Whether your customer loyalty scheme is brand new or if you’ve had it a while, how do you know if you’re getting the most of out it?

Your members of staff are key to the success of your loyalty scheme. It is vital that they know and understand the customer loyalty programme they’re selling and that means your staff should receive training on how to use and promote your scheme.

Step 1: Make Sure Your Staff Understand What Loyalty Means To Your Business

First, you must make sure everyone knows how customer retention can benefit your business. Use statistics to back up your claim, and if you’ve already got your system in place, present the data you collected from your initial set up.

Just one or two snippets can really drive home the impact that a loyalty system can have for your business. Inform your staff that loyalty progammes can increase overall revenue by 5 – 15% and members of loyalty schemes spend between 5% and 20% more than non-members.

Step 2: Make Sure Your Staff Understand How Your Loyalty Scheme Works

Making sure your staff can use the relevant business loyalty app or software is vital. Registering customers only takes a moment, and if an existing member of your loyalty scheme has forgotten their card, it’s both possible and very easy to search a member and add any points without the need to scan a barcode. Issuing and redeeming points is also a straightforward process, so your staff do not need to feel daunted.

Show your staff how to use your software and offer refresher courses if they need it, so you know that all elements of your loyalty system are being utilised to their full potential.

Once you’ve decided how to award your points and what rewards are given, make sure your staff are aware too. They need to be a part of the process, as they will be the ones promoting it the most.

Customers will be more willing to sign up to your loyalty programme when they know the staff understand and enjoy it, too.

Encourage all staff members to sign up. They’ll understand how the sign-up process works so they can explain it to the customer, and they can also use their favourite functions of your loyalty system to promote it to customers.

Do they think it’s easy to use? Are the rewards perfect for your shop’s target audience? Ask for their opinion and then tell them to translate those positives into selling points. Customers will be more willing to sign up to your loyalty programme when they know the staff understand and enjoy it, too.

Step 3: Increase Staff Involvement

Your staff will interact with customers more than anyone else in your business, so they will be able to suggest things that you haven’t thought of. Increasing staff involvement and letting them be a part of the process will benefit your loyalty scheme hugely, so listen to any suggestions they may have. Your staff may hold the key to adding a personal touch to your loyalty programme, and customers will be more inclined to sign up if the benefits are suited to them.

Another great way to get your staff excited about the use of your loyalty system is to incentivise sign ups. You could create a friendly competition among your staff and offer a prize for whoever manages to sign up the most customers within a month.

You could, of course, reward them via your loyalty scheme. Having your staff take part in your loyalty programme is a great way for them to get familiar with the software, and it’ll be great for your staff to communicate the benefits to customers when they’ve experienced them personally.

It’s important that you not only train your current staff, but to also include loyalty scheme training for new members of staff, too. To get the full benefits, everyone should be able to use it effectively.

Step 4: Make The Most Of Marketing Materials

Don’t forget that marketing is an integral part of your loyalty scheme being successful.

Advertise your loyalty scheme through materials placed at your point of sales. Customers can sign up instantly and receive points for their current purchase. This is proven to motivate people to complete their sign ups, so using stickers, posters, and signage is a successful method of marketing your loyalty scheme.

Point of sales advertising is also a great way of reminding your staff that they should be offering your loyalty cards to each customer.

So whilst customer retention and loyalty is important, the key to making your loyalty scheme a success is to ensure your staff are correctly trained. Face to face interaction is at the core of customer retention and your members of staff will be able to feedback to you whilst selling your business’s loyalty card.