What a digital loyalty card is and how customers use it

What a digital loyalty card is

A digital loyalty card is a loyalty card that sits on a phone instead of in a wallet. The idea hasn’t changed: a customer comes back, collects something each time, and after a set number of visits or purchases gets a reward. What changes is where the card is kept and who keeps count.

The most practical kind of digital card is a Wallet pass. It lives in Apple Wallet on an iPhone or Google Wallet on an Android phone, the same place people keep boarding passes and event tickets. There is no separate app for your café or salon; the card sits next to everything else in the Wallet.

Behind the card there is a simple rule, and you choose it:

• Stamps: one stamp per purchase, as on a paper card. “Buy 9 coffees, get the 10th free” is the classic example.
• Visits: one mark per visit, whatever the bill. This suits barbers, salons and gyms.
• Points: points for what the customer spends, at a rate you set, for example 1 point for every 1 ₼.

Paper stamp cards and digital cards, side by side

Paper cards have real strengths. They cost very little, everyone understands them, and there is nothing to set up. For some businesses they are enough. Their weak points show up over time:

• They get lost, left at home or washed with a pair of jeans, and the customer starts again from zero.
• A rubber stamp is easy to copy, and a card can be filled in at home.
• You don’t know who your regulars are, how often they come, or when someone stopped coming.
• Once the customer walks out of the door, you have no way to reach them.

A digital card answers each of those points. It is on the phone, which people rarely leave behind. The QR code on it is signed, so it can’t be guessed or copied onto another card. Each stamp is recorded with the staff member, the device and the location, so you have a clear history instead of a pile of cardboard. And because the card can update itself, it can also carry a short message from you.

The trade-off is a few minutes of setup and a phone or tablet at the till. For most businesses with repeat customers, that is a fair exchange.

How a customer joins

Joining should take less time than ordering. With Loyever it works like this:

• The customer points their phone’s normal camera at the QR code on your counter or door.
• A short page opens with your card on it. It asks for a first name, a birthday (day and month only) and, if they like, an email address.
• A box for offers from your business is shown unticked. The customer decides whether to tick it.
• They tap “Add to Apple Wallet” or “Add to Google Wallet”, and the card is on their phone.

That is the whole sign-up. There is no app to download, no account to create and no password to forget. If a customer who already has your card joins again with the same email, they get their existing card back rather than a second one, so nobody collects on two cards at once.

Using the card at the counter

On the next visit, the customer opens the card in the Wallet and holds it up. Your staff scan the QR code with the camera of a phone, tablet or computer, in the browser. If the customer’s phone is flat, staff can find them by name instead.

Staff add the stamp, visit or points, and the card on the customer’s phone updates on its own. On iPhone the change also appears on the lock screen, for example “+1 stamp”. The customer sees their progress straight away, without having to ask.

When a reward is ready, the card says so. At the till, staff tap to claim it and see a plain confirmation first, so a reward is never given away by accident. If something goes wrong, there is an undo for 2 minutes.

Between visits

A paper card sits in a drawer between visits. A digital one can do a little work on your behalf.

If you add your shop’s location, the card can appear on the customer’s lock screen when they are within about 150 metres. You can also turn on reminders, such as a note when someone is close to a reward, a birthday treat, or a “we miss you” after 21 days without a visit. And you can write your own short messages, up to 150 characters.

A few rules keep this polite. Messages only go out during your opening hours, and there is a minimum gap between two messages to the same person, 3 days by default. A customer who removes the card or turns off its notifications stops the messages.

What it asks of you

Running a digital card is mostly a matter of choosing a clear rule and a reward people want. After that, the day-to-day work is small:

• Print the QR code and put it where people wait: the counter, the door, the table.
• Mention the card when you take payment. One sentence is enough.
• Keep a phone or tablet at the till for scanning. No special hardware is needed.