Loyalty Programs for Businesses in Mobile Apps

Loyalty programs generally have a major impact on business. These programs are productive strategies used to attract customers' interest in mobile apps. They help companies stay connected to their customers and boost their brand's loyalty.

While customers enjoy the basic experience on the mobile apps, the program collates a significant database to optimize marketing efforts and maintain a relationship with customers. Through the use of instant rewards, product recommendations, and shared experiences amongst many others, a loyalty program, for a customers' business value kicks in.

The simple advantages of a loyalty program include:
● Relevant customer data and trends;
● Reduction of unprofitable customers;
● Clear communication value;
● Retention of devoted customers.

A loyalty program is a marketing strategy that offers customers benefits as a subtle way of saying 'thank you. Dating back to 1973, a loyalty program is regarded as a program that rewards a customer in exchange for an action they want to take or have taken.

For many, it could come as referring friends and reposting on social media while for others, it could seem like an exchange of gained points for customer satisfaction like airtime recharge. The program encourages customers to continue to use the services of businesses, thereby providing value to sustain existing customers and attract more customers.

According to research, 84% of consumers confirmed that they would rather stick with brands that have loyalty programs. Of course, these programs vary from business to business and most of them are app-based that is, the loyalty programs are integrated into mobile applications. These loyalty program examples include:


Point-based loyalty programs
This type of loyalty program encourages customer patronage/usage of the services rendered by a business or mobile application. This type promotes a personalized and structured experience for its customers.


Tiered and threshold- spend loyalty programs
This type of loyalty program is a form of encouragement, getting customers to get to the next level to unlock attractive benefits. The program is commonly executed by airline industries where the more you fly, the higher the rewards. Both high-tier and low-tier organizations use this loyalty program to build a standard customer base by spreading the news of its benefits through customers. This model makes sense for businesses that deal in fast-moving goods and frequently purchased items like clothes or food items.


Fee-paying loyalty programs
This model is a traditional loyalty program that is synonymous with a monthly fee in return for a VIP experience with a business or mobile application. It can be viewed as an interesting way of saving money for future shopping purposes if the customers are regular ones. For instance, a customer interested in using Amazon Prime to transport a valuable item from another country might prefer to pay $10 a month upfront than multiple shipping charges of $3.99.


Punch-card loyalty programs
Punch-card loyalty programs use cards that get stamped each time customers make a purchase, recording the customer's progress. Once the card is full, the customer collects their reward. This type of loyalty program is one of the easiest and most trustworthy customer reward systems. The customer has full access to the card and they'll be notified once the reward is due via the loyalty program app.

Referral systems
This model involves rewards after the successful invitation of friends and families to join engaging the services of the company or business. This promotes a healthy social media presence and an increase in customer retention rate.

Several organizations strategically use loyalty programs apps to boost their businesses. The style of loyalty program they employ is usually unique to their industry. Here are some of those styles:

The loyalty program for an enterprise is point-based as it enables customers to accumulate points while shopping. After the points build-up, the customers can exchange them for personal benefits like discount coupons, free items, free shipping, and rentals. There are 4 levels in an enterprise loyalty program which include: Enterprise Plus, Enterprise Plus Silver, Enterprise Plus Gold, and Enterprise Plus Platinum.

While this loyalty program is easy to implement, it is equally important to specify the relationship between the real-time rewards and points e.g. 1.1 points = $1 to spend. Failure to indicate leaves your customers confused and uninterested in the mobile application.

This program is a reward-based marketing strategy, somewhat similar to credit card memberships but unique. Some loyalty programs for hotels are rewarded as points, cash-back, or ancillary services. Initially, the loyalty scheme was in association with airlines.

The reward cash earned could be used for free or discounted partner flights. However, after some time, hoteliers noticed how beneficial these programs were and started to design theirs. As the programs evolved and got more productive, some factors were introduced, like the frequency of hotel visits, several points accumulated, and frequent use of the program.

For restaurants, loyalty programs are being run diversely. A loyalty program for a restaurant introduced through a mobile application promotes the use of digital stamp cards, voucher management, first-order discounts, and referral incentives amongst many others.

Airline loyalty programs reward customers for buying tickets by giving them points for free trips and more value in non-flight activities for customer retention. This method has evolved over time but usually benefits customers who buy expensive airline tickets because that is the major way to climb the levels of the program.

Having a clear communication strategy for your customers is an important key to the successful integration of a business. An application is a simple tool that helps communicate with customers, therefore it makes a loyalty program simple, straightforward, and user friendly. While some businesses integrate a loyalty program to get a competitive edge, others do so to maximize their publicity opportunities.

With the effectiveness of a mobile application, loyalty programs can go to a whole new level, and in turn, yield massive business returns.

Interested in the integration of a loyalty program to a mobile application or a productive website?

We at Workin Geeks thrive at application development while exploring several means to incorporate your needs and create functional designs. Aside from UI/UX Design and adjustments on mobile applications, we come up with strategies that help clients shine at the top.