Is it for My Business
A Loyalty program for your small business have been shown increase revenue. A small increase in extra visits can make a significant increase in profitability. Many business’ such as coffee, pizza, and Sub shops are ideal candidates for loyalty programs. Your increase in sales revenue should outweigh the cost to implement and maintain a successful Loyalty program.
Where to Start
There are many ways to go about setting up a loyalty program; some POS systems and terminals have their own program or partner with a 3rd party. Some programs require customers to carry around a plastic loyalty card and others require customers to download an app. For many business’ these will not be embraced well, customers maybe willing to add an app a popular national coffee chain, but that doesn’t mean they will for a small business. Many people are hesitant to load one more app or carry around one more card.
Keep it Simple
There are some low disruption options where the Credit card your customer already uses for purchases can be attached to your program. Thus removing the friction of yet another app to load or card to fit in their wallet/purse/keyring. Some programs require customers to log into a separate device on each visit and some of these may carry a high enough cost to your business to negate the benefit to you.
Promotional Value of a Loyalty Program
Rewards programs provide more value than just point earning loyalty point/rewards to increase return visits. Once your customer has opted into your rewards program or to receive email receipts or updates you can send promotions to further increase patronage. Thus the sooner you start gathering contact information the sooner send promotions.