The Loyalty Feature is a great way for you to allow your users to accumulate points and then redeem them for specials and incentives that you offer.

Unlike other “punch card” systems, our Loyalty feature works for any type of business because it allows you to set up the promotions that you want to offer when you want to offer them. With this feature, you can set up an associated redemption point value to each reward that you feel is appropriate based on profit margin and availability. In this article, we’ll go over how to set up rewards in the Loyalty feature, as well as how users will redeem these rewards.

Restaurants/Cafes

Restaurants are one of the most common industries to use loyalty programs. This is likely due to the plethora of reward tiers that they can offer such as free entrees, happy hour specials, drinks, etc. We’ve seen restaurants use the Loyalty feature to reward regulars for: 

Retail

Much like restaurants, retail businesses can use the loyalty feature to reward their customers for the same types of activities, only applied to retail products.

While it was predominantly designed with these businesses types in mind, the Loyalty feature can also be used for other use cases than just loyalty. Some use cases of this feature include:

Internal Apps

If you’re using your app for employee engagement and communication, you can use this feature to reward them for actions such as: 

Churches / Non-Profits

We have seen churches increase member interaction and engagement by:

If you would like to see additional creative ways of using the loyalty feature, we have an article on that which you can find here.

The Loyalty feature’s main function is to give you a quick and easy way to implement a rewards system in your app.

With the loyalty feature, you can create custom settings around how many points your users can accumulate.

These are the different fields:

Points per Purchase: This option allows you to give your users extra points for each transaction regardless of how much they spend. If you don’t want to offer this, then set this to 0.

Points per Dollar: This pertains to the amount of points a user earns for each dollar spent.

Daily Limit: This allows you to set a limit on how many points people can accumulate each day.

Add Points Passcode: This code will be entered by your employees or staff to verify the points should be applied to that particular user.

Now that you have added the Loyalty feature to your app and adjusted the point settings to your liking, it’s time to add some rewards for users to claim. Here’s how you create a new reward:

Step 1: Create a Reward

Click the ‘Add New Item’ button to add a new reward.

This will take you to the reward editor.

Step 2: Add a Title for the Reward

Input the title that you want to give your reward in the “Title” field. You’ll want to give your reward a title that quickly and easily identifies what the user will get when they redeem it.

Step 3: Add a List Image

This image displays next to the reward’s title in the overall list of rewards in your Loyalty feature. You can add the list image by clicking on the gray box next to “List Image”.

This will bring up the Media Library where you can either upload a new image, use one of your previously uploaded images, or use a stock photo. If you would like to learn more about the media library, we have a dedicated article which you can find here.

Step 4: Add Images to the Image Carousel (Optional)

Adding images to the image carousel is optional, but it can help add a professional look, not only to the rewards that you offer, but your app overall as well. The image carousel images displays above the reward description and can be added with the “Add Image” button next to “Image Carousel”.

Step 5: Add the number of points required to redeem the reward.

Next, you’ll need to assign how many points a user needs to have in order to redeem the reward. You can enter any numerical amount in the “Points To Redeem” field.

Step 6: Add a Description for the Reward (optional)

While adding a description to the reward is optional, we highly recommend doing so. This is a great way to not only add additional information on the reward, but it also gives you an opportunity to mention upcoming sales, or if the reward is only good for a certain amount of time, you can also let your users know that information in the description. Simply type the description in the WYSIWYG editor.

Once you have completed setting up the reward, click “Done” and it will be added to your Loyalty feature.

Congratulations! You now know how to set up a Loyalty feature and add rewards to it for your app. Next, we’ll go over how users accumulate points and redeem your rewards in your app.

Users will need to accumulate points first before they can redeem the rewards that you have created. Here’s the process:

Step 1: User signs in to their in-app profile

The Loyalty feature uses our built in user profiles and user data. This means that users will be prompted to log in to the app to accumulate points if they have not done so already. This allows your app to remember how many points a user has accumulated.

Step 2: Provide visual confirmation of points to your Employee

Once they log-in, the user will hand their phone to your employee, volunteer, or whoever has authorization to approve points for that user.

Step 3: Employee taps on the “Get More Points” Button

After the phone has been handed over to your employee, they will tap on the “Get More Points” button.

Step 4: Enter the Purchase Amount

Next your employee will enter in the total dollar amount of the user’s current purchase, then tap “Next”.

Step 5: Enter Code to Allow Points to be Added

Finally your employee will type in the points passcode that you set up in the app dashboard and tap “Confirm”.

Once the code is entered, that user will receive the corresponding amount of points for their purchase and your employee can hand them their phone back. Next, we’ll go over how a user can redeem the points they have earned for the rewards in your app.

Once a user has accumulated enough points, they can begin redeeming them towards the rewards you’ve created. Here’s how your users redeem the points:

Step 1: The user logs in to their in-app profile and hands the phone to your employee

Just like the process for accumulating points, the user will need to log-in to their in-app profile, if they haven’t already done so, and hand their phone to your employee.

Step 2: Select Reward

Next the user will tell the employee which reward that they want to redeem.

Step 3: Employee Redeems Selected Reward

Your employee will then tap on the reward, then on the “Redeem” button in the reward.

Step 4: Confirm Reward Redemption

A confirmation message will pop up, asking for the reward redemption to be confirmed. Employee can ask the user for verification on the reward redemption and proceed to tap “Confirm” to redeem the reward.

Step 5: Your employee hands the user’s phone back to them and fulfills the reward

The reward has now been redeemed. Your employee can hand the user’s phone back to them and proceed to fulfill that reward, whatever it may be.

We said it before, but we’ll say it again. Congratulations! You now know how to, not only set up a Loyalty feature for your app, but also how it’s commonly used. Now go out there and start creating some amazing rewards for your equally amazing customers!

Having worked with apps for years, we’ve learned a thing or two. So, to both help your app stand out and accomplish your primary goals, here are some tips you should consider.
 

Pro Tip: Use Push Notifications To Help Encourage People To Use Your Loyalty Feature

You can utilize push notifications to help drive traffic and response to your Loyalty feature. Remember, you can add new items, change point redemption values, and point accumulation values at any time. For example, let’s say you typically give 50 points per visit and 10 points per dollar spent. Perhaps today, you’d like to give 100 points per visit and 20 points per dollar spent between 2PM and 4PM. Simply change the amounts on the Control Panel, then utilize a push notification that goes out an hour before that states “Come in between 2-4PM and get 2x points for your visit and each dollar spent!”