Swipii — online loyalty for offline businesses. Oh god ANOTHER tool?
Choice is a wonderful thing isn’t it? Not always, the paradox of choice can actually slow us down and even affect your mental health and wellbeing!
“ But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. “
Today the amount of tools and technologies at our fingertips is incredible, not only for bricks and mortar business also for me in my role as Director of Growth at Swipii, just take a look at the choice of tools I had last year!
https://chiefmartec.com/2018/04/marketing-technology-landscape-supergraphic-2018/
What does this have to do with customer loyalty for bricks and mortar businesses?
I am very conscious we are yet another tool choice for a small business to make, you already have the likes of JustEat, UberEats, Groupon, isison, Treatwell, Tripadvisor, ePos, iZettle, WorldPay, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. All this when often you, the business owner, are also single handedly being the finance person, Barista, Admin, Operations person as well!
Loyalty? Why will that help me?
For me that is the wrong question, the question is why retention?
Many business spend a LOT of time, effort and £££ to acquire new customers, and they either fail or don’t have the means to know if they are retaining those customers they fought hard for, spent to get. You may get great transaction information from your card reader/ePos system, you may get great insight in your deals tool telling you how many deals you sold this much. But who/how do you get insight into the long term effects of the effort you are putting in?
You can’t and that’s where Swipii comes in.
If you have visibility on who and how loyal your frequent customers are, you can cut down on those costs to constantly acquire new users. If you know who your loyal and frequent customers are, wouldn't you want to reward them for that loyalty?
“By instituting a loyalty program, you not only improve customer appreciation of your business, but you also increase the chances that existing clients will share this joy with those close to them,” says Steve Olenski, a senior creative content strategist at Oracle Responsys.
Beware though, not all rewards are created equal, you should ensure you are recognising customers spend and rewarding accordingly. For example if you are a coffee shop where most people spend £4-£5 and visit once or twice a week, having a reward redemption of 1 coffee after a spend of say £100 would unlikely be rewarding.
Let’s put Starbucks under the microscope, as I used to be an avid Starbucks points collector last year, not any more!
15 transactions = 1 free drink. Starbucks don’t even reward on spend, we do! I felt cheated any time I bought a drink for a friend as it was still only 1 transaction when I had spent double.
How much roughly does 1 transaction equal?
“According to the report, the average American spends approximately $1,100 a year — or $3 each day — on coffee.”18 Jan 2017
So 15 visits x $3 = $45
According to the Starbucks menu the most expensive drink is around $5.25
https://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/starbucks-prices/
So spend $45 and at best get a free drink worth $5.25. That’s only 11.66% of what a user spends, for 15 visits!
This is why Starbucks lost me (and a few other reasons) as a loyal Customer, hence why I have screen shots from my co-founder Louis phone 🙂
Isn’t it time you started to reward your loyal customers?
