Loyalty Programs: Back to Basics

Training is the backbone of any loyalty or rewards program. You can have all the bells and whistles and options, the most eye-catching cards, and the best incentives but at the end of the day, if your staff doesn’t know about it or doesn’t know the details it’s just about useless. Staff buy-in is critical for any type of promotion, especially when you are watching your marketing dollars. And, from my experience you’re going to need to motivate your staff with something better than the satisfaction of a job well done. And, again, from my experience nothing motivates like money. So you may want to consider cash or, even better, why don’t you trade out some gift cards with neighboring businesses to use as prizes? Both businesses will benefit and it’s a tangible cash value prize for your employees.

As I was saying, before your program even hits the sales floor you should be telling your staff about it. Maybe they will even tell some key customers about it and build some excitement about the program. Or, maybe they’ll have a fantastic idea about something to add to the program. Remember these are the people that talk to your customers daily, they may have an insight that hasn’t even occurred to anyone creating the program. Once you have the program rules/restrictions developed your staff needs to learn them, they should know every FAQ as well as every obscure question that your customers may think up. They should be able to use the terminal or POS system quickly and efficiently, because I don’t care how great a promotion is, if it holds me up any longer than the amount of time it takes to process a payment I don’t want it.

After you have them trained and the program has been incorporated and rolled out, you need to follow up on the training. Now, “secret shopper” is a phrase that sends chills down the spine of every service industry employee I know. But, when done properly, they can be very useful. Now, I’m not advocating hiring a group to conduct a review, just call up a friend or family member that your staff doesn’t know and have them stop in or call your store/restaurant/spa/gym and ask questions about a range of topics and see if your staff mentions your loyalty program, if they don’t right off the bat see if they will mention it after some prompting, “Hey, do you guys have some kind of reward program or something? I think one of my friends said she had one from here.” If they got it right away you’re an all-star manager, your staff is trained properly and your customers can probably tell. After being prompted? Okay…you’re on the right track but you still have a ways to go. Not at all? Big problem—here is where you ask yourself why you are wasting money on a program not being used (after you apologize to your sales rep at your gift and loyalty card company for complaining to them about how your business hasn’t increased the way they promised.) Not calling you out, just saying.