Loyalty Services

The evaluation this category was waiting for has been out since June 2024, and it contains exactly one Leader: Kobie. The Forrester Wave: Loyalty Services, Q2 2024 scored eight providers, put a single firm on the top rung, and then the same firm went on to lead the technology Wave a year and a half later.

The report that is already out: The Forrester Wave: Loyalty Services, Q2 2024

VP, principal analyst Mary Pilecki announced the results on June 3, 2024, with senior researcher Cole Walsh. The Wave scored eight providers, the "eight vendors that matter most," and followed The Loyalty Services Landscape, Q3 2023.

The money context Pilecki supplies explains why the evaluation exists at all: sixty five percent of B2C marketing decision-makers in Forrester's Marketing Survey, 2024 planned to increase investment in relationship and loyalty marketing. Loyalty budgets were rising while the loyalty technology stack was consolidating, and the services layer is where strategy meets both.

The definition is precise and worth keeping. Loyalty services providers are marketing service providers offering loyalty-specific consulting: market research, loyalty strategy development, program building and management, performance measurement, execution partner selection, and operational support.

The only Leader and what it was scored on

Kobie took the sole Leader placement, with the highest possible scores in twelve criteria including Vision, Enterprise Loyalty Design, Data Science, Analytics and Insights, Emotional Loyalty Measurement and Optimization, and Customer Data Processing and Management.

Forrester's summary sentence: Kobie "boasts the strongest current offering among the providers evaluated with excellent capabilities spanning CX and org design, offer management, and personalization."

Read the criteria list for what a loyalty services engagement actually is. Not campaign operations. Enterprise loyalty design, which is organizational consulting. Data science for member behavior. Emotional loyalty measurement, the part of loyalty that has nothing to do with points. Customer data processing, the part that touches privacy and governance. The only Leader won on the criteria a generalist agency would subcontract.

What the report tells providers to be

Pilecki's blog hands the services market a three-part job description, and each part is a differentiator check for any shortlist.

Begin engagements with a comprehensive loyalty strategy. Enterprisewide collaboration, C-suite influence, business goals aligned before any program work. A services firm that starts with a platform demo is starting in the wrong place.

Center the customer in the offering. Emotional and behavioral loyalty measured separately, insights managed as an asset, human-centered experience design. The scorecard's emphasis on emotional loyalty measurement is the market admitting that points are table stakes and feeling is the product.

Enable brand agility with a clear vision for loyalty's future. Adapting strategy, incorporating AI thoughtfully, not just adding a chatbot to a points program.

The three requirements together explain the 2024 budget surge Pilecki cites. Sixty five percent of B2C marketing decision-makers planned to increase loyalty investment, and they were not buying more campaign operations. They were buying the strategic layer: the redesign, the measurement, the emotional insight, and the roadmap. The services Wave exists because the loyalty budget moved upstream, and the scorecard grades the upstream work.

The vendor that crossed the aisle

Kobie is the story of this market's structure, not just its rankings. It was a Leader in the technology Wave, The Forrester Wave: Loyalty Technology Solutions, Q1 2023, and then the only Leader in the services Wave, Q2 2024, and then a Leader again, with a Customer Favorite designation, in The Forrester Wave: Loyalty Platforms, Q4 2025, the renamed technology scorecard.

The only provider evaluated as a Leader in both Waves, services and technology. That crossover is the market's confession: the loyalty services business and the loyalty technology business have collapsed into each other. The services firms sell platforms now, the platform vendors sell managed services, and the scorecards are measuring the same firms from two angles.

For a buyer, that means the classic question, do I buy technology or services, has quietly become, which contract structure gets me the same firm's best people.

The honest limits of a one-Leader scorecard

Seven of the eight placements have not surfaced publicly. The full tier table sits behind vendor announcements, and this article names what is confirmed and nothing beyond it.

A single-Leader field also carries a structural caveat. When one firm wins twelve maximum scores and the rest of the field stays quiet, the public record flatters the winner. The seven quiet placements may include firms that beat Kobie on individual criteria, pricing, or sector depth, and the market cannot tell. The silence is the limitation, not the score.

There is also the services-market timing to weigh. The Wave published in June 2024, before the renamed Loyalty Platforms scorecard of Q4 2025 arrived, and the services evaluation has not been refreshed since. A buyer relying on it today is relying on the market as it was before the platform consolidation finished. The services scores are historical; the platform scores are current; and the vendor that leads both is the one firm whose case does not depend on which edition you trust.

Three questions for a one-Leader shortlist

Which half of loyalty are you buying, the strategy or the operations? The only Leader won on design, data science, and emotional measurement. If your need is program operations at scale, the criteria sheet you actually need is different from the one that made the Leader.

What is the firm's platform relationship, and does it flow your data where you need it? The services and technology markets have merged. Ask how the services contract ties to the platform contract, and what happens to your member data if the two ever separate.

Where is the emotional loyalty evidence? Anyone can run a points program. Ask for measured emotional loyalty outcomes, churn reduction, share of wallet, in your sector, with names you can call.

Forrester does not endorse any vendor named here, and tier placement should not be read as a recommendation to buy.

The adjacent shortlist item is Loyalty Technology Solutions: forrester renamed this category from Solutions to Platforms, and the shift from scoring campaign modules to scoring a unified customer profile is the same rotation this series keeps finding across marketing technology.