered with Analytics to dive into customer purchase data. We analyzed spending patterns, visit frequency, and cross-brand behavior across all markets to understand how different customer segments actually shopped.
We used the RFM model (Recency, Frequency, Monetary) to segment the member base and identify high-value customers.
This analysis revealed clear behavioral clusters, from occasional shoppers to deeply engaged multi-brand loyalists, and helped us define where the biggest business opportunity sat.
The data showed that a relatively small percentage of members drove a disproportionate share of revenue. Investing in recognition and engagement for these members would yield significantly higher returns than spreading benefits evenly across the entire base.
Step 4
Defining the New Program Mechanics
Combining qualitative insights with quantitative data, we designed a new tier framework: Classic, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Each tier was tied to meaningful spend and engagement milestones — not arbitrary thresholds.
The strategic design decision: reduce spend on benefits for lower tiers and reinvest that budget into meaningful benefits for higher tiers.
The program structure was designed around the behavior we wanted to encourage:
Frequency
rewards that are activated with repeat visits, not just large one-time purchases
Cross-brand shopping
benefits that incentivized members to explore other brands within the Landmark ecosystem
Tier progression
visible milestones that made customers feel their loyalty was building toward something tangible
Step 5
Design Principles
The experience was built around four principles that guided every design decision:
Transparency
Clear tier progress and rules. Members could always see where they stood, what they needed to reach the next tier, and exactly what they'd unlock.
Recognition
Benefits and milestones that genuinely rewarded loyalty. Higher tiers came with meaningful perks that made customers feel valued, not just discounted.
Motivation
Behavioral nudges and localized offers by market. The experience didn't just inform — it actively encouraged the next action, tailored to each customer's behavior and local context.
Step 6
Design, Test, Iterate
With the program mechanics defined, we moved into design execution. I led my team through a structured design process:
Wireframes and information architecture
We mapped out the full member journey — from onboarding and tier discovery to progress tracking and benefit redemption. Every screen was designed to make the customer's status and next milestone immediately visible.
Usability testing
We tested initial wireframes with real customers to validate that the tier structure, progression mechanics, and benefit presentation made sense. We iterated based on direct feedback — simplifying language, improving visibility of tier progress, and making benefit access more intuitive.
New design language and tone of voice
We created a completely new visual identity for Shukran — moving away from the generic loyalty card aesthetic toward a design language that felt premium, fun, and engaging. The tone of voice shifted from corporate and transactional to warm and motivational, celebrating customer milestones and encouraging next steps.
Step 7
Pilot Launch
Rather than rolling out across all markets at once, we launched a pilot to test the new program in a real environment. This gave us a controlled setting to observe how customers reacted to the tier system, whether the in-store experience matched the digital one, and where the gaps were.
We conducted research activities during the pilot to gather direct customer feedback—what resonated, what confused them, and what they wished were different.
Key findings from the pilot:
Customers responded positively to tier visibility and progression, but awareness of new features was lower than expected — only 20% of surveyed customers knew about the new benefits.
Markets with trained Shukran Ambassadors and active in-store promotion significantly outperformed those without.
The gap between digital experience and in-store comms needed to be closed before scaling.
We enhanced the experience based on these findings — strengthening the communication strategy, improving in-store activation materials, and refining touchpoints where customers dropped off.
When engagement turns into growth
1M+
Members upgraded
members upgraded to higher tiers
25%
Revenue uplift
revenue uplift among top-tier customers
18%
Cross-brand shopping
increase in cross-brand shopping
65%
Higher spend
Higher spend from engaged members
What We Learned
Upgrading customers behave differently
Newly upgraded Platinum members showed +71.5% revenue growth versus +2.4% for retained Platinum members. The act of progressing through tiers itself drives spending behavior — it's not just about reaching the top.
Execution drives success
Markets with trained Shukran Ambassadors and in-store activation outperformed others. The best-designed digital experience still needs human touchpoints to land.
Visibility matters
Only 20% of surveyed customers were aware of new features — reinforcing that even the strongest design fails without clear communication and operational integration.
Engagement drives spend
Members interacting with tier benefits spent 65% more. This proved that behavioral design and visibility are key drivers of revenue, not just feature richness.
Customer-centric design is a continuous process
We built the program based on what customers wanted and how they behaved. We designed and tested, launched and gathered feedback, and continue iterating today. The program is never "done" — and that mindset is what makes it work.
Engagement drives spend
Members interacting with tier benefits spent 65% more. This proved that behavioral design and visibility are key drivers of revenue, not just feature richness.
