There are innumerous ways to establish your approach. I'll share the specifics of ours, in hopes it is helpful or inspires some thought for an approach appropriate for your shop and goals.
We've structured our program in a simple way. Three basic goals:
- reward loyalty
- increase repeat visits
- increase our average ticket
I'm a firm believer in having a solid pulse (roughly) on your P&L, specifically know your net profit as a company, possibly for certain categories, maybe even specific items. These will help incentivize with across-the-board measures, a category, or specific things you want to promote or reward customers based on defined behavior.
Knowing we run at 15% profit before discretionary giving and management choices that terrorize typical profit goals. I wanted to provide at least the same reward to customers. So, recognizing not all customers will join loyalty and not all loyalty rewards will be redeemed, I chose $5 back after 5 visits above $6 each. This, a theoretical 17% reward, provided a minimum of $30 in spending over 5 visits (100% of the time, it is more than $30 over each of those 5 visits) and a $5 reward making it quickly achievable. At the time, we had a $4.15 average ticket.
It had an immediate impact and long-term impact on average tickets. It resulted in more visits and made the regulars feel rewarded. Score, Score, Score! We use automated reminders when loyalty members are approaching a reward and send lapsed reminders when they haven't returned in a while. These marketing campaigns help keep us on the minds of both loyalty and non-loyalty customers.
Take care of yourself and, as life provides, someone else too.
