Loyalty
Card Program
Bringing
Customers Back
VIP – Rewards - Loyalty
Getting
a customer to your store the first time might be easy –
Having them return on a regular basis may be difficult and expensive.
Unless you are the only game in town there are a multitude of
options for consumers to choose from everyday whether you own
a restaurant, clothing store, or dry cleaners. Always keeping
you in their mind is important. Having to rely on newspaper
ads or coupon packs is extremely expensive and short lived.
Trying to always find new patrons while at the same time ignoring
your existing ones is a huge mistake. Research shows that it
costs up to eight times more to acquire a new customer than
to keep an existing one coming back. Yet many merchants continue
to overspend on campaigns to attract new business and underspend
on building value with the customers they already have. There
is that saying in the dirty world of politics – work the
base, work the base, and work the base. The same concept really
holds true for the good world of retailing and restaurants.
This
is where our Gift Card USA Loyalty Card Program comes in. It
can be run as either an add on to our Gift Card Program or be
a totally independent standalone program. The choice is entirely
yours. If you choose to add Loyalty to Gift this is simple because
every time we set up a gift card merchant the program also includes
the capability to add Loyalty. All that is required to begin
is to print the new loyalty cards and you are ready to begin.
Custom
Cards:
If
you want to make your loyalty rewards cards uniquely your own
then we recommend you opt for completely custom cards. You will
provide us with the custom design you want for the front of
the cards with your color scheme and logo, as well as your custom
text for the back of the card and our card printer will create
a card that you will be thrilled to give to your customers.
You will be provided a proof to approve prior to going into
production so that you are completely satisfied. Custom cards
are shipped within 15 business days after proof approval.
Here
are some samples of what other businesses have designed for
their custom loyalty rewards cards:
Custom Loyalty Card Pricing
250
Custom Loyalty Cards |
$300.00 |
1000
Custom Loyalty Cards |
$500.00 |
2500
Custom Loyalty Cards |
$1000.00 |
What
are the Monthly Fees
| Flat
Rate Monthly Pricing
Select
the Level Which is Right for You
and Feel Free to Change Your Level either
Up or Down Every 6 Months
Level
1 |
$19.00 |
Up
to 100 Transactions per Month |
Level
2 |
$29.00 |
Up
to 250 Transactions per Month |
Level
3 |
$39.00 |
Unlimited
Transactions per Month |
|
Add
15 Cents per Transaction for Each Overage per Month
for Levels 1 and 2
Example – If you sign up for Level 1 and Process
150 Transactions in a Month you will pay $19.00 + $7.50
for the Overage for a Total Cost of $26.50
|
OR
| Transaction
Fee Pricing
$15.00
per Month and 15 Cents per Transaction
No
Minimum or Maximum Number of Transactions |
How
It Works
Deciding
Point Value
The
first step towards creating a Loyalty Program is deciding what
point value to assign to customer purchases. The most popular
options are $1 = 1 point or $1 = 10 points.
Deciding
Awards Levels & Redemptions
The
next step is to decide what reward(s) to give your customers
when a specific point level is reached. Rewards can be products,
services, discounts, or dollar value added to the card.
Take
for example the popular loyalty rewards program that one of
the major restaurant chains uses whereby it offers 10 points
for each dollar spent plus 500 points at initial signup. As
loyal customers accumulate points they are rewarded for reaching
specific levels such as a free appetizer or dessert, free entrée,
or dollar valued certificates for higher levels.
In
a program such as this the merchant will print their own brochure,
flyer, or store poster which spells out what is offered at different
levels. Think about your individual situation. Let’s say
you are a video store. How about each rental equals 1 point
and after 5 rentals the customer can redeem their points for
a free rental or if they want to accumulate points then at 12
points they can redeem for a free rental plus a free microwave
popcorn.
This
program is popular because we don’t determine the reward
levels as it is totally up to you. Points are simply added to
the card or redeemed in any amount you choose. This allows rewards
and reward levels to be continuously flexible without making
any award level or point value changes in the system. An example
of the flexibility is that let’s say you have a restaurant
and Tuesdays and Wednesdays are usually slow. Then how about
everyone gets double points on Tuesdays and on Wednesdays it
only takes 50 points to get a free dessert with dinner. This
is a great way to fill more seats and create loyalty.
Auto
Rewards Program
The
easiest loyalty program is also one of the most effective. Your
business will chose one point level that will trigger an automatic
dollar-value reward added to the customer’s card. For
example, the program may be set up so that:
$1
= 1 point, 50 points = $5 reward.
When 50 points are accrued, the system automatically redeems
the points and adds $5
spendable value to the card.
With
Auto Rewards, your customers are continuously motivated to return
because they have dollars or points (or both) on their cards
at all times. With the “add value” function disabled
for this program, clerks are prevented from accidentally adding
dollars to the card instead of points.
The
Loyalty Receipt
The
terminal prints a receipt which shows the amount of the customer’s
purchase (for which points are being awarded), the reward value
available to use for future purchases, and the current point
balance. To eliminate confusion, no previous redemptions are
shown on the printed receipt. Our loyalty program is the most
flexible in the industry and enables you to customize your printer
receipt to suit your program.
Online
Point Tracking
By
simply entering their card number into our online tracking tool
your customers can instantly view their point value and history.
There is no cost for you or your customer to check their balance
online. If you have a website then we would be happy to provide
the API code to your webmaster in order to add this lookup ability
right on your website.
Customer
Data Mining
Customer
demographic information (name, address, phone, email and date
of birth) as well as an additional 10 custom fields of your
choice may be tied to a specific card number and stored in the
host database. This will allow you to generate custom reports
used to target certain customers with marketing offers based
on card usage.
Gift
Card USA has a simple popup web form that may easily be added
to your website allowing customers to “register”
their cards themselves by entering their personal identification
information. This form will also allow you to quickly register
your customers who complete a registration form that you provide
that they complete when signing up for your VIP loyalty rewards
program.
Merchant
Reports
Included
in your program is access to a variety of valuable reports to
assist you in managing your program. You will receive a user
name and password in order to access the 24/7 web-based reporting
system. This way you will have up to the minute control of your
program as full transaction history is available in real-time
via the web. Different levels of access can be set for different
levels of management.
The
Gift Card USA merchant portal provides you with instant access
to your reports. You can display transactions by day, week,
month, last 30 days, last 7 days or any custom date range. View
transactions by store location, employee number, terminal, and
specific card. A graphing function is built into the portal
for quick viewing of year-over-year transaction volume comparison.
The
reports are exportable to other programs you might already be
using so comma-separated exports are available at any time allowing
you to export data to other systems for accounting, marketing
and statistical use. Liability reports allow controllers and
accountants to easily maintain the books. You can view cards
that have been dormant for a given period of time within a specified
date range. You can use this to your advantage by sending an
email or SMS text to them with a very special offer to entice
them back to your business.
Data
Mining for Loyalty Card Program
Operating
a successful loyalty or VIP rewards program means understanding
and using your customers’ demographic data. Your online
Web Terminal gives you the ability to quickly and easily add
customers to your own private secure database. In addition to
the standard data that most merchants collect such as Name,
Address, Phone Number, Email, and Birthday there are 10 additional
totally customizable fields of your choice.
Email
and SMS Text Marketing
Our
exclusive feature available in your Web Merchant Portal is the
ability to send messages to your customers in specific card
sets and/or campaigns via either Email or instant SMS text messages.
These are very powerful tools. For example, send a Birthday
or Anniversary Email a week or 30 days before their celebration.
Better yet instantly send an SMS text message at 3 PM on a rainy
Wednesday to all of your VIP customers telling them to come
in that night and receive a free dessert or if you are a clothing
store that a certain line of dresses just arrived in stock.
Email
Marketing |
Free |
SMS
Text Messages |
12
Cents Each |
Now
that you are familiar with our Loyalty Card Program please feel
free to contact us by either completing the show I Want More
Info form on the left or sending an email directly to Kevin
at Kevin@giftcardusa.com.
