How to start a loyalty club without an app: a guide for small businesses

You start a loyalty club without an app by letting customers join through a QR code by the till and save a membership card in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, which are already on their phone. First decide what the club should do for you, choose a simple perk, write short rules and only ask for the details you actually plan to use. After that, your staff at the till do the work.

A loyalty club is a membership: the customer joins and gets something back, such as stamps towards a reward, offers or a greeting on their birthday. A digital stamp card is not the same thing, but it can work as a simple loyalty club. What many people call a digital stamp card, we call a loyalty card, and this guide shows you how to build the club around it.

Loyalty club and stamp card: the difference

The term loyalty club is used for everything from big chains' membership schemes to a list of email addresses behind the counter. What they have in common is that the customer becomes a member and you can reach members again. A stamp card, on the other hand, is a mechanism: one stamp per purchase or visit and a reward when the card is full.

For a café, a salon or a shop, the stamp card is often enough to power the club. When the card is in the customer's wallet, you can send offers and news to everyone who has it, and then you effectively have a loyalty club with a membership card, a perk and a channel to members. A prepaid pass is something else: the customer pays for it upfront and uses it up visit by visit, so it is a payment product and not a club.

How to start your loyalty club in seven steps

1. 1

   Decide on the goal

   Choose a single goal, for example getting regulars to come in one more time a month or getting more people to try your afternoon coffee and cake. The goal decides which perk you choose.

2. 2

   Choose the perk

   A reward that is easy to understand and costs you less than it is worth to the customer, such as a free coffee after ten purchases.

3. 3

   Write the rules

   What earns a stamp, how many stamps are needed and what applies when the reward is redeemed. Short rules that fit on the back of the card.

4. 4

   Set up QR sign-up

   Put the QR code where customers wait: by the till, on the table or in the window. The customer scans, fills in the form and saves the card.

5. 5

   Choose which details you ask for

   A name is enough for the card to work. Only add email, phone or birthday if you know what you will use them for.

6. 6

   Launch at the till

   Give your staff a short sentence to say and ask them to offer the card to every customer for the first few weeks.

7. 7

   Measure and adjust

   Track new members, repeat visits and redeemed rewards. Change the reward or the wording if the figures stand still.

Goal and perk: start with one thing

The most common mistake is wanting everything at once: discounts, points, newsletters and birthday gifts from day one. Start with one perk and one goal. Say your café wants lunch guests to come back more often. Then one stamp per lunch and a free lunch after ten is a perk that points straight at the goal.

If you need inspiration, there are ready-made reward ideas by type of business, and in the reward calculator you can work out what the reward costs you with your own margin. A few examples to start from:

• Café: a free coffee after ten purchases, or a free bun with your coffee.
• Hairdresser: a conditioning treatment or a product sample after six cuts.
• Restaurant or lunch place: every eleventh lunch free, or a dessert after five visits.
• Bakery: a free loaf after eight purchases, or a cake for the weekend.
• Shop: a gift or a discount on the next purchase when the card is full.

Rules that fit on the back of the card

The rules should take ten seconds to read. Decide whether the customer gets a stamp per visit or only above a set amount. Per visit is the easiest to understand, while a minimum spend protects your margin. Then write down the essentials:

• What earns a stamp, for example one per coffee drink bought.
• How many stamps are needed and what the reward is.
• That the reward cannot be exchanged for cash or combined with other offers, if that is how you want it.
• What happens if the card is misused, for example that staff can remove incorrect stamps.

In Stampioo you write the rules in the Terms & Conditions field, and they appear on the back of the loyalty card. The reward, terms and design can be changed later, and the change reaches every customer's card. The number of stamps, however, cannot be changed once cards have been handed out, so decide on it carefully before you launch.

Which details should you ask for? Less is more

Every field in the sign-up form is a small hurdle at the till, where the customer is often holding a coffee with a queue behind them. Fewer fields mean more members. It is also easier to comply with GDPR when you only hold the data you need. In Stampioo the name is required, while email, phone number and birthday are optional fields that you choose whether the customer fills in.

Your own app, an SMS club or a Wallet card

There are three common ways to build a loyalty club for a smaller business. The difference lies in how much the customer has to do to join and what it costs you to reach members.

For most small businesses, your own app is too heavy: customers have to want to download it, and that is a high barrier for a place they visit once a week or so. Text messages get through, but every message costs money and marketing by text generally requires consent. A card in Wallet gives you a channel to the lock screen without the customer having to download anything. We compare the options in more detail in loyalty app or Wallet card.

With Stampioo, customers get automatic notifications for stamps and rewards, and location reminders on the lock screen when they are near your business. On Pro you can also send targeted push campaigns with offers and news, ten a month, with no text message costs.

Launch at the till: a script for your staff

A QR code on the counter gets you a few members. A colleague who asks every customer gets you many more. Give your staff a sentence that is easy to say and tells customers what they get, not how the technology works. A few suggestions to adapt:

• “Would you like our stamp card on your phone? Every tenth coffee is free, and today's already counts.”
• “Just scan the code here and the card saves to your phone. No app needed.”
• “You're four stamps away from a free lunch. Shall I stamp your card now?”

A simple trick is to add a stamp straight after sign-up, so the customer leaves with a stamp on the card. Decide who says the sentence, too: whoever takes payment, every time, for the first four weeks.

Wording for the counter poster

The poster should answer three things: what the customer gets, how to join and that it is quick. With the counter posters you get a loyalty poster with a QR code in the same colour theme as your posters for wifi and Google reviews. Example wording:

• Headline: “Every tenth coffee is on us”
• Subheading: “Scan and save the card in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet”
• Small print: “No app. Takes ten seconds.”

Measure what matters

Look at the same few figures every week: how many new members have joined, how many have come back, how many stamps are being given out and how many rewards are redeemed. If few people join, the problem is usually at the till. If many join but few come back, the reward is too far away or too vague. Stampioo shows the figures in the dashboard: basic statistics on Starter and in-depth analytics with segmentation on Pro.

Your national data protection authority publishes guidance on the details, and it is worth reading before you collect more than a name.

A loyalty club for a small business does not need to be big to work. A goal, a perk, short rules and a colleague who asks every customer go a long way. To go through the setup itself in detail, see our guide to creating a digital loyalty programme.