1. Decide what should change
A loyalty programme is not an end in itself. Before choosing a reward, write down in one sentence what you want to see move in your business. The most common goals:
- Bringing back more often customers who already come.
- Increasing the basket of those who come regularly.
- Filling a quiet time of the day or the week.
- Keeping in touch with customers who rarely come, to bring them back.
A single main goal is enough. It decides everything else.
2. Choose the rule
If the goal is frequency, the stamp card is the most direct: every visit counts. If it is the basket, points per euro spent reward big purchases. Cashback is a variant of points, expressed as money given back.
The guide points or stamps compares the two in detail, with the type of business each one suits.
3. Set the reward and the tier
A good reward ticks three boxes.
- It is concrete. "A free dessert" is understood, "a surprise" is not. The label is shown as is on the card.
- It is reachable. Count how many visits a regular customer needs to get there. If it is more than a few months, the tier is too far.
- It is sustainable. Work out what it represents compared with what the customer spent to get it.
For businesses with spaced-out visits, two tiers work well: a first one close by, so the customer sees the programme exists, and a second, more generous one.
4. Decide what you ask the customer for
Every field added to the sign-up form makes someone give up. With AnkorCard, the first name and email are always requested, so that a lost card can be found again. The rest is up to you:
- The date of birth, if you plan to send a birthday message. Without it, no birthday.
- The phone number, only if you really call your customers, for example about an order.
- The surname, useful when several customers share a first name.
Do not ask for anything you will not use: that is also what the GDPR expects of you.
5. Prepare how to offer it
This is the decision people forget, and it is the one that drives the number of sign-ups. A QR code placed on the counter without a word is rarely scanned. Offered when paying, when the phone is already in hand, it is scanned much more often.
- Put the sign-up QR code where the customer waits: counter, card terminal, table.
- Write the sentence the team will say, short and the same for everyone: "Would you like the card? The first stamp is on us."
- Give an immediate reason: credit the first stamp right after signing up.
Launch day
- Check the card on an iPhone and on an Android phone from people around you.
- Print the sign-up QR code in several copies.
- Create an account for each staff member who will scan, with the right role.
- Run a full test: sign-up, credit, reward confirmed.
- Post the link on your Google profile and your social networks.
Keeping the programme alive
A card you never see move ends up deleted. Two to four messages a month are enough, provided each one says something: a seasonal product, a closure, a dated offer. Automatic messages (birthday, voucher about to expire) take over in the weeks when you have time for nothing.
The most profitable group to work on is the customers who no longer come back. A customer absent for two months is not lost yet. See campaigns and segments.
Knowing whether it works
Three figures, to look at after a few weeks:
- New sign-ups. If they plateau quickly, it is the way the card is offered that is stuck, rarely the card itself.
- Active customers. Sign-ups who do not come back point to a reward that is too far away or not desirable enough.
- Rewards used. If nobody claims one after several weeks, the tier is probably too high.
These figures are in your account's dashboard. See loyalty statistics.
The most common mistakes
- A tier too far away. Ten visits for a customer who comes once a month.
- A vague reward, which makes nobody want anything.
- A form that is too long, abandoned at the counter.
- A card never offered, because nobody prepared the sentence.
- Rules changed without warning, which leave people feeling cheated.
- Messages with no content, which get the card deleted.
Next, the digital loyalty card page describes how these decisions take shape in AnkorCard.