3 Types of loyalty programs for businesses | Basic to Advanced

There are three levels of loyalty programs for businesses that you can implement:

1) Basic

2) Intermediate

3) Advanced

 loyalty programs for businesses Let's look at each of them step by step.

1. Basic

Just as simple as it becomes for both business and customers. An original program is great for places that want to promote one or two main products or services. You just need some sort of record for purchase, just like a small card. The point here is to run repeat business, get customers to buy from you. You only need to train those who interact with these customers and offer additional products.

These types of  loyalty programs for businesses work very well for shops selling products such as coffee, donuts, burgers, and hot dogs. If you have a business that offers a simple service, such as rug cleaning, lawn mowing, or pet grooming - anything where a customer can use your service fairly regularly - then you also have a basic loyalty program Can be installed.

The program is a simple equation: pay for x number of products / services, next get one free. The seller just needs to ask if the customer has a membership card. If not, they offer them one, and mark the card to show the purchase. When the customer's card is completely marked, the seller takes the card and gives the customer a donut / cleaning / whatever for free, along with a new, unmarked card.

Instead of a physical card, you can also invest in creating an app that people can download to their smartphone. This is obviously more than an upfront expense for most businesses, but how fast you move through the card can be more cost effective over time.

Pros: Low cost, ease of installation and immediacy are the three main pros to starting a basic loyalty program. If you put it together yourself, you can start a basic program for around $ 20 (500 cards and a small ink ticket). Spend more money for overnight printing, and you can start your original schedule tomorrow.

Cons: You will be relying almost exclusively for your point-of-salt people - promoting the program and driving additional sales. You are not fully aware of the individuals in your program, so you cannot make customized offers. You do not have any contact information for your customers, so there is no way to get in touch with them and either ask them questions ("What else can we offer you?") 

2. Intermediate

These take little effort and cost to install, but it is not difficult. Most loyalty programs I have seen fall into this category. The main tools used here are -

1) a list with personal information (first name and email address, at least) from each customer

2) a contact mechanism, like an email autoresponder, or text message sending system (SMS)

3) a series of automated messages

4) Offer - Discount, Buy X more free, etc.

These loyalty programs for businesses take a bit more planning, a little more time and a little more money. Your cost in time and money will depend on how complex you want your program to be, and what you want to get out of it. You can self-register people for the program, and then make the program an offer to members and automatically remove prizes (such as discount coupons, etc.). Or you can make the program more complex, and divide your members into groups and sub-groups, each offering different offers and rewards. If you reward people for their loyalty, they are likely to reward you with detailed information, such as important dates (birth dates, anniversaries, and beyond), physical addresses, and shopping preferences.

The Intermediate Loyalty Program can help you expand members' purchasing decisions, allowing you to suggest related products and services. If they know, trust you, they are likely to buy additional products and services from you to go elsewhere.

Pros: Most intermediate programs can be highly automated. With just a few minutes each week, a single person can check the data generated by the program, and make minor changes to improve the process. Much of the cost comes from labor and money, and almost allows you to "set it and forget it." The person managing the system only needs to spend major time when parts of the system change, or when adding new complexities such as additional products, services, or inventory segments. Due to the moderate amount of personal information you can get, you are able to offer high-profit products and services to the right list members at the right time.

Cons: One has to understand the program, and be in charge of managing it behind the curtain. They are in charge of contacting people from the training point to expect coupons from the program members and beyond. They are also required to regularly read the data that the system generates, interpret it, and make decisions based on that information. Learning all of this can take a lot of time and effort in the beginning. While intermediate programs do not need to be super-expensive, a decent system is free of charge.

3. Advanced

By their nature, advanced loyalty programs for businesses are much more complex, much more expensive, and require a recurring investment of time by a team of people. However, most advanced systems track a tremendous amount of information, and the data provided by these programs can help you virtually micro-promote each member. A lot of membership programs run by major corporations are advanced systems. Wegmans - a major grocery chain on America's East Coast - knows what its members buy below for individual SKUs, and their automated system can offer coupons for items that customers have shopped in the past . I regularly receive coupons of the same type from BJ's Wholesale Club. Promoted through coupons sent via advanced system mail, via SMS messages sent to a member's phone, or even through custom apps used to make purchases can offer. A truly advanced system will know how often you shop, the quality of products and services you like, the brand, the individual items. It will be able to offer you incentives based on important dates such as holidays and birthdays. They can tell how much time you spend shopping, and when they don't see you in a while, prompt you to come. The more information your membership program has, the more you can do with that information - including collecting it and selling it to third parties. But this is a whole other discussion!

Pros: Tons of information, depending on how much information you collect and how complex you make the collection system. The more information you collect, the more granular you can promote yourself. Offer discounts not only on widgets, but also yellow left-hand widgets; Or people of a certain zip code, who prune their lawn only on Thursdays. Track your costs, schedule required supplies for the hour, plan for increased profits.

Cons: Costly investment. The set-up cost in time and human resources is much higher than other categories. Tracking the system, as well as interpreting and using the data generated usually takes a team of people, and is a continuous investment. The more data you track, the more program parts need to be folded.

This article was written by Scott A Gardner

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