Robin Calvo
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Walmart Mexico & Central America · Beneficios Program · 2022–2023

Beneficios Program: usage ×2.5 in 3 months

In the pilot of Walmart’s benefits program, almost the entire adult population of 3 states gave their number at checkout, but very few used their benefits. I removed the friction from the activation process and brought the benefit to the customer.

Role

Pilot growth lead: acquisition and retention, heading the acquisition and retention team.

Scale

Morelos, Durango and Campeche, with almost their entire adult population as target audience. $4M a month and $34M a year in budget.

Starting point

6% of active customers used a benefit. Games, a pickup-truck raffle and onboarding improvements did not move the number.

Key decision

Stop adding campaigns and remove steps: from five steps started by the customer to two started by us.

×2.5

benefit usage in 3 months, with a single campaign

Usage

6→16%

of active customers using at least one benefit

Activation

3

pilot states (Morelos, Durango and Campeche), the basis of the model later launched nationwide

Reach

25M+

users four months after the national launch (2024), with the model validated in the pilot

Later scale

The situation

The program is physical and free: the customer leaves their phone number at the Walmart or Bodega Aurrerá checkout and receives benefits. It is the only benefits program Walmart runs worldwide.

Acquisition was going very well thanks to the experience team’s work. The problem was usage: to activate a benefit, the customer had to register, verify their phone, browse the catalog, choose, and activate it with a different method for each benefit.

The decision

Instead of pushing the customer up that ladder, we brought the benefit down to one “yes” away. I designed Benefit Seeding: an SMS to customers with unactivated benefits that month, with a simple form to pick one. The benefit was active the next day.

We went from five steps, with a different method per benefit, to two steps that we initiated.

The result

Benefit usage grew ×2.5 in three months and activation went from 6% to 16% of active customers. Customers who used their benefits spent above average.

Later, the experience team took usage much higher with other initiatives. That growth is theirs.

What I learned

  • Experience beats marketing. With millions of customers there is no budget to repeat a message until the customer acts. Marketing accelerates; what sustains usage is experience.
  • I start with what the customer already does. The new thing is tied to an existing routine, one step away. Inserting something the customer has never tried costs much more.
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