Loyalty and advocacy aren't the same thing, and confusing them is where most programmes go wrong. Loyalty is a behaviour — they keep buying. Advocacy is an emotion — they'll put their own name behind you. Advocacy sits at the referral end of the journey, and it's the most trusted growth there is: referred customers tend to stay markedly longer than the ones you buy. But you can't bolt it on with a points scheme. It starts with an experience genuinely worth talking about, then a deliberate mechanism that makes sharing easy and rewarding. Earn the emotion first; build the mechanism second.
We find where the advocacy already lives — which customers love you, why, and what would make them bring others — then design and build the mechanism the evidence points to. Not a template dropped on top, but the thing that fits your customers. Sometimes that's a programme; sometimes it's a place for them to belong.