Customer loyalty program for a small business

What a loyalty program system is

In a small business, a loyalty club is usually a paper punch card: ten stamps, a free coffee. It works until the card stays at home, tears, or fills up with stamps nobody checked. And beyond that, paper tells you nothing.

A loyalty program system does the same thing, but it remembers. Every visit is recorded with the date and the employee who recorded it. You see who is waiting for a gift, who is close, who did not come back and whose birthday it is.

Three kinds of loyalty club

• Stamp card: a punch card with a gift. The customer collects visits and gets what you decided.
• Prepaid package: a package paid in advance that counts down. It opens only when you confirm that the customer paid.
• Recognition card: the card counts visits with no gift, and remembers how long the customer has been with you.

You can also have two punch cards on one card, for example coffee and pastry.

How it works, step by step

1. Gal comes to your business, builds the card with you in your colors, logo and stamp, and installs the scanner for your staff.
2. The customer scans the sign at the counter, types a phone number and gets a code. The card is saved in the phone wallet, on Android and iPhone. There is no app to download.
3. At the counter the staff member scans the card from their own phone and presses the button. The scan only identifies; the visit is recorded only when the staff member presses.
4. After every visit the card in the wallet updates, for example "2 more visits to a gift".
5. In the portal you see what happened today by employee, who is waiting for a gift, and on which days and hours club members come.

What you see in the portal

• What is waiting for you today, one line for each thing.
• The customer list, with filters: who is waiting for a gift, who is close, who did not come back, whose birthday it is.
• All of a customer's visits, and a note only you can see.
• Who joined last month and came back, and who did not.
• How many gifts went out this month, and who has been waiting longest.
• Which employee signed up the most customers this week.

A number appears in the portal only when there is enough data for it to be correct. Until then it says there is not enough data yet. You can also install the portal as an icon on your phone's home screen, like an app.

What to check when you choose a loyalty program

There are three main ways to run a loyalty club in a small business. Each has an advantage and a drawback, and it is worth choosing by what happens at your counter.

A few more questions to ask any provider: does the scan alone add a visit, or does a staff member have to press? Can customers move over from a paper punch card? What happens when a customer changes phones? And can you export your customer list to a file, at any time?

With Shortip the answers are: only a staff member's press records a visit. Visits move over from paper with your approval. A customer who changed phones recovers the card with a code, and the visits stay. And your list goes out to a file whenever you want.

Who it is for

A loyalty program for a small business fits a business whose customers come back: a cafe, a bakery, a barbershop, a beauty salon, a pilates studio, a car wash. If most of your customers buy once and never return, a punch card will not change that.

• You have employees: each one stamps from their own phone, and you see who signed up the most customers this week.
• You work alone: you stamp from your own phone too, with one tap from the home page.
• You have several branches: a manager for each branch, with their own link.
• Your customers speak Arabic: a customer whose phone is in Arabic gets everything in Arabic.

How much it costs

One subscription, and everything is included: the card, the scanner for your staff, the portal and the on-site setup.