Looking for some tips and answers on switching loyalty programs

[Sheila4]

Hi - we are a small chain of coffee shops (7 locations). We use Loyalty at two of our locations, and we are planning to roll out a new and improved program across all 7 of our stores.

Current program at 2 cafes:

Spend $10 = earn 1 star

Collect 10 stars = get $10 off your next purchase

New/proposed program for all 7 cafes (including the 2 mentioned above):

Spend $1 = earn 10 points

Collect points to redeem for rewards with values 50 - 2500 points

Here are my questions:

1. It seems as though I have to toggle off the existing loyalty program before I can build out the new one. Is this correct? Is there any way to build the new program along side the existing one and choose one day to switch over? I'm trying to reduce downtime.

2. Has anyone confirmed that Square Loyalty works correctly though PoppinPay mobile ordering app? 

3. My research is showing that all earned rewards will stay attached to current loyalty customers and the old rewards can be used even when we switch to the new loyalty structure. Is this correct?

4. My research is showing that any earned stars will be converted 1-to-1 to points in the new system. So if a customer has 3 stars under the existing program, when the new program is launched, those 3 stars will become 3 points. Is this correct?

5. Does anyone have any tips or best-practices ideas for switching to a new loyalty program?

Thanks!

Sheila

[sugarlab]

Hey Sheila! 

I recently switched loyalty set-ups so I can answer some of your questions. 

1. That is correct. There's no way to really have it in the back end and then choose it to go live on a specific day. I switched without warning my customers and it created a couple bumps-but I'll address those below. 

2. Don't have any experience with PoppinPay so I can't answer this part. 

3. This is what I thought too but it isn't correct. They don't lose their stars but the stars don't convert over. We had a similar structure previously and switched to a $1 = 1 point. Then made our rewards higher points. One of our rewards actually went away because we didn't have that item anymore so I'm not sure if that's what happened. If the customer had 100 points previously, they would have 100 points when we switched, even though points were now worth 10 times as much. It was bummer but I posted about it on my business social media and sent an email. I offered people the option to redeem their old rewards by the end of the month OR convert their points to the new system (multiplying by 10). I figured the people that would care about their points would get in touch and anyone else just didn't care enough. I had maybe 10 people that contacted us so it wasn't that much of a hassle. 

4. LOL realized I answered this question in 4. To better answer 3 now, it did appear that the reward they had previously earned was gone, but I think that's because that reward didn't exist anymore. So with yours, it looks like that might happen. 

5. I probably didn't do it right but I just did it. I was talking for a while about changing so it wasn't a complete shock to my regulars. I would have done it on a specific day and send our marking to my customers to let them know to use up their rewards they have before switching over. 

Hope that helps!

Ali

[pessosices]

Hey @Sheila4 !

@sugarlab is right on the money with these answers. Thanks for sharing your experience, @sugarlab !

3. The way the Loyalty Program works these days is that people don't get the rewards to hold onto, they just get the points that they can redeem for whatever rewards you currently have.

5. As far as tips or tricks go, an interesting way to switch over could be with expiration of the old points.
If you don't already have an expiration date set on your points, if you set an expiration period now, it will apply to all previous points. So you can put out a notice that at the end of next month, you're switching over to the new system and to use them all up while they can, set an expiration on points for 1 month, so that all the points will expire at the end of next month, along with any new points accrued in the meantime. At the same time, change the name of the reward to include something like "(Program ending on November 31st - New Program coming on December 1st!)" so they know what's going on when they check their Loyalty status when they get a text message saying their points are expiring.

The downside here is that any points earned at the beginning of next month would expire at the end of the following month - but as long as you tell everyone that your program is switching out to a new one, then that could be mitigated.

Then at the end of next month, switch over to your new program and get rid of or change the expiration period to make it longer.

There's definitely no perfect way to do it, but hopefully your customers will understand, and it'll work out!