Delloite Research came out with a research study on customer loyalty called Serving the Networked Customer and uncovered a few interesting statistics. Stats like retailers who take meaningful steps to drive customer loyalty are 88% more profitable than competitors that don’t.  88% jump in profitability just for loyalty? Sign me up!  Another consulting firm, Parago, found a 2x jump in visits and 4x jump in customer spend for the same reason. Could there be a trend?

Here at Fivestars we are serious about customer loyalty. And for good reason: it is a tried and true way to get customers in your store more often and spending more money when they visit.  But just having a loyalty program isn’t enough — we aren’t magicians after all.  Loyalty programs are the tool that when used properly can yield amazing results to its wielders, but when left unused, doesn’t have the potential to drive the 88% jump in profitability that Delloite found.

So how do you get the most out of your loyalty program? Uniformly we have seen the greatest successes among the Fivestars businesses who:

1. Get their customers excited about coming in the store (have a great reward!)
2. Get their employees excited about getting customers involved

To elaborate a little more, customers love loyalty because it is a tangible connection between them and the places they frequent.  Quality of the food and the physical store fronts are a small piece of the customer experience equation, and loyalty helps to complete this equation.  Imagine coming into a store where all the servers know your name and you are treated differently because this is your 27th time here.  Imagine rewarding your customers in something not on the normal menu: maybe a dessert that you can only get if you have been to the store 10 times.  And think about how excited your employees would be knowing that customers this happy will always tip more!  The more customers you get excited about your loyalty program, the more loyalty will be able to do for you.