Customer loyalty programmes

jimmii

We are looking at introducing a loyalty programme of some sort what things have people found worked well in the past in retail? Just a straight forward discount system for "members" or a get 5/10 stamps and get X for free type thing?

pedroeibar1

You need to zone in on what you really want – (a) data accumulation on customer buying habits to drive your business or (b) a simple loyalty ‘thank-you’ to get closer to the customer.
For the former, think of store loyalty cards (Tesco, Dunnes, Supervalue) who give rewards (cash vouchers, special offers, discounts) while accumulating info on buying habits and then mining that data to mailshot specific coupons, freebies, etc. to their customers. The US supermarket Target is good at this – see here

For a simple ‘rewards’ programme - for e.g. a coffee shop business could stamp on a card every time a customer buys a coffee and after X number stamps a free cup or bun is given. Same with a book store - every €x gets a stamp, card is filled and it can be traded (value or discount) against new purchase. It’s down to your business, its / your needs and how sophisticated you want to be.

sandin

I think the nice simple stamp card is best.

Something like one stamp for each €10 spent and get €10 off when a card is full. You choose the number of stamps needed.

Best to get an unusual design and get sequential numbering for a little security www.kergraphics.com for labels, your local printer for loyalty cards.

jimmii

Yeh the standard stamp system is pretty much what we were thinking would have liked to come up with something a little more original but I guess so many places use the stamps because it works! The system we have will track buying habits as part of that too so it will help us get a better idea of what our regular customers are buying.

We were going to go with after 5 stamps (1 stamp every time you spend €10 or more) you get X free and after 10 you get a €10 voucher. X would change from week to week depending on the sort of deals we get and the stock levels etc.

Security wise we would register each customer (they would also get a discount on their birthday) so cards couldn't be shared around and also so if someone lost their card we would have a record of how many stamps they had etc.

terryhobdell

I1 have a loyalty card from a very pleasant garden centre in Co Wexford they record on their cash register my purchases no scanning because I never have my card and from time to time they tell me that some purchase was covered by my points and I go away happy I don't get statements like Tesco etc. They send out email promos which I like. It is very hassle free have no idea if it is bought in or something they developed but if you are interested will find out the techie bits if they will share them.

jimmii wrote: »

Yeh the standard stamp system is pretty much what we were thinking would have liked to come up with something a little more original but I guess so many places use the stamps because it works! The system we have will track buying habits as part of that too so it will help us get a better idea of what our regular customers are buying.

We were going to go with after 5 stamps (1 stamp every time you spend €10 or more) you get X free and after 10 you get a €10 voucher. X would change from week to week depending on the sort of deals we get and the stock levels etc.

Security wise we would register each customer (they would also get a discount on their birthday) so cards couldn't be shared around and also so if someone lost their card we would have a record of how many stamps they had etc.

jimmii

terryhobdell wrote: »

I1 have a loyalty card from a very pleasant garden centre in Co Wexford they record on their cash register my purchases no scanning because I never have my card and from time to time they tell me that some purchase was covered by my points and I go away happy I don't get statements like Tesco etc. They send out email promos which I like. It is very hassle free have no idea if it is bought in or something they developed but if you are interested will find out the techie bits if they will share them.

Yeh our system works in a similar way so we can still stamp them even if they have forgotten the card. I think its the way most systems are going now. We'll be starting it week after next fingers crossed it goes well!!

Peterdalkey

Dont forget that Loyalty Marketing has other more aspects than just cards. I will stick up this from one of our UK site blogs http://www.snazzybags.co.uk/news/news-10.html. Cheeky but I hope relevant! There was also a great post by sandin on using FB recently http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=88728308

jimmii

Yeh that FB post was really good. Facebook has been massively important to us a lot of people seem to write it off as something you can't make any money off but we get loads of sales from it every day.

terryhobdell

jimmii wrote: »

Yeh our system works in a similar way so we can still stamp them even if they have forgotten the card. I think its the way most systems are going now. We'll be starting it week after next fingers crossed it goes well!!

Good luck

MoneyCrowd

There is a crowd in Cork running loyalty schemes for business where the customer photographs the receipt and receives cash back.
All done through their app.