Starting A Loyalty Scheme

[Todd301]

Hi Everyone,

We're a small independent retailer and we want to launch a loyalty scheme for our customers.

Has anyone used any companies for any part of this process e.g. printing loyalty cards, software for tracking purchases or outsourcing of the creation of the loyalty program?

If you could share any experiences or pass on any recommendations, it would be truly appreciated.

Thanks for reading.

T

 

[Alex@Iansprint]

As many people say, returning customers are better than new customers so you are onto a good idea.

We recently printed a loyalty card for a beauty salon, where it is the same size as a business cards, but on the reverse where 40 small squares, each representing £10. When a customer spent £10, she shaded a square off and when the card was full the customer received a free appointment.

You could use something similar to allow the customers themselves to keep hold of their card?

Alex

 

[Todd301]

Hi Alex,

Thanks very much for the advice and the ideas. If you could PM your details that would be useful.

Best

T

As many people say, returning customers are better than new customers so you are onto a good idea.

We recently printed a loyalty card for a beauty salon, where it is the same size as a business cards, but on the reverse where 40 small squares, each representing £10. When a customer spent £10, she shaded a square off and when the card was full the customer received a free appointment.

You could use something similar to allow the customers themselves to keep hold of their card?

Alex

 

[davehac]

I am not allowed post links to another site as I have yet to post 15 articles (not sure why). However if you check out Matt Heinz who is at heinz marketing dot com, he has written an article on the eight mistakes to avoid when creating a loyalty card program.

 

[North Wales Inks]

how much do you want spend on the loyalty scheme

 

[infomister]

The basic thing is to ensure automation of the process if you are going to deal with a lot of customers. The example of having a card with square portions to be marked or shaded after every new purchase by a customer is a good idea

 

[garyk]

Do you already have detailed sales history for each customer? The biggest hurdle is gathering this information so you can run targetted campaigns. Customer segmentation and analytics is abit of a pet project for me, some years ago I wrote a guide about it, you can get it from here http://explodeyoursales.co.uk/

Gary

 

A loyalty card scheme has to be tailored to fit a particular business or it will not work. Here are a few things to consider.
1
Is it just a numbers game? This suits things like a coffee shop . 5 stamps and get one coffee free. or
Do you want to encourage a minimum spend? This should be set slightly above the average spend of your regular customers so that it encourages that extra item.
2
Get your suppliers to fund the scheme. If you have 12 squares then you need to give people something like a free sample along the way as they will lose interest if it does not "pay out".
3
Consider mutliple levels. We had a gold card which you earn't by completing the first card. A lot of people were proud of their gold card and we devised some real benefits which attached to it.
4
A loyalty card is a long term scheme so put a lot of effort into getting it right before to commit. The card itself has to be printed in large numbers to be economic so think how you can change the scheme, add new benefits, cope with suppliers dropping out etc without the cards themselves becoming dated.

There is a lot more to think about but these points should set you thinking

 

[Todd301]

I'm really at the information gathering stage now, rather than budget setting. I'm just trying to understand everything before I get to that point. Of course, being a small one store retailer, we don't have huge budgets, but I would be prepared to invest if I can identify a case for a decent return....

how much do you want spend on the loyalty scheme

 

[Todd301]

Thanks Designer, that's really useful and you make some points I hadn't considered - particularly the mid way point incentive.

Just out of interest - are you tieing your scheme to a loyalty database at all? And if so, is this a proprietary system?

A loyalty card scheme has to be tailored to fit a particular business or it will not work. Here are a few things to consider.
1
Is it just a numbers game? This suits things like a coffee shop . 5 stamps and get one coffee free. or
Do you want to encourage a minimum spend? This should be set slightly above the average spend of your regular customers so that it encourages that extra item.
2
Get your suppliers to fund the scheme. If you have 12 squares then you need to give people something like a free sample along the way as they will lose interest if it does not "pay out".
3
Consider mutliple levels. We had a gold card which you earn't by completing the first card. A lot of people were proud of their gold card and we devised some real benefits which attached to it.
4
A loyalty card is a long term scheme so put a lot of effort into getting it right before to commit. The card itself has to be printed in large numbers to be economic so think how you can change the scheme, add new benefits, cope with suppliers dropping out etc without the cards themselves becoming dated.

There is a lot more to think about but these points should set you thinking

 

[patientlady]

Do you have EPOS or the like? These systems have their own loyalty software built in I understand. Found this thread very interesting as we have talked about this very thing but never put anything into action! Lots of ideas and the above has been informative. Thank you

 

[Alex@Iansprint]

If anyone else would like to see the example I discussed, PM me and I'll send you a copy.

Alex

 

[Todd301]

Glad you found this useful patientlady - there's definitely a lot for us all to learn in this area. I don't have a full epos system yet, but am very seriously considering an upgrade. I have seen one system with loyalty built in which was excellent but completely out of our budget :-(

Do you have EPOS or the like? These systems have their own loyalty software built in I understand. Found this thread very interesting as we have talked about this very thing but never put anything into action! Lots of ideas and the above has been informative. Thank you

 

Our scheme ran purely manually. We did use it to collect customer data but in the end we knew all our customers well and never did a mail shot or similar.

 

[bovine]

I use a couple of different systems when customers want loyalty systems. ICRTouch is a good epos system that has basic loyalty built in. Depending on how you want the loyalty scheme to work it may be suitable or failing that look at GPos linked to Powersuite (includes total stock and instant loyalty). Very powerful system and easy to use, but the complete system would cost in the region of £4-5k (includes touchscreen,printer, drawer, scanner etc.)

edit - and I should add, you dont necessarily need to use mag cards, you can get small cards like the tesco club card for your keyring with barcodes on. You can use these to recall customer. Benefit is also you dont need an additional card reader, just use your barcode scanner.......

 

[benwootton]

Todd and anyone else interested in loyalty schemes - I would be really interested in sharing with you a new mobile customer loyalty product that I am developing.

It's not ready to sell yet so you won't get a sales pitch, I'm genuinally looking to get feedback from business owners.

Ping me a message on bswootton AT gmail DOT com for a chat!

 

[relaxkids]

My local fruit and veg shop give us a cherry stamp on a card - when we buy from them - when we have 10 cherries we get 20% or money off - I cant remember. It does make me go back to them though!

 

[benwootton]

I'm working on a software product that will enable small businesses to manage customer loyalty programs.

I'm currently looking for early beta testers and for people to give feedback about the product.

I won't leave the link here as I don't want to spam, but please PM me if you have an interest in this topic