How do you reward your Regular Customers?

[pessosices]

Hey Food & Beverage Friends!

Welcome to the group, and a huge thank you to @AdamB for setting it up and inviting you all!

I'm a Super Seller here in the Square Seller Community, and along with @Donnie-M and @ryanwanner , we're here in the Food & Beverage group to answer questions, give ideas, and spark some great conversations.

I'll be jumping in with some questions to help give ideas to other businesses. So here's the first question!

How do you reward your Regular Customers?

Do you use a Rewards/Loyalty Program like Square Loyalty or Punch Cards?

Do you randomly comp a regular's drink or meal?

Or is it something more abstract like just getting to know your customers and share things in your community?

Let us know and share your ideas or questions down here in the comments.
Looking forward to seeing what y'all do!

-Pesso

[Sam_400º]

They have the pleasure of my company! 

But I also use Square loyalty & will often bump some of my regulars points as I see them every week. 

[pessosices]

Haha, @Sam_400º - that's definitely a reward in and of itself!

I like that way of using random point bumping of some super regulars using Square Loyalty! 

That's a great tip - thanks for sharing!

[vhovar]

Prior to Square we used your basic "buy 10 drinks" stamp card to redeem for a free regular drink (with no extras). Since that was not possible with Square and it was becoming a bit of a hassle to keep up with we reorganized our loyalty to use Square and provided several tiers of $$ off based on the number of "stamps" accumulated. We really haven't received any complaints about the change and it has really helped our staff simplify processing. I'm not sure the added expense through square is being offset by increased sales due to having the loyalty program. There are also a few anomalies that we have to occasionally deal with as customers use their "check-in" when someone else pays with a cc or when we merge customers. Most we have been able to correct but it isn't always easy to see what happened and Support denied there were any problems.

[pessosices]

@vhovar 

That's cool that you made some tweaks and jumped into Square Loyalty and that it's helped you make things easier for the staff and that customers like it so far!

That's fair - it's hard to really get an idea about about increased sales, since a lot of it is intangible customer loyalty and better conception of your business. 

There definitely can be some issues with merging & using someone else's phone number / card. 
Sorry for the issues with Support with that. 

Whenever we have an issue with that happening, we print an extra ticket/receipt and have the customer right down their number and issue and I'll go in and fix it the next day.

[ryanwanner]

Hey @pessosices thanks for the shout out and the great question!

For my store, we do use the Square Loyalty program. It's soooo much easier than punch cards, and with it integrated into the online store and our app it's super easy.

That said, I also have a "Regular's Thank You" 100% discount available on the system, and all my baristas know that they're allowed to use it once a week. We keep a running list of regulars who receive the discount so we don't keep giving the same person the deal. My rationale is this: yes, we want to reward our regular customers with the loyalty program, but it doesn't have the same personal touch feel as my team saying "We've seen you in here every day this week. I'm going to take care of your drink today. Thank you so much for being such a regular guest of ours."

[pessosices]

Thanks @ryanwanner !

That's great that you're also digging Square Loyalty and the ease of using it & integrating!
We also love that it works with Square Online and makes things suuuuper easy.

Very cool about the Regular's Thank You system! That's an awesome way to not only give back to customers but also empower your employees to get to know & reward them. Such a great idea!!

[All4Kids]

I currently use punch cards but am running out. I am considering using the Square Loyalty but the cost is my concern. I was spending $150 per year for punch cards. $50 per month is a big price hike from what I have paid for the last 13 years.

[_Violet]

Hi @All4Kids - Thanks for reaching out to us here on the Square Seller Community👋

If you're interested you can sign up for Square Loyalty for free for a 30-day trial to check out the program and determine if this would be worth it in the long run for the subscription cost. We do not request a payment method on file when you start your 30-day free trial, so you don't need to worry about canceling.

You’ll have access to the following features:

• Ability to create a loyalty program to reward your regulars, and keep new customers coming back for more.
• Loyalty insights so you can track your program online.
• Ability to search for and modify outstanding rewards and reward statuses, either online, or from the Square POS app.

If you’re using Square POS, and are designated as a business, you can subscribe to Square Loyalty and create a digital rewards program. Loyalty Rewards appear in the payment flow and are available for cash and card purchases. Square will associate the phone number your customer enters during enrollment with your rewards program. They can earn rewards with multiple payment methods by always entering the same phone number.

I hope this information is helpful but please do let us know if you have any additional questions. Always happy to help! 😊

[supernicenyc]

Yeah, we still use punch cards because square loyalty is just so much more expensive. For the punch cards, we just start another row of punches above the completed row, until the entire card is all punched up. This is to reduce waste, reduce the frequency we need to order cards, and people kind of like the idea of hanging onto their cards.... something fun about seeing 50 punches on there.

[pessosices]

@All4Kids & @kmacmmurchy - I definitely understand the cost sensitivity, especially when looking at it directly compared to Punch Card cost. For me the price makes sense when I factor in employee training cost to teach them all the rules, lost revenue for employees taking advantage of the system by giving extra punches and things, and everything else that is simplified by it being an automated system. But I totally get the price worries too!

@supernicenyc - That's a super clever idea of doing multiple rows on the same card to save paper! Genius!

[kmacmmurchy]

I tend to agree, on my old system it was just part of it and 5 stores = $250/MONTH plus the discounted loyalty items. When you're selling $3 items, I'm not sure if it's worth that over all my stores.

[ErinAkey]

We use Square Loyalty and they get a point for each dollar they spend.  We do clean meal prep and have a café.  The points add up to $10 or $20 rewards.  It really helps with people coming in more often!

[pessosices]

@ErinAkey - I absolutely love that! 
I'm glad Square Loyalty is working well for you, and that's super cool to use it for meal prep - doubly rewarding!

Great to hear that it's successful and keeps folks coming back too

[Kellykc]

We use punch cards in our fast casual restaurant.  Customers are happy that we as a small independent restaurant even offers it.

[pessosices]

That’s so fantastic @Kellykc ! I’m glad you are offering something and that your customers appreciate it! 

[mwest63]

Hi there!  We have a produce/pick your own farm in central VA.  We also have a farm market "grocery" store and do farmers markets.  We use Square POS with Loyalty and Marketing.  First, I really wish there was a bundled/discounted price for using multiple Square features.  Second, with our Loyalty we used to do the punch card.  We switched to Square a while back and it makes life SO much easier.  Customers were constantly forgetting their card or losing it.  This way they only have to remember their name or number.  We offer 1 point per $1 (min of $5) then at 100 points they get $10 "Farm Cash".  It's equal to 10% discount.  

Another thing we offer is Farm Friend Member.  We use the gift cards as a "prepaid" option.  Ex.the customer purchases $200 on their card, we load $220 as a bonus for them "loaning" us the money in advance.  We offer $200 ($220), $400 ($450) and $600 ($680) options.  We also keep the cards in house (in a locked box) so that they can come shop and not have to actually bring money.  

I feel the added expense per month does pay off.  Our customers love being rewarded for just shopping with us.  We have them trained to tell us "Don't forget my points" or "Can I give you my number?"  There are some shoppers that every other visit get rewarded.  

[pessosices]

Hey @mwest63 !

That's awesome that you've been using Square Loyalty & Marketing across your business ventures!

Having a bundle for different Square subscriptions would be super cool - that's a really great idea for business like us who use multiple additional services. ( @isabelle 👀)

I'm so glad that Square Loyalty has made things easier for you over traditional punch cards. We definitely had the same experience with more customers using and enjoying the simplicity of just using their phone number and not forgetting cards.

I love how invested and excited your customers sound, and I'm glad the expense is worth it for you. We feel the same way!

Oooh that Farm Friend Member program sounds super cool! A nice way to reward folks for investing a little bit more money. 

If you want to lower some of the work & liability there, you can use the Square Digital eGift Cards for that (they're completely free and can be loaded online or on your POS), so the customer can link them with a phone number too, or just show/tell you the 16 Digit Gift Card Code. No need to carry all the cards in a lock box and risk anything happen to them! 

Again, thanks so much for sharing your awesome experiences and let me know if you have any questions!
Pesso

[The86Coffee]

The only loyalty program you need is great customer service and a great product.  In my experience a "loyalty program" really does nothing to increase loyalty.  We had one for 3 years and discontinued it.  It did not affect our traffic or the satisfaction of our customers in any way.

[pessosices]

Hey @The86Coffee - that's a great perspective too! I'm glad that getting rid of your loyalty program didn't negatively affect your business, and that you're just as successful and making just as many customers happy without one!