Have you offered a cool and trendy mobile app for your customers yet? If the answer is no, there is no need to feel discouraged. Digital alternatives for customers’ loyalty schemes are not yet the “best or nothing” condition. Melle Staelenberg, Salmat mobile product manager at digital communications consultancy, stated that although some Australian retailers now have Smartphone apps with a loyalty component, printed or plastic cards have not been secluded to the technological hysteria. “The majority of Australian loyalty programs have no online component, so there is still a long way to go,” Staelenberg says. “There are different ways for businesses to engage with their clients and an app might not be the right choice for everyone.”
Nowadays, people don’t want their phone’s home screen cluttered with apps for businesses which they only interact with sporadically. However, if you are a business owner who currently issue paper or plastic loyalty cards to your customers, you should definitely consider mobilising your program. A big department store chain Myer has done so. MyerOne members can have their Smartphones scanned at the register and use the MyerOne app to access membership information such as shopping credit balance and community status.
Range of vendors has pulled into the virtual card and wallet space in anticipation of the growing demand for such systems. Apple recently introduced Passbook for iOS, a virtual wallet where loyalty cards, boarding passes and coupons can be stored. On the fast food front, popular loyalty apps like eCoffeeCard and Beat the Q, allow customers to self scan a QR code with their smart phones. Sumo Salads, the 100-strong chain of lunchtime munch and crunch purveyors, provides a digital alternative is on the agenda for 2013. The company began overhauling its loyalty offering in March 2011 with the launch of Sumo Society, a web based program with 60,000 members. Subscribers receive a swipe card, cumulative points for every dollar they spend, birthday freebies, health tips and details of new product launches via Facebook alerts and the occasional email. According to Sumo co-founder Luke Baylis, those who’ve signed up in Sumo Society eat in the stores more often and spend an average 23 cent more per transaction than non-members. “We’ve found that by getting people engaged with the brand, we can communicate with them and provide membership benefits,” Baylis said. “We had a stamp-based loyalty system before which was nowhere near as effective. There was no intellectual property or data collected and a lot of fraud.”
Although admitting the company was slow to start in the digital arena, Baylis said it expected migrate members to a mobile system in 2013. “The issue with this is that not everyone has a Smartphone,” Baylis said. “However, within 12 months the majority of customers will have a Smartphone, while the rest can keep using the cards. In the long term that’s where it will go. People will be paying with their phones in the future and we have to make the transition.”
Zarraffas Coffee founder Kenton Campbell takes a more nonchalant approach. The chain has fifty stores across Queensland and New South Wales; 95,000 members in its card-based loyalty program and no plans to pension off the plastic. Campbell says that going digital is inevitable over the next three to five years and while not bottom of the to-do list, it’s not the number one priority either. “It wouldn’t hurt but I don’t think it’s an essential just yet,” Campbell said. “People aren’t crying out for it. People come for the convenience, product, service and because it fits into their weekly budget.”
Designer of the Wealie iPhone loyalty app, Patrick Schilling, says Campbell’s thinking is on the money. “Whether loyalty cards are paper, plastic or pixilated is irrelevant if the wares they’re linked to aren’t up to scratch,” said Schilling. “Consumers loyalty schemes need to be tightened up by good quality product and service, otherwise people won’t come back.”