Reward with Points

Another popular mechanic for loyalty programs worldwide is to use “points” as a currency instead of stamps.  As well as being well understood by consumers, points give you complete flexibility to recognize and reward in different ways, depending how much different customers are spending with you.

However points programs are sometimes seen as less exciting than other loyalty models, so it’s important to build an exciting calendar of promotions to keep your members engaged. This chapter includes all of our favorite ideas and points tactics to help you get the best results from your points program all year round.

Your loyalty program needs both scale and engagement to be successful commercially.

Top Ten Tips for Rewarding with Points

1. Award base points across the whole store: In order to reward customers in a way they can easily understand, and to be relevant to everyone, it’s important to award points consistently across all of their purchases. We recommend that your program rewards purchases of fuel, convenience store products, carwash and other services, and that you include both online and offline purchases. It’s also important to allow your members both “earn” and “burn” their points on every category for maximum appeal, of course with the exception of products that are prohibited by law. In most countries around the world, this includes tobacco, alcohol and lottery cards. Our points platform has been designed to allow you complete flexibility, so you can independently manage the points allocation on each category to reflect the margin you have available and the way different products are sold, so you can reward fuel purchases per litre, and other purchases based on the purchase value in local currency, so base points can be set per euro, per dollar etc.

2. Award Points on the Amount Spent. While many points programs in the past awarded points based on customer visits, this has declined dramatically. With an objective of leveraging your loyalty program to drive customer life time value, awarding points based on visits often caused delays at the point of sale, with members attempting to earn multiple points for a single visit by paying for items separately.  By awarding points based on spend, you can recognise and prioritise those customers who spend more with you. It’s fairer to them and a better business strategy for you.
3. Reward Other Great Behaviors that Build Your Business. Alongside the transactions your customers make with you, there are ways they can support your business and these are important to incentivize, track and reward too. As well as their purchases, you can use points to reward them when they sign-up to your program, refer a friend to join or shop with you, share more of their profile with you, answer surveys, as prizes in your games or even when they share your content. Their birthday is also a great time to award extra points to a member as a small unexpected gift and independent of their transactions. With this strategy, you can effectively build advocacy and encourage your members to become an ambassador for your brand, and reward them for their non-transactional behaviours.
4. Create Customer Tiers. While every customer deserves to be rewarded and recognized, it’s nonetheless essential to know your top customers and treat them even better. By creating different tiers, your staff can automatically recognize both good and great customers, and you can treat them in different ways too. For example, you can show better offers to your higher tier customers that others cannot see. Secondly, tiers can also create an emotional connection with your most valuable members who realise that they are being included in a smaller, exclusive community. By showing these members that you value them more, they become even more loyal to you in return.
5. Award Higher Base Points for Your Priority Members: A key benefit for both your customer and your business is the ability for your to award higher “base points” to your higher tier customers. By giving valuable “always-on” benefits such as double points for silver or gold members, you ensure your members aspire to move to higher tiers, and are even more determined to stay there too.

A points program should be easy to understand and reward a whole range of behaviors

6. Build in Generous Bonus Periods: Whether it’s a new product, new season or simply to drive year-round engagement, make sure you plan a full calendar that features key campaigns when members earn double or triple the normal “base points” they typically earn. This drives increased footfall at key times of year, as well as compelling communications with members, who are always keen to know “what’s in it for them”. 

7. Create Compelling Points Campaigns on Categories and Products. As well as awarding bonus points at certain times of year, you can award bonus points on specific products or categories. These smaller campaigns can easily be financed by suppliers because of the power and potential to drive increased sales and brand awareness for them. 

8. Ensure Rewards are Accessible and Exciting: Once loyalty program members successfully redeem a reward by burning points they’ve earned over time, they then start to spend more, trust you more and even recommend you more. In the past, some program owners discouraged rewards redemption to minimize their costs, but successful program operators now realize it’s the reward that drives future profitable behavior and an increase in your customer lifetime value. Our points-burning feature allows you to set specific conversion rates for rewards in different categories, so you can highlight hero products that have a greater margin as more “affordable” and easy for members to claim. Make sure your members realise that your points are valuable as a currency, just like cash.

9. Better Burn Rates for Better Customers. Another way to build exclusive benefits for  higher tier members is to make rewards “cheaper”. You have full flexibility to show your gold customers a lower level of points, and you can set up better conversion rates on specific products if you choose to. For example you can set preferential rewards rates in your shop, but maintain consistency for all members on your fuel rewards.

10. Allow Your Customers to See Better Benefits to be Unlocked.  It’s worth showing all of your members the benefits of achieving your top tier, so why not show how much easier it is to earn their rewards at higher tiers. It’s a great way to increase your share of your customer’s wallet. By shopping with you more, they benefit more, and they will be inspired to achieve silver or gold status when they can see that there’s a benefit waiting to be unlocked and enjoyed.

A Points Program Can Truly Delight Your Customer When Used Effectively