Loyalty Card Usage pt.1

The most common queries we receive relate around how the myrewardcard.ie system can be implemented for a particular business. While each business is different there are some common elements that are worth highlighting. I thought it would be worthwhile to look at a few of these as they might provide inspiration for you. I’ll look at these over the next few days, starting with 2 today.

Cafe Transferring their Existing Stamped Card Program

A coffee shop already had a program using stamped cardboard cards. Under this program the customer received a stamp for every coffee bought and the 10th cup was free. The shop wanted to start their advanced system by mimicking this program and then gradually introducing more flexibility.

Solution

Because the system was  simple one where every transaction was for a coffee and received 1 point the cafe was able to implement a SingleScan operation. Under this there was no requirement to manually enter points or note. This made each process very quick as it consisted of just one scan.

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Comment

This process exactly mimicked the existing program. It also allowed for faster transaction time, collected the customer details and allowed a reconciliation process between the free coffees awarded and the till.

Cosmetic Shop With Limited Resources

This shop was very cost conscious and could not afford the capital cost of plastic cards.

Solution

The shop decided not to invest in physical cards but to use the customer name and phone number as the identifier. To implement this in a way that had minimum input from the customer the shop decided to complete registration instore. To complete this they printed all card numbers on a sheet. When a customer signed up they registered that number to the customer and verified the account using the code sent to the customers phone. After this whenever the customer bought a qualifying product they asked for the name or phone number, conducted a search and then manually entered the points.

Comment

This implementation allowed the shop to save money in their implementation while leaving open the possibility of introducing physical cards at a later date.

These are just 2 examples and I’ll include a few more Reward Cards tomorrow. If you have any special features in your business that you think you need some assistance with don’t hesitate to get in touch.

myrewardcard.ie introduces Gift Cards and more

The Importance of CRM

An article in last Sundays (January 30) Business Post caught my eye. It highlights a recent report by Microsoft that shows the increasing importance of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and the way Irish companies are finally beginning to take this aspect of their business seriously. The company surveyed over 400 businesses and found an increased awareness of CRM systems compared to its last survey five years ago.

The reason for such increased attention is explained in the article by Tom Trainor, the Chief Executive of the Marketing Institute who noted that winning a new customer was “five to eight times more expensive than retaining an existing one.”

The article also quoted Avine McNally of the Small Firms Association who said that it is crucial for smaller firms to take a more sophisticated approach to customer relations and stop keeping notes on scraps of paper: ‘‘If you’re serious about your customers, you have to be serious about CRM too.”

As the article makes clear it is the companies that work on retaining customers that will survive. The introduction of a Reward Card is of course a major step in this process on its own terms, giving customers a reason to return. But it is the CRM features of myrewardcard.ie that brings the real benefits.

The CRM Functions of myrewardcard.ie

myrewardcard.ie is not a dedicated CRM system but it does provide the majority of the data an independent retailer needs to actively retain existing customers. It even helps you get the maximum value out of the euro you need to spend on obtaining new customers. Built in you have reports that allow you to;

• See which customers have not purchased form you in the last 6 months.

See the parts of town where you have a lower reach.

See trends over time in terms of what customers return, when they do so and what they buy. 

See which customers provide most of your business.

Identify upcoming birthdays and send greetings.

Identify customers for special promotions on specific goods.

Save money by targeting leaflet drops to where they are needed.

Keeping Data Current

An important line in the article noted that 40 per cent of businesses who had implemented a CRM system said their biggest challenge was getting employees to update customer details. Of course this is a problem – managing data is time consuming. For retailers whose customer is a member of the public and not another business managing the data can be particularly awkward. But you still need accurate contact information that you can use quickly and efficiently. 

That’s why myrewardcard.ie automatically captures the patterns of customer transactions for its reports. It’s also why we have the customer create the account themselves and why they can register multiple cards with just one account. These are all steps that take the onus away from your staff while also making it easy for the customer to keep the data up to date.

myrewardcard.ie is not a dedicated CRM system, nor does it try to be. But I believe that the functions it provides are more useful to an independent retailer than any CRM system that focuses on Business to Business transactions – and will become more so as we add new features over the coming weeks and months.

If you want to see how the inbuilt reports from myrewardcard.ie can benefit your business or you feel you might not be making maximum use of them drop an email to info@myrewardcard.ie

Strengthening Our Infrastructure

Ensuring that we can meet our clients needs when they need to use the service is as critical to our business as it is to yours. For us this not only includes the businesses that use our service directly but also the cardholders who want to check their balances. To ensure we can meet these requirements we designed myrewardcard.ie to run on a cloud system consisting of clusters of servers. These balance loads and ensure that any heavy activity is spread evenly so that, even if one server should crash the others keep running and the site is available.

However there are additional ways to ensure we can maximise the efficiency of our service and over recent weeks we have been upgrading and refining the back end in preparation for some new service launches and the interest we have received from businesses…

Email Outsourcing

The myrewardcard.ie service conducts a number of transactions with cardholders. For instance they can create and verify their account or have their login details sent to them. This communication takes place over text messages and emails. Our text messages were outsourced from the launch of the service but we have been managing the email ourselves. While this has been working fine, what we have been able to do has been basic. We’re all familiar with the simple fact of being able to send an email but rarely give any thought to the activity that takes place behind the scenes – and it’s quite a lot. Minimising the chances of getting put into the Spam folder, monitoring the route taken, filtering out bad emails all take a lot of activity. And this all takes away from the core focus of our business. So for the same reason that our own clients focus on their business and don’t develop or manage their own loyalty systems I have now outsourced the transactional email to a company called Postmark. 

Not only will this free up time and guarantee the best delivery but it also means we can take advantage of extra features they include. The initial usage now allows us to classify emails not only as verified or unverified but also to identify those which simply don’t exist. So now you will also see emails marked as “invalid” where appropriate.

Database Configuration

As you would expect the myrewardcard.ie service uses a lot of database resources. Over Christmas we re-organised this element to make it more robust as well. This involved splitting sections and redesigning a number of tables. Of course we had to make code changes to work with this but the result is that we now have a database design that will more effectively scale to new features.

The changes we have made will make the service more robust for everyone. They also allow us to concentrate on new features and functions and the first major new function will be released in the next 2-3 weeks.  After that we have are finalising the roadmap of development for the rest of the year so if you have any function you want to see implemented let me know.

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myrewardcard.ie is now Guaranteed Irish – two services helping independent businesses survive the recession.

Amongst all the bad news in this weeks budget we received a small bit of positive information – myrewardcard.ie is now Guaranteed Irish. As you probably know the Guaranteed Irish symbol highlights goods and services that are primarily Irish in nature. It is intended to allow people to see which products and services they buy are keeping jobs in the country. It was very popular during the last recession of the 80′s but almost closed down during the boom. Now in the recession it is back and in more demand than ever.  

myrewardcard.ie qualifies for this mark for three reasons;

• We are based in Cork.
• We source all material such as our own promotional material and the cards we provide to you in Ireland as well. 
• We have developed all our own software and systems. We do not resell or rebrand generic software. This not only gives us our own asset in the Intellectual Property but also allows us to respond to our customers in the Irish market by ensuring it responds to our customers feedback instead of forcing our customers into adapting to the software. In effect we are doing the same thing that our clients are – thinking ahead and doing our best to offer them a reason to do business with us.

The majority of our clients are small independent businesses who see that their success is ultimately in their own hands and nobody else. By offering their customers a points based rewards scheme they not only encourage repeat visits but also have an easy way to market to those customers thanks to the mailing list and reporting features of myrewardcard.ie. It is these businesses that the country relies on for the majority of employment.

localrewards.ie

In addition to providing loyalty services to individual businesses we also use the platform to power localrewards.ie. This is the brand we have developed to provide Reward Cards for whole towns and communities.  In each town the participating business can run their own Reward Program but customers can avail of all the reward programs  with one town-specific localrewards card. This is loved by residents since they get rewarded for shopping locally. It also brings extra benefits to the participating businesses because the fact that someone is using a card in their neighbour means it is more likely they will visit  them as well. 

We launched localrewards.ie in Carrigaline a few weeks ago and have since run a community competition where a person who shopped in 2 or more businesses was drawn at random to win €250. The response from the businesses and the public has been very positive and there are now just under 3,000 cardholders in the town. We also launched in Macroom the week before last and while we had intended expanding the number of businesses since then the weather has led to a delay and expansion of the existing 4 businesses will take place in January. Extra towns will be coming on board from the end of January.

Reward Cards, Guaranteed Irish and Surviving the Recession

The response to our service from businesses and customers, and the enquiries we have had from towns shows I think that the businesses that are going to survive the recession know they need to do something to keep their customers and need to do it quickly. These are the ones who are willing to try something and not sit back waiting for someone to do it for themBut it also shows that the customers of independent businesses are aware of the importance of supporting local jobs in small businesses. They want to do so if they can see a reason to. Guaranteed Irish, myrewardcard.ie and localrewards.ie all give them that reason. 

Keeping The Revenue Commissioners Happy

With the economy in the condition it is and the black economy showing its head again the Revenue Commissioners are focusing on cash businesses. myrewardcard.ie can help you keep them happy.

I recently came across a cash-based business to which the commissioners had paid a random visit. They commandeered the register for 2 hours and poked through years of records. Even though the business was able to provide complete records on every sale there were questions asked about discounts. These focused on why sale prices were lower than normal on some products and what this meant in terms of possible VAT records. As the owner later explained to me the fact that he was offering discounts on those products meant that the VAT was lower than expected and this raised questions in the auditors mind about whether there was some skimming going on. In the end the business was able to answer all questions to the auditors satisfaction and business resumed as normal. But the experience was nerve-wracking.

This is going to be a far from isolated incident as the government focuses ever more intently on raising tax revenues and preventing the economy slipping further into the shadows. You may have recently received a booklet which specifies the requirements of your cash register. In it they have a specific section outlining the records you have to keep that can support  activity such as the offering of discounts. You can’t be sure that they will be satisfied with your word that discounts were given under any given circumstance. 

myrewardcard.ie can be an aid in satisfying any enquiries that might arise if you are chosen for a random audit. Unlike the typical stamped cardboard cards that are most commonly used in Ireland users of myrewardcard.ie have a complete record of all points awarded and redeemed. These are time-stamped and linked to individual cards. You can run a report at any time that shows when you gave points and discounts and how much they were valued at. While we don’t guarantee the result of any audit the very fact that you can provide this information when required and that it can be matched up to till records can be an assistance in how you reassure the Revenue that the discounts are provided to actual customers. The fact that these records are also held by an external company will be another factor in your favour.

In addition to providing the records we also maintain full backups and archives, ensuring that you don’t have to worry about this aspect of the IT structure. This is an incidental aspect of using myrewardcard.ie for your Loyalty Program but it is one that can reduce the number of sleepless nights.

Reducing Card Registration Errors

We’re continually looking for ways to make using myrewardcard.ie easier for cardholders and our own clients. One of the ways we do this is by getting feedback from businesses and cardholders. But we also take proactive steps to monitor the issues that might arise.

Recently we got some feedback that there were small number of customers who were having trouble registering their cards; some said they were getting already registered messages while others were being told that the card didn’t exist. Even though the numbers of people having difficulty were just a tiny percentage we were obviously interested to see how we could reduce this.

The first thing we did was to edit the code so that it would write the details of all failed registrations to a new database. From here we could examine the issues. 

It turned out that 70% of the problems were due to people confusing the zero in a serial number with the letter O. So we’ve put in a fix;

• There is now a notice on the registration page that explains the serial consists of 6 letters followed by 5 numbers.
• The code has been rewritten to adapt and accept swapped zeroes and O’s. If a person for instance enters the serial MA0HJKOO123 instead of MAOHJK00123 the software will now recognise the error and convert the serial number to the correct version. This applies to all places where the customer enters the serial number, not just registration.

These two changes (one simple the other more complicated) should cut the number of customers experiencing trouble to the 30% of those who, the data tells us, try to re-register their card. We’ll keep tracking the process and see if we can find a way to reduce this number further. We will also be introducing the code changes into the business section over the next few weeks, allowing the system to adapt if for instance you enter the wrong format when awarding points.

The feedback we receive from our clients and the cardholders is critical in making improvements to the system so please don’t hesitate to drop an email or give us a ring if you see any issues.

Handling Refunds

Cork Independent Site of the Week

It was just pointed out to me today that myrewardcard.ie was selected as the Cork Independent Site of the Week in June. They had a short review that focused on the sites usefulness to consumers and noted how easy it was for users to manage their various Reward Cards on the site.

The interface is something we give serious though to when introducing any features. Having been involved in web design for some time I am a big believer in keeping things simple and obvious. Too many times website designers focus on the graphics and not on the navigation and clarity of the site. This might be fine for a site that is intended purely for entertainment but it does not work for functional sites such as ours. Especially one with such a wide age demographic. That is why we have resisted the temptation to add animations and other flashiness.

The selection was made in their June 17 edition though I didn’t hear about it until yesterday. I can’t say with any certainty but I assume that the writer of the piece hold cards from some of our clients so it’s nice to see that our approach to the interface is one that does resonate with the general public.

Automatic Point Expiry Is Now Available

One of the biggest requests we have is for the ability to expire points automatically. The reasons why points might need to expire vary from business to business: some offer tiered discounts based on the number of points earned in a given year and need the accounts reset on January 1, some simply don’t want to be exposed to large outstanding balances and want the points to expire a set period of time after they are issued, and most simply want to encourage people to return regularly to earn new points to reach a target before the existing points expire. In all these cases the business does not want to have to go through each account manually to calculate when and how many points to expire.
We’ve been working on the best way to automate the process and have tried a number of options. The technical aspect proved difficult but it also proved more difficult than expected to get the whole system working as a whole as it affected a number of different areas. However these have now been resolved and, after some significant testing I’m happy to announce we have an elegant and simple function that lets you specify the expiry criteria for your points.

The Process

The new process works on a monthly basis. You can specify either the month every year when points will expire or  the number of full months for which points remain active after they are awarded. At the end of every month the system will look at each card and calculate how many points to expire at that time. It will then redeem that number of points from the account. At the same time it will calculate the number of points due to expire at the end of the following month. This number is then updated at every transaction throughout the month. At the end of the following month the process will repeat.

The Mechanics

The setting for the Automatic Point Expiry can be found under Operations/point actions.

Setting Point Expiry Criteria

Here you have 3 options:

• Points never expire.
• Points expire on a specific date. You will be presented with the ability to select on which month they expire. Remember that points expire at the end of a month so if you want all accounts to go into a new year with a reset balance you select December as the expiry option for Set Date.
• Points expire a set time after being awarded. The number of months you set are full months and so do not count  the month in which the points are awarded. So if you want points issued in January to expire at the end of March you choose 2 as the period (February and March being the 2 in question).

You simply set the selection that meets your needs and you can forget about it after that. The system will do the rest.

There are 2 points to take note of;

• You can change the criteria and timing of point expiry at any time. However you cannot do so in a way that will immediately cause points to expire. Instead we will recalculate the number of points to expire at the end of the month and this will include any points which under your new rules would already have expired.
• All points are taken into account in the calculation. This includes any default points you may have put on cards when you received them. If you have not issued the cards within the set time those points will no longer be on the card when the customer receives them.

Tracking Expirations

Business

The Statistics Dashboard has been updated to include the expiring points in the graphs and you can also search for them in the Transaction Filter and download them in the Excel export.

Graphs now show point expirations

Selecting point expirations for review

Cardholder

It’s not a lot of use having expiring points if the customer is unaware of when they expire so we have integrated this information into their data. The cardholder will now see the number of points due to expire along side their balance for each card. This will update throughout the month as required. For instance if all points reset at the end of the month then every transaction will be reflected and the expiring points will equal the balance for the full month. However if points expire after specified period of time then only redemptions during the month will be reflected and the number of expiring points will reduce accordingly.

Showing Points Due To Expire

Why this process?

We decided on a monthly process because it is the one most liked by customers and so benefits business more than any other option…

• Customers are happier if they know points expire at the end of the month rather than having a   balance that can change every day
• Cardholders can plan in advance to visit the business to use expiring points, something that would not be possible if the expiration balance changed every day.
• Points awarded early in a month will be live for longer than those awarded at the end. This gives customers a feeling that they are gaining something extra by shopping early in the month.

Automatic Point Expiration is a major function that will be of use to almost all businesses. It’s one of a number of major functional upgrades coming in the following weeks. Let me know what you think and if there are any functions you particularly want added.