Create A Small Business Customer Loyalty Program
If you run a small business, then you will know the value of keeping existing customers happy – creating a customer loyalty program will help you achieve this.
It is much cheaper to retain a customer than to obtain a new one, and existing customers usually spend more than new customers – they know how good you are.
What is a customer loyalty program?
A customer loyalty program rewards customers who make frequent/regular purchases. For example customers who buy daily coffees in you cafe, customers who get their grass cut every month, customers who often use your taxi service or order from your takeaway restaurant.
Rewards can take any form that you want – maybe free goods, free services, vouchers, money off coupons etc.
How Do I Create a Simple, Effective Customer Loyalty Program?
- Decide on the reward you want to give for the loyalty shown. This might be a free cup of coffee for every 10 purchased, a free taxi trip for every 10 journeys made,a voucher for a cumulative total of £200.00 spent – remember to keep it simple for your customer to understand and for you to administer.
- A ‘points’ system is one of the most popular types of loyalty program.
Manual Customer Loyalty Program system
Get some loyalty program cards printed such as these:-
Hand then out to customers and mark off each sale with either a stamp or signature.
Electronic Customer Loyalty Program system
Set up a spreadsheet to record number and/or value of purchases for each customer – or there is software you can buy to help run this for you such as Goody or Kangaroo Rewards.
Need convincing?
Research shows that 80% of customers in loyalty schemes agree that it makes them more likely to purchase again, and 70 % of customers in a loyalty scheme are more likely to recommend and say good things about a company with a good customer loyalty program.
Give it a go and see if it works for you.
