Audrey Sawaya is a Senior Account Manager at Avant-Garde Marketing Solutions and for the past eight years has helped her small business clients develop innovative gift and loyalty card programs that drive traffic, increase spending, and develop customer loyalty. We sat down with Audrey to ask her how to effectively implement a customer loyalty program.
Q1: Our readers may know the basics of loyalty programs, but can you give a high-level overview of what they are and how they work?
Absolutely! A loyalty program can be very beneficial for restaurants and retailers. The program is tracked through unique magnetic cards that run through the merchant’s credit card terminal or point of sale system. Once a customer enrolls in the program, they present it every time they make a purchase, or enter their card number when they make a purchase online. The dollar amount the customer spends translates into loyalty points. After a certain threshold, the customer can redeem loyalty points for a reward, such as a free drink or a desert. In addition, the business can offer double loyalty points during slow times of the day or week and come up with creative incentives/prizes to capture their customer’s attention.
Q2: From your experience what types of restaurants/food-retailers does this work best for?
I have seen the best results with neighborhood restaurants/ food shops that want to establish a more loyal clientele. For this reason, restaurants that rely heavily on tourist traffic may not be good candidates for a loyalty program.
Q3: Can you walk us through an example of a restaurant that has had success with a loyalty program? What’s the “secret sauce”?
I worked with a greek restaurant on the east side of Manhattan that wanted to establish a customer database and entice customers to dine more frequently. Inside of each check presenter, they include a loyalty card, along with a form that included a short survey, asking for customer’s name, birthday and email. As an added incentive, the restaurant gave the customer 100 loyalty points just for signing up. The restaurant then entered this information into their customer database and were able to easily stay in touch with their current clients, offering them special promotions, discounts and birthday wishes. The “secret sauce” was the loyalty program promotion: actively promoting the program to customers on Facebook, Twitter, in the check presenters, and on the business’ website.
Q3: How do you measure the success of a loyalty program?
Of course, the best way to measure the success of any business venture is in the profit earned. When a program is working well, a business can expect to see five to ten percent increase in sales. The beauty of a loyalty card program is it is easy to track the amount of customers who are dining more frequently and spending more money. I encourage the restaurants I work with to create a game with the staff to see who can enroll the most customers into the loyalty program. After all, the more loyalty cards in circulation, the greater likelihood that the program will garner results.
Q4: What advice would you give to restaurants that are looking to begin a loyalty program in the future?
Its important to make sure the loyalty program technology is compatible with your current credit card machine or point of sale system to start. You’ll also want to make sure the loyalty card design and explanatory promotional materials are consistent in messaging and look with your brand. Like any successful endeavor, it takes planning, execution and persistence to make it work!
Have you had similar success with a loyalty program? Would you recommend this strategy to other restaurants and retailers? We look forward to hearing about your experience.
A huge thank you to Audrey for her expertise and time!
About Our Expert Q&A Series: Tribecca Designs invites experts we admire to provide insight into topics relevant to the hospitality and corporate worlds. If you are an expert and have something interesting to share with our audience please contact us at info@tribeccadesigns.com
