Although you can create and manage a loyalty program independently, good customer loyalty program software will help streamline your operations. The best software will also provide automation features and unique loyalty elements that you can utilize to encourage customer retention and drive sales. We looked at over a dozen customer loyalty program software and narrowed…
Although you can create and manage a loyalty program independently, good customer loyalty program software will help streamline your operations. The best software will also provide automation features and unique loyalty elements that you can utilize to encourage customer retention and drive sales.
We looked at over a dozen customer loyalty program software and narrowed them down to these six:
LoyaltyLion: Best for Comprehensive Loyalty Rewards
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Smile.io: Best Low-maintenance Automated Solution
Zinrelo: Best for Creating Customer Segments
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Fivestars: Best for Integrated Payment Processing
How to Choose the Best Loyalty Program Software
When you are looking for a loyalty program to add to your business, there are a few things to consider.
Step 1: Choose a Loyalty Program Structure
You will need to decide what kind of loyalty program you want to have. You should consider things like the type of actions you want to reward, what your rewards will actually be, whether or not you want to have a tiered program, etc. Be sure whatever program you choose can support the loyalty program you want.
Ask yourself how much you want to spend on your loyalty program each month. Consider the return on your investment, the size of your customer base, and your cash flow.
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Step 3: Consider Available Integrations
Ideally, you will want your loyalty program software to integrate into your POS and ecommerce site without APIs or additional programming. You should also consider integration capabilities for your payment processor and any other apps or programs you use to operate your business.
Step 4: Consider Return on Investment (ROI)
Before you introduce a loyalty program, you should also weigh how much you think it will benefit your business and the scale you think it will have. This will be part of determining your budget and how you will approach your program’s implementation.
Setting Up & Implementing Your Loyalty Program
As far as setting up your loyalty program, you will have two steps:
Step 1: Customize Your Loyalty Program Structure
This stage can play out in two ways. Either when you sign up for your loyalty program software, you will work with a sales consultant to help get you the tools that you need, or you will configure your account yourself from your account dashboard.
Not all loyalty program software is customizable and there are differences between the levels of customization—from entirely bespoke to none at all.
Step 2: Integrate Your Customer Loyalty Program Into Your Existing Operations
Once your software is set up how you want it, you will want to integrate it into your POS system and ecommerce site.
Implementing your loyalty program is also a multifold process, including:
Training your staff: You will want to teach your staff how the program works, how to introduce it to shoppers, and how to add new members, as well as issue and redeem rewards.
Marketing to your customers: You will want to market to your customers and try to acquire members in-store via signage and word of mouth, online via sign-up links and pop-ups or banners, as well as by SMS and email.
Analyzing results: As time goes on, you will want to look at how your loyalty program is performing so you can understand where it is working and where it is not so that you can make adjustments.
How We Evaluated Customer Loyalty Software
When evaluating the performance and quality of the software in this article, we looked for the capabilities that would most effectively keep customers coming back, as well as those that would make your life easiest in the process. In this article, we compared loyalty program software based on:
Methodology weights
Program Features 35%
Pricing 15%
Ease of Use 20%
Expert Score 30%
We looked for key loyalty features like customer outreach programs, referral points, reward elements, and much more. Then we scored each program based on its number of offerings.
We looked at how different software charges—whether by scale, features catalog, or both—as well as their free offerings and overall transparency.
We looked at what integration capabilities each program has to offer, including POS, email, website, and app integrations. Additionally, we took into account ease of installation, customer reviews, and customer support capacities.
We looked at value for the money, popularity, overall quality, and an overall score for the program features.
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Best Loyalty Program Software Frequently Asked Questions
Click through the questions below to get answers to some of your most asked loyalty program questions.
Loyalty software works best for businesses with a loyal customer base and industries that have a lot of competition. In general, retail and cafes are the most common types of businesses that use loyalty software.
You can always find different ways of rewarding customers and creating a brand community, including hosting events, doing collaborations, and hosting pop-ups. You can also forgo customer loyalty software and track your program by hand.
Loyalty program software automates your loyalty program, saving you time and money. Additionally, having a loyalty program can boost retention, increase sales, create a sense of community, and help build your brand.
Loyalty program software is a tool businesses can use to create and manage their loyalty program, including customers, rewards, and program structure.
Bottom Line
Customer loyalty software is a great way to keep customers engaged with your brand and spending at your business. The best customer loyalty programs will offer comprehensive features that make it easy for you to interact with your customers and your customers to interact with your brand.
David Rivera is a retail writer focusing on point-of-sale systems. Since 2016, he has produced and optimized content for a variety of industries including ecommerce and luxury retail. For the past couple of years he has focused more closely on ecommerce and retail topics as well as point-of-sale systems.
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