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Loyalty Programs

Attributes of the Best Loyalty Programs

Written by 
Admin
 - 
August 5, 2017

The best loyalty programs don’t generally happen by chance. Here are some of the key attributes that we see in the most successful loyalty programs.

  • Simplicity
  • Easy to join
  • Achievable rewards
  • Perceived value in the rewards
  • Surprise and Delight

Simplicity

There are good reasons to keep things simple. It needs to be easy to understand for your customers but just as importantly, it needs to be easy for your staff. If the employees don’t get it, then it will never work. Along with your most loyal customers, your staff is your most important brand ambassadors.

Easy to Join

Onboarding your customers needs to be quick, easy and as frictionless a process as possible. Gone are the days where customers are happy to fill in a 2 page, hand written application form to join a program. Using a loyalty card app can be a simple way to streamline this process. Consumers are now very adept at downloading apps and there is an increasing participation in loyalty card applications and own brand loyalty applications throughout the world.

Achievable Rewards

It’s really important for the customer to feel that they can achieve the rewards on offer. This, of course, needs to be matched to the type of business and frequency of visit. Useful ways to help with this is to offer interim rewards along the way and provide a signup reward as an additional incentive to join. Our data research shows that with a simple coffee rewards program you offer a free coffee on sign up you will encourage 3 times more participation in your program than if you didn’t offer this incentive.

Perceived Value in the Rewards

It goes without saying the customer needs to perceive some value in the rewards provided. Without this, there is no incentive for them to participate. However, another key factor here is that you want your staff to believe in the value to the customer. With this, they will happily on board your customers and promote your loyalty program.

Surprise and Delight

This element is often missed and is actually one of the easiest to implement. Using features such as a birthday club or pushing out thank you messages or using shareable coupons that you customers can give to their friends are simple ways to surprise and delight. Even though someone knowingly signs up to a birthday club, when it comes around it is still a nice surprise to receive a birthday message and even better if it also has an additional reward.

With a digital loyalty card application, all these features and attributes are easy to implement and attain. There are also many more benefits for you and your customers in running a digital loyalty program.

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