Making a Loyalty Programme Work for your Restaurant
Simply having a loyalty programme is not enough to keep customers coming back…Successful programmes require a well-thought out strategy, and every step of the customer experience needs to be considered. Here’s a story from my colleague John, that illustrates some common mistakes that greatly impact the success of any rewards programme.
John went to the local office supplies store—a large chain. He had signed up for their loyalty programme a long time ago, but didn’t have the card on him. The associate at the till offered to look up his membership by phone number, but he wondered whether it was even worth it.
He didn’t understand the rules—something about points from qualified purchases accumulated over a quarter add-up to discounts on purchases over a specific amount before a specific date for specific product categories… huh?
He didn’t really perceive the value of the rewards.. The problem isn’t the monetary value of it—a £10 certificate for every £100 of qualified spend which is about right. But the redemption system is ancient and awkward—it takes too long to reach the first redemption point. And it’s all handled through the mail instead of anywhere anytime.
So instead of giving the clerk his phone number, with people in line within earshot, when asked if he was a member, he said No.
It wasn’t worth it.
This experience highlights the issues anyone—including restaurant owners and operators—faces when designing a successful rewards programme. It has to be simple to understand. Rewards have to be meaningful and easy to redeem. And it needs to be available to members whenever they want, wherever they are.
It can be a difficult mix to get just right, this perfect blend of rules and rewards. But without it, loyalty programmes fall flat and the money invested in them is lost.
To help guide you, we’ve reached out to our own loyalty partners and customers to gather some core best practices and success stories. We’ve encapsulated their ideas in a brief, informative tip sheet titled Setting the Table for Your Loyalty Programme. It describes ways to make loyalty easy for you to implement and easy for your members to understand. It talks about the importance of making rewards relevant to the customer. It presents a simple formula for you to determine exactly what the monetary value of your rewards should be. And it lays out some strategic steps for ensuring high enrolment.