If your franchisor has designed a loyalty program as part of your turnkey business, you cannot opt out of it. Promote the program to its full extent because you are bound to it as part of your agreement. On the other hand, you can always take a second leap forward and introduce a loyalty program that will not conflict with your franchise brand.
Not Every Customer is Loyal
Let’s backtrack for a second and define loyalty program: quite simply, it’s a system to reward customers for spending their money at your place of business on a frequent basis. The operative word here is “frequent.” A customer who may drop in to your business daily, browse, and rarely spend is not a loyal customer.
One of the many goals you have as a franchisee is to build customer loyalty, which sometimes requires extreme creativity and ingenuity. It doesn’t always involve giving something away “for free” or at a discount once they have bought a certain volume of products or services. Loyalty can also have a lot to do with customer service and appreciation.
Keep Customers Happy and Satisfied
In my opinion, the best loyalty “program” any franchise can implement. There are hundreds of ways to keep customers happy and satisfied because this is the only way to touch human emotion, which is the cornerstone to consumer spending. Touch your customer’s heart and they are sure to grab their wallets.
Setting up a list of possible “satisfaction” initiatives shouldn’t be too difficult since you are some kind of customer anyway. What would it take to make your day when you go shopping or call a business for a needed service? Such practises as:
- A greeting upon entrance
- A greeting upon departure
- Offering your advice or expertise
- Resolving problems quickly and efficiently
- Keeping any promises you make
are sure-fire ways to keep your customers happy and loyal without spending any additional money. These areas may already be stressed in your Operations Manual. Make it a priority everyday for you and your staff to uphold your customer satisfaction initiatives.
Offer a Real Reward
Let’s face it, as a customer how much do you really care about getting a free coffee or saving 10% on your next purchase after you already spent $500? To some customers, saving a few bucks or getting something “for free” means the world to them; but, the average customer will tell you loyalty programs don’t offer many “real” rewards.
So what is a “real” reward? Something that has nothing to do with your business. It acts more like a gesture of appreciation that anything else. Sure, you could have got it for free yourself but to your customer, it reads like a true “thank you for your business.” Assuming you have built on your customer satisfaction initiatives, you should be on a first-name basis with most of your loyal customers.
When you think it’s appropriate, spending $5-$10 on a great customer will get you hundreds of more dollars in revenue for that gesture. It may even get you referrals.
Stay in Touch
Like a good friend, your customers will want to know that you care about their needs and interests and in return, they will show you loyalty by keeping your cash register working. If you haven’t set up a weekly e-blast to let your customers know what happening in your franchise, you could be losing out to a competitor.
Of course, mass emails are impersonal, but effective. You can opt to personalize your emails for your best customers only because you will probably know what they are most likely to buy from you at a moment’s notice. People appreciate knowing that someone is thinking about them, even if it means selling something. It makes them feel special, almost like a VIP getting an exclusive invitation to buy something before someone else – or maybe just for them.
Then again, staying in touch can also mean a friendly call just to say hello, to wish someone a happy birthday, or to follow-up on a recent product or service purchase. The act should always be a means to and end (loyalty) but the intention should come from the heart.
Let these three unique “golden rules” of maintaining customer loyalty be the heart and soul of your franchise operations because a transient customer today could be the loyal customer of tomorrow.
