Mercedes-Benz Loyalty Program

The relationship goes quiet the moment the keys change hands.

Zung Fu, Mercedes-Benz's dealer in Greater China, sells the car in one department and services it in another, and between them the owner falls silent for months. A points card wouldn't fix that; premium buyers see through it. The brief became a business question dressed as a service one: keep owners engaged after the sale, and give Zung Fu real signals about each driver, so the gap between Sales and Aftersales stops leaking retention and revenue.

We mapped the full lifecycle, from pre-buying to re-purchase, and found the value leaks in Car Life: the long stretch of waiting, usage, maintenance and repair that no one owns end to end. The strategic move was to stop selling one-off services and position Zung Fu's portfolio as a lifestyle membership that bridges Sales and Aftersales, turning a single transaction into a recurring relationship and downstream growth.

Onboarding asks for a name and a few interests, travel, fitness, food, art, tech, music, and nothing more. It's two taps, but it does double duty: every screen after it is filtered to what this owner cares about, and Zung Fu gets a first-party profile it can act on in person, so the app never reads like a generic member portal and the dealership never greets a stranger.

Most memberships live as an icon you forget. We made this one an object you carry: a small connected key shaped after a pocket watch and compass, and a premium IoT device in its own right. It pairs to the phone over Bluetooth Low Energy and speaks in gentle vibrations and light, no screen needed. The lights tell the time; the compass, driven by the phone's GPS and an onboard magnetometer, points you back to where you parked. The physical form is the point, it keeps the membership present, and genuinely useful, every day.

Industrial design ran end to end: sketch walls of pocket-watch and compass forms, a chosen round-ridge direction, CAD, custom electronics, and hand-built prototypes we could hold. Feel drove the calls, so we tested weight and grip in the hand long before it looked finished.

The app tracks the car from factory to road: shipment updates from Germany, the sound of your engine, curated member exclusives, and community moments. Each piece answers a real owner question, where is my car, what do I get, who else drives one, instead of stacking features for their own sake.

The longest wait in buying a car is the build. Instead of hiding it, we turned it into a film assembled in real time from the owner's own vehicle, order, chassis, trim, ending at handover. Along the way owners collect a wishlist Zung Fu reads to prep for their arrival. The wait becomes the onboarding.

The membership begins in the showroom, not the app store. New owners receive an "Open New Doors" kit, the smart key, a welcome letter, and a wireless charger, and a Sales Advisor sets up the key with them on the spot. It makes the first Aftersales touchpoint a moment worth remembering, and hands the relationship off warm instead of letting it cool.

We storyboarded the moments the device earns its place: claim a reward with a tap, get invited to members-only events, or get nudged when you walk too far from your key and guided back. Each one had to be worth reaching for a physical object, not something the app could already do alone.

Three principles kept us honest, enjoyable, transparent, convenient, and we tested every flow against them. Then we mapped the full ownership loop, e-ticket arrival, lounge pickup, inventory checklist, follow-up, so the app and the dealership felt like one experience instead of two.

Hardware over app-only. A custom key cost more to design, manufacture, and support than shipping software alone. We took that cost because a physical object stays in the owner's daily life and an app icon doesn't. The membership had to be felt, not remembered.

The quiet months over the launch moment. We spent the effort on the slow stretch after delivery, when programs usually go dark, rather than a flashy first week. Fewer launch features, more reasons to come back: service, experiences, and a handover worth showing up for.

The bet. Every choice served one outcome: convert a one-off sale into an ongoing membership, so Zung Fu earns the next service visit, the referral, and the re-purchase, and owns the relationship across the whole car life, not just the day of the deal.