Without generating signups for your loyalty program, you won’t be able to realize its value and earn a return on your investment. That’s why signups are one of the most important loyalty program KPIs.
For many business owners, the only way to increase signups is to rely on the cashier or sales rep to persuade customers to join with a detailed spiel. However, the best loyalty program scripts shouldn’t need to go beyond these two sentences:
“Are you a member of our loyalty program? Just enter your phone number to earn points for your purchase."
In this blog post we’ll go over how to improve your loyalty program script, and offer additional ways to boost signups for your loyalty program.
Why do loyalty program signups matter?
Let's do some math comparing a loyalty program with average member signups to a program powered by Spendgo with 12x more signups. We’ll look at an SMS campaign run 1x per month, with a 5% conversion rate, and our example business will have an average customer ticket value of $15.
An additional $13,500 in annual sales from a loyalty program isn’t too shabby. But the same campaign with more signups from Spendgo gets you drastically more, with $162,000 in sales.
Why lengthy scripts don’t work?
Counting on your employees to pitch your loyalty program to customers is only sustainable if your program is easy to explain.
Making employees memorize a lengthy, complicated loyalty program script adds another item to your training checklist, and every new employee needs to learn the ropes all over again. It’s also a difficult policy to enforce (without hovering over your employees’ shoulders).
If you’ve ever been on register, you know that when it’s busy, employees will save time wherever they can. A time-consuming script is the first thing cashiers are going to skip during peak hours — and peak hours happen to be the most important time for signups.
The longer employees have to spend explaining the loyalty program or completing signups on the POS system, the longer customers will have to wait to be checked out. That means longer queues and lower customer satisfaction.
In addition, loyalty programs should be as close to self-service and self-explanatory as possible. Most customers are very familiar with loyalty programs, and if your program is so different that it demands an exhaustive explanation, it’s probably too complicated to begin with.
Better ways to boost loyalty program signups
Here are some more scalable, reliable ways to increase signups for your loyalty program. They all involve limiting interaction cost by improving the customer experience.
Make it visible
Rather than hiding the signup flow in the POS system where only the cashier can access it, make it visible on a customer-facing tablet at checkout with clear and concise on-screen instructions.
That way, your employees won’t have to say more than those two sentences we mentioned earlier: “Did you know we have a loyalty program with awesome rewards? You can sign up on this tablet.”
Make it private
People don’t like giving their personal information to strangers. Utilizing a customer-facing display for your loyalty program allows customers to input their information themselves, so they don’t have to say their phone number or email address aloud to a sales rep.
Try to limit the amount of personal information you ask for in order to minimize interaction cost. The less data customers have to enter, the more likely they’ll be to sign up.
Read more: How to Leverage Customer Loyalty Data without Compromising Privacy
Make it easy
For customers who are in a hurry, there’s a huge difference between something that takes a minute and something that takes fifteen seconds. If signing up for your loyalty program is too complicated or takes too long, customers won’t do it.
As a general rule, you should try to initiate the signup process during the sale, rather than relying on customers to do it themselves later.
While a mobile app can be a great tool to help you manage your loyalty program, it should not be the only available method for customers to sign up. Signing up at the register is much easier than having to download an app or go home and do it online.
Offer a signup incentive
To further incentivize customers to sign up at the register, give them a little something just for signing up, like a discount on their current purchase, free item, or bonus points.
For many customers, being able to earn rewards on the first purchase is key. Some brands require customers to contact customer service or input a receipt number in their app in order to earn rewards for that first purchase, so if you make it as easy as inputting their phone number, that’s a huge plus.
Simplify with an existing network
Rather than trying to collect all the customer data on your own (which can cost as much as $7 per customer via Facebook ads), you can leverage an existing customer network that is also in use at other popular businesses.
Customers can use their existing account to sign up for as many new loyalty programs as they want, rather than making a brand new account each time. That saves time and effort, making them more likely to sign up for your program.
When you use a solution like Spendgo, you’ll get up to 12x more people to sign up for your loyalty program. That’s up to 12x the revenue for every campaign you run.
Even better, Spendgo allows you to brand your loyalty program with design and messaging that make sense for your business. It’s a win-win.
Tracking and optimizing signups
Once you’ve implemented your program with the notes above, you can track signups by comparing month to month or, if you have multiple locations, store to store.
This will give you a good baseline for the number of signups you can expect. Only then should you start optimizing your signup process by changing the loyalty program script.
And, if signup numbers still aren’t where you want them to be, it might be time to try a new loyalty program platform.
Looking for an easy-to-use platform for your loyalty program? Request a demo.
