How a paper card works
The idea fits in one line: on each visit, you stamp a card bearing your business's name. After a number of boxes, the customer gets a reward, and leaves with a new card.
The whole programme lives in the customer's pocket. You do not know how many cards are in circulation, who fills them, or at what pace. The only moment the programme speaks to you is when a full card comes back.
How a digital card works
A digital loyalty card is saved in the customer's phone, in Apple Wallet on iPhone or Google Wallet on Android. The customer adds it by scanning a QR code at the counter, without downloading an app.
At the till, the staff member scans the card's QR code with a phone or a tablet, and credits the visit. The balance is not stored in the phone: it lives in the business's management area, which the card displays. That is what makes it possible to recover the balance of a customer who has changed phones.
What the paper card does well
- It asks nothing of the customer. No phone, no email, no form. You hand it over, they take it.
- It depends on no tool. No network, no subscription, no possible failure apart from a dry ink pad.
- It suits every customer, including those who have no smartphone or do not want to use one for this.
- It costs little to start: a print order and a stamp.
The limits of the paper card
- It gets forgotten. A card stays in another bag, another coat, and the customer pays without a stamp. Each time it is forgotten is a visit that does not count, and a card that fills more slowly.
- It tells you nothing. You do not know who your loyal customers are, how many there are, or which ones have stopped coming.
- It does not let you get back in touch. No way to announce a closure, a new product or an offer.
- It can be forged. A stamp can be imitated, and nothing tells you who stamped what.
- It has to be reprinted. The cost is low, but it keeps coming back, and a forgotten order leaves the counter without cards.
What the digital card brings
- It is always there, since it is in the phone the customer has in hand to pay.
- It shows you who comes back. Each scanned visit feeds a profile: visits, last visit, rewards claimed.
- It lets you write to the customer. With AnkorCard, a message arrives on the card and on the lock screen of iPhone customers.
- It is traceable. Only a signed-in staff account can credit, and each operation is recorded with its author.
- It changes without reprinting. A change of logo or colours carries over to Apple Wallet cards already installed.
The limits of the digital card
They exist, and it is better to know them before choosing.
- It requires a compatible smartphone. Customers who do not have one can be followed by hand from their profile, but they have no card to show.
- Signing up takes about thirty seconds. That is short, but it is more than handing over a card: it has to be offered at the right moment.
- The scanner needs a connection. If it drops, you note the visits and credit them when the network comes back.
- It costs a subscription, where cardboard costs only printing. With AnkorCard, from €22 a month when paying yearly.
Comparison
| Criterion | Paper card | Digital card |
|---|---|---|
| Set-up | Printing cards and a stamp | Creating the card online, QR code to print |
| For the customer | A card to carry around | A card in the Wallet, sign-up in about thirty seconds |
| Forgotten or lost | Frequent, the stamps are lost | The card follows the phone, the balance is kept |
| Knowing your customers | None | A profile per customer, visits, last visit |
| Contact | None | Messages on the card |
| Fraud | Stamp can be imitated, nothing is traced | Crediting reserved for staff accounts, operations traced |
| Customers without a smartphone | No problem | Can be followed by hand, without a card |
| Cost | Regular reprints | Monthly or yearly subscription |
Which system for your business
The paper card remains defensible if your customers are elderly or not well equipped, if your customers come rarely and you do not intend to write to them, or if the programme is a small courtesy rather than a tool.
The digital card takes the lead as soon as you want to know who comes back, get back in touch with customers who no longer come, or manage a team that credits together. That is the case for most businesses with frequent visits: coffee shops, bakeries and restaurants, where the forgotten card is the rule rather than the exception.
For businesses with spaced-out visits, such as a hair salon, the argument changes: the card has to last several months without getting lost, and a reminder at the right moment matters more than the stamp itself.
Moving from paper to digital
A good transition asks nothing of anyone: no cut-off date, no cards cancelled. The two systems coexist for a few weeks, and the cardboard disappears by itself.
- Create the digital card with the same rule as your cardboard one, so your customers feel at home: same number of boxes, same reward.
- Offer it at the counter, to every customer who shows their cardboard card. Signing up happens while paying.
- Carry over their stamps to their new card from their profile, and take back the cardboard card, or let them keep it while they get used to the new one.
- Stop handing out new cardboard cards. Cards in progress are honoured to the end.
To see what your card would look like, the simulator builds it live, without an account. The full workings are described on the digital loyalty card page.