I’ve used Repeat Returns for almost 5 years and we love it. It is a combination of loyalty and e-mail advertising (through scheduled e-mails and push notifications). They are extremely responsive when I need to do a push e-mail (I did one yesterday that was a rush and it went out in a couple hours, design and all). I like that customers don’t need a card, just a 10-digit number (usually their phone number) and it somewhat integrates with any pos. Their dashboard is second to none. There are a number of features that we haven’t even begun to use yet (like community connection).
All that said, there are lots of newer types of “Loyalty Programs” with bells and whistles that help draw folks in. Front Flip is one I looked long and hard at, but the fact that you don’t own your data was a non-starter for me. We’ve also looked at rytangl recently which looks like a cool way to engage guests. Obviously, things like 4-square and check-ins through FB can be used as loyalty programs as well. I think the key, as loyalty programs begin to fade a little, is to engage guests in unique ways. Obviously, offering a deal is going to work. But getting guests to be interactive is way more difficult and way more rewarding (monetarily). Finally, as we’ve learned, any loyalty program is only as good as the person running it. Making sure employees are talking about it, enrolling people, and entering points is never-ending job. Do not think you can just train your employees and forget about it (I’ve made that mistake). Measure and publish the results. Repeat!
I’ll share something I’ve had on the back burner for a while that I think is a good idea - we call it the Next Door Pizza Street Team. It’s a program where guests enroll. Once enrolled they can complete tasks to earn points. Each of these tasks is designed to promote my business. The more outlandish the task, the higher the points. For example - take a selfie in another city with an NDP shirt on gets you 50 points, but tattooing our logo on your body gets you (100,000). Having 5 $3.00 gift cards redeemed by customers (other than the team member) is worth 100 points, but mentioning us on a radio program or tv program is worth 1000. Those points get converted to dollars which get exchanged for pizza. I’ve had this program all set up and even began building a database to track it, but got busy or lazy and haven’t implemented it yet so I’m putting out here in the public domain to test its effectiveness
Whatever you do, do something! Loyalty is the #1 way to drive sales as I’m sure you already know.
