These days customers are educated, knows how to do comparison shopping and just a click away from the competitors. In today’s economy when customers are looking for save as much as possible, customer loyalty programs or reward programs are more important than ever. Remember, for any business, it costs more money to get a new customer as compares to getting revenue from your existing customer.
There is no doubt about the fact that every business needs new customers but the easiest way to get more sales/revenue is from your existing loyal customers who knows your company/brand and the products/services that you offer. So, it is quite important to make sure that your loyal customers who are buying from your store instead of going to competitor’s site are being rewarded.
So, what is a reward points program and why do you need one?
A reward points system is a customer loyalty program that many e-Commerce websites offer to their customers for keeping them to their store sites and encouraging them to shop more frequently.
A loyalty program like reward point system focuses on the following objectives:
- Get more sales/orders out of your existing customers
- Increasing the probability of getting a second order from first time buyers
- Whole program works as a marketing tactic for your store site
- Bringing more value to your customers with rewards
How to run a successful reward points program?
How to run a successful reward points program?
- Keep the points conversation simple and easy to understand. Keep the points conversation simple and easy to understand
- Award points for certain actions (not just for purchasing). A great way to encourage customers to place an order on your store site it to award points not only for purchasing items but rewarding them for certain actions like points for registration or points on order status when the order is complete. A lot of e-Commerce websites use the reward points for building community by rewarding the users to post product reviews, commenting on the blog posts or sharing the products on social media sites.
- Reward points on all purchases to keep everything simple. A simple way to keep the reward points program straight forward is by rewarding points on all purchases based on the total money spent. This way the customers will be able to understand the program quickly and use it more often. There are times when a few online businesses offer points on certain items only; in that case a clear reward guideline should be posted on the store site for customers.
- Make the reward points worth earning. If you are offering 1 reward points for spending $200 and each reward point is worth only $1, the customers won’t find the reward worth earning. Many customers might find it unreachable if the thresholds are quite high. Creating a successful reward point program means creating a system in which shoppers understand the value of participation where goals are reachable.
- Using reward points program a way to reach certain goals in a limited time frame. There are many e-Commerce websites which use reward points program to meet their sales/revenue goals for each year. A time based reward program can easily accomplish goals like this. In a time based reward program, store sites run a promotion in which they reward extra points for a limited time only. This encourages customers to shop more in that specific time frame. Hence the businesses meet their sales/revenue goals for the year.
nopCommerce offers a great rewards points program allows you to offer points per dollar spent on your store. The customer can then redeem the points for additional products at your store. nopCommerce allows the store administrator to have a full control over the reward points program by setting rules on certain actions by which customers can earn reward points.
Author: Lavish Kumar