Rewards card programs are the need of the hour!
More and more businesses are relying on reward programs to encourage customers to make repeat purchases with them. Reward programs also help in enhancing the customer experience and building customer loyalty. If reports are to be believed, it’s being observed that it is easy to make an existing customer make a repeat purchase with you than to acquire a new customer. The cost involved in acquiring a new customer is much more than bringing back an existing customer to your store.
Loyalty marketing began long back with the use of paper card which graduated in plastic card-based systems. Businesses issued physical cards to their loyal customers to encourage them to make repeated purchases and earn rewards points. These points could be redeemed for discount or a special offer later.
The traditional loyalty model has now been moved by digital loyalty programs that make use of mobile phones. Digital loyalty programs are now available at your fingertips in the form of convenient mobile stamp app.
Which one is better – Card based programs or customer loyalty app?
Many businesses who wish to run a loyalty program for themselves want to know which option is better for them – the traditional card method or the digital stamp card method.
Well, to get an answer to this question, you need to compare the pros and cons of both methods.
Traditional loyalty programs make use of paper or plastic cards that need to be stamped or punched every time a customer makes a purchase with you. Though this may sound simple, there are certain limitations to this method. Issuing cards physically is a tedious task. You need to ensure you have enough cards printed and ready to be distributed among all your loyal customers. Also, once the card is full with stamps, you will have to issue a new card to your customers. The old cards are taken back in exchange of a reward or gift or discount. And don’t forget every third customer complains about lost card or forget to bring card with them.
Without a doubt, physical rewards programs are easy to set up, but they don’t offer flexibility and convenience that comes along with digital reward programs.
Digital card programs do not involve the issuance of physical cards as the digital loyalty stamp cards get stored on to the customers mobile conveniently. Also, rewarding points to customers becomes easy as you can credit points from your digital loyalty program account to their account instantly.
Some important benefits of digital programs are:
1) Personalisation – Digital programs allow businesses to add a personal touch to their cards. Every time a customer logs into their online rewards console, they are greeted with their name. Personalisation not only helps in building a strong relationship with your customers but also helps in inculcating brand loyalty in them.
2) Helps track customer behavior – The use of digital rewards program is beneficial to businesses as it gives them the freedom to track the behavior of their customers. Once the customer’s purchases are linked to an online account, businesses can get a clear picture on the shopping habits of the customer. This information can then be used to design special offers and scheme that will draw customers towards the brand.
3) Real-time tracking of data – As the data from each of the customer is collected in real-time, it becomes easy for businesses to monitor as well as adapt their campaigns depending on the current behavior of the customers.
4) Future proof – In today’s era of artificial intelligence and machine learning. It is important to be ready with future development in technology. Digital reward program gives ability to upgrade your program and keeps you in current technology trend. This is very important as every big organisation are now ready or getting themself ready for future technological advancement. As small enterprise ou must also be ready to take real benefits of technological capability.
So, we can conclude by saying that current generation of customers need digital loyalty programs that are convenient to use and efficient to track data. They allow businesses to connect better with their customers and build a long-term relationship with them. And most importantly makes small businesses ready to compete with big giants.