One day in the portal: what a business owner sees in the morning

Why open the portal in the morning at all

A loyalty program system collects a lot of information: who joined, who came back, who is close to a gift. But information nobody looks at changes nothing. So the portal is built so you can understand the situation in a few minutes, from your phone, before the business opens.

To show what this looks like, we will follow one morning at a fictional business. For example only: "Pine Nut Cafe" is a fictional neighborhood cafe, with a digital punch card for coffee and pastry, and three employees on shifts.

07:15: a notification on the phone

The owner of Pine Nut Cafe is still at home when a notification reaches the phone. It says a paper punch card is waiting for approval: an employee from last night's shift moved a customer from a paper card to the card on their phone, and the request is waiting for the owner's approval.

A notification arrives when a customer left a message on the business card, or when a paper punch card is waiting. You can turn off each type of notification in the portal, if you prefer to check on your own.

07:20: "Waiting for you"

The home page shows what is waiting for you today, one line for each thing. There is no dashboard with twenty charts. There is a short list of things someone needs to decide on.

That morning there are two lines: the paper punch card waiting for approval, and a message a customer left on the business card. The owner opens the request, sees how many visits the employee moved and the reason, and approves. The customer will continue from the same point where they stopped on the paper card.

The message is something small: the customer wrote that Tuesday's pastry was dry. She did not write it in public. She wrote directly to the business. The owner makes a note to check with the baker.

07:30: the customer list

The next thing is the customer list. It is filtered by what you want to know: who is waiting for a gift, who is close, who did not come back, and who has a birthday.

The page of one customer

In the "Did not come back" list there is a familiar name: Yossi, who used to come every morning and disappeared a few weeks ago. On his page you see all his visits, and a note only you can see. The note says "drinks a latte with almond milk, works at the hospital". Maybe he changed shifts. The owner adds a line to the note: "ask Dana if she heard from him".

The note is not for publishing. The customer does not see it, and it is not sent anywhere. It is the business's memory, instead of the memory of one employee.

07:40: what happened yesterday, and when people come

On the screen of today at the register you see what happened, by employee. Here the owner sees that Dana signed up many customers on the morning shift, and that the evening shift signed up almost nobody. This is not a reason to scold anyone. It is a reason for a short talk: maybe in the evening there is no time to offer the club, and maybe a sign is needed in another place.

On the same topic, on the team page you see which employee signed up the most this week. Some businesses turn this into a small game in the team, and some only look.

The hours page shows on which days and hours loyalty club customers come. At Pine Nut Cafe it turns out that on Monday, between ten and eleven, it is quieter than they thought. Maybe that is where they can try something new on the menu.

07:50: who came back, and what went out

1. Who came back: who joined last month and came back, and who did not. If many joined and did not come back, it is worth checking whether the goal is too far.
2. The gifts: how many gifts went out this month, and who has been waiting the longest. A customer who has been waiting a long time for their gift probably does not know it is there.
3. Export: your customer list, to a file, at any moment. The list belongs to you, and you can take it.

08:00: the business opens

At eight the owner is already behind the counter, and Dana has not arrived yet. A regular customer asks for a latte and shows the card on their phone. The owner does not need a separate scanner: you stamp from your own phone too, with a press on the portal home page. The same phone where the morning notification was read now works as a scanner.

By noon, the request from the paper card is already approved, the message about the pastry reached the baker, and there is a reminder to ask about Yossi. None of this required sitting in front of a computer.

Two more small things

Forgot the link to the portal, or changed your phone? On the login page you ask for a login link by email, and you are in. There is no password to remember.

And the invoices: every invoice you received for the subscription is in the portal, to download. When your accountant asks, there is no need to search your email.

How to turn it into a habit

The portal helps only if you go into it. Here is a possible order for the week, for a business like Pine Nut Cafe. Adjust it to your own pace:

This order does not come from the system. It comes from the questions business owners ask themselves anyway, only without the answer in front of them. When the answer is on the screen, the decision takes a minute.

What to take from this morning

Ten minutes, and at the end the owner knows three things: what is waiting for their decision, which regular disappeared, and which employee needs help offering the club. None of them requires a report. Each of them is one line on the screen.

There is no need to go through everything every day. Some businesses open only "Waiting for you" in the morning, and the hours and who came back once a week. The portal does not wait for you. It is there when you need it.

Frequently asked questions