Reviving a Loyalty Icon: National Emerald Club’s Rebound

The Emerald Aisle: National Car Rental's loyalty program empowers members to skip the counter and choose their own vehicle, streamlining the rental experience.

Company: National Car Rental

Timeframe: 2005 to 2016

Role: Loyalty Strategy Lead / Marketing

Team: Worked with Operations, IT, Research and Insights, and Agencies

Challenge:

Following the post-9/11 travel downturn, National Car Rental faced challenges in its business. National's Emerald Club, previously a leader in car rental loyalty, had become less relevant. Our objective was to rebuild the program into a customer-first experience and reposition National as a premium rental brand, restoring trust, relevance, and profitability.

Summary of Initiatives:

We repositioned Emerald Club as a customer-first loyalty program to win back frequent renters. Focusing on service, rewards, and personalization. Key initiatives included:

Side-by-side comparison of National Car Rental’s Emerald Club Fast-Track vs. the Traditional Rental Process, highlighting the simplicity and speed of the Emerald Aisle experience.

Seamless, Fast Service that Delivers Immediate Value. To increase our members’ satisfaction, particularly regarding speed, I developed digital tools to educate members on the perks of the Emerald Aisle service. These tools enable members to bypass the counter and select any vehicle from their designated tier. As we continued to rebuild the program, we partnered with operations to expand the reach of the Emerald Aisle service, where applicable.

Focusing on convenience, we enhanced our online member profiles to allow for the management of the master rental agreements, rental history, and member preferences. These improvements have streamlined the rental process, reduced wait times, and provided a faster, more convenient experience.

Tiered Rewards that Recognize and Retain Top Customers. As we continued to rebuild the National brand and Emerald Club, we focused on our tiered membership levels—Executive and Executive Elite. These tiers enabled us to identify high-frequency renters, offering them premium benefits, including guaranteed upgrades and accelerated reward accumulation. Based on our research, it was proven that recognition created emotional loyalty and affinity for travel programs. This created a stickiness to the brand and helped reposition National as a leader in the industry.

Personalized Promotions in Action: Using rental history and behavioral insights, we targeted members with gamified promotions like OneTwoFree.

Personalized Promotions that Drive Engagement and Reactivation. Using customer data insights, I could target members based on their previous rental behavior. This data allowed me to tailor key member promotions to encourage specific member behavior, such as opting in to email, increasing wallet share, or trying new features and products. I also leveraged this data to re-engage lapsed members, prompting many to shift some of their rental activity back to National. Using these insights, promotional campaigns were fine-tuned to create engaging promotions with gamification and rewards that drove positive consumer behavior and measurable lifts in frequency and loyalty.

Results & Impact:

• Acquisition Catalyst: The success of Emerald Club helped drive National’s acquisition by Enterprise Holdings in 2007. The loyalty program’s engaged customer base and seamless experience were cited as key assets.

  
  

• Industry Recognition: In 2013, Emerald Club was voted “Best Rental Car Company Loyalty Program” by Executive Travel Magazine.
  

• Customer Satisfaction Leader: That same year, National ranked number one in J.D. Power’s North America Rental Car Satisfaction Study, a significant comeback from its early 2000s challenges.
  

• Behavioral Uplift: Targeted promotions led to measurable increases in:
  

  • Increased email opt-ins and communications engagement

  • Member reactivation and frequency of rentals

  • Use of value-added services like mobile app reservations and mobile alerts

Reflection:

Transforming the Emerald Club was more than just a marketing win; it taught me the value of blending customer data, operational collaboration, and behavioral psychology to create meaningful loyalty experiences. By aligning internal teams around a customer-first vision, we were able to rebuild trust and deliver convenience in a category often seen as commoditized. This project deepened my belief that loyalty is emotional before it's transactional. Our success didn’t come from discounts alone — it came from recognition, personalization, and trust. These lessons continue to guide my approach to customer experience strategy today.