Launching a loyalty program in a week
The setup takes an afternoon. The reason programs take months is that they get treated as a project instead of a decision. Here is the version that fits around a working week.
Day 1: make three decisions
What the reward is, how many visits earn it, and what the card looks like. That is the whole design, and every one of those is reversible.
Pick the reward your customers already buy most — the free version of your best seller is more motivating than something more expensive that nobody orders. Then size the card from your margin (there is a whole guide on that), and use your own colours so the card in someone's wallet is recognisably yours.
Do not spend day one on tiers, referrals or automations. They are all better decisions once you have real members.
Day 2: put it where people wait
One poster by the till is the difference between a program and a plan. The queue is the moment: people are standing still, holding their phone, with nothing to do.
Print it bigger than feels necessary and put it at eye level where someone waiting is already looking. A card on the counter that customers look down at converts far worse than a poster they are facing.
If you have a second obvious surface — a window, a table tent, the back of the receipt — use it. The most common reason a program stalls is that nobody saw it.
Day 3: brief the staff properly
This is the step that decides whether it works, and it is the step that gets skipped. A member who joins and then does not get stamped is worse than a customer who never joined.
- Show every person on shift how to scan, once, in person.
- Give them one sentence to say: 'We do a loyalty card, it goes in your phone's wallet, want me to show you?'
- Leave the scanner open on the counter device so nobody has to find it.
- Tell them what to do when it fails — stamp it manually later, never make the customer wait.
A one-page briefing on the staff-room wall does more for a loyalty program than any feature.
Days 4-7: watch two numbers
How many people joined, and what share of them got stamped at least once. The second one is the honest measure: joins tell you the poster works, stamps tell you the counter works.
If joins are low, the poster is in the wrong place or too small. If joins are healthy but stamps are not, the problem is at the till, and it is a conversation with staff rather than a change to the card.
Leave everything else alone for a month. Offers, automations and tiers are all more effective once you know the basic loop is running.