Rolling Out a Loyalty Program Dos and Don'ts

Rolling out a loyalty program is a critical part of making sure you’re set up for success in the future. Capturing customers interests and getting them to enroll in a program takes a lot of energy to make sure all levers that are needed are in place and ready to go.

During the webinar “Dos and Don’ts of Rolling Out a Loyalty Program” I discussed best practices for ensuring a successful launch of a loyalty program.

Here are some of the guides for rolling out a program:

1. Make it easy for customers to enroll.One of the most important components of a reward program is enrollment. If you do not have a sufficient number of your customers enrolled, you will have a hard time getting them to be active enough to provide beneficial returns on your program. Gaining new enrollment from your customers should always be a top priority for any brand. The best way to ensure that your customers are enrolled in your program is to lower the barrier for entry and allow signing up in a way that makes the most sense to the customer. For instance, Thorntons Inc. utilizes a multi-channel enrollment method that includes a card, mobile app, and responsive web pages that are easily accessed from any device. By using multiple channels, the company was able to enroll one million customers within the first year, creating the desired incremental sales and contributing to the program’s profitability.
2. Get employees excited. Sales associates and managers are on the front line of stores every day. They are the ones that are communicating with customers and are a brands ambassador to a loyalty program. It’s important for these workers to be excited about the program so they talk about the value and sell it to customers to help with generating program members. One easy and fun way to get employees involved and excited about the program is to implement a challenge where they receive prizes based on how many customers they get to enroll. One of our clients ran a contest like this for one month, in that month they saw a 244% increase in enrollment.
3. Let customers provide feedback.Sometimes the intended outcome of a loyalty program and the actual experience do not equal. Getting customer feedback helps to mitigate that discrepancy and helps to ensure a great experience for all customers. Use surveys to provide a way for customers to let brands know what is working and what is not. This information can help to make changes in a program to ensure customers remain excited and active participants in a loyalty program.

I recently discussed all of these points and more in the webinar “Dos and Don’ts of Rolling Out a Loyalty Program.” View the webinar on-demand to get a deep dive into ensuring a successful loyalty program launch.