Getting a customer to your store the first time might be easy – Having them return on a regular basis may be difficult and expensive. Unless you are the only game in town there are a multitude of options for consumers to choose from everyday whether you own a restaurant, clothing store, or dry cleaners. Always keeping you in their mind is important. Having to rely on newspaper ads or coupon packs is extremely expensive and short lived. Trying to always find new patrons while at the same time ignoring your existing ones is a huge mistake. Research shows that it costs up to eight times more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one coming back. Yet many merchants continue to overspend on campaigns to attract new business and underspend on building value with the customers they already have. There is that saying in the dirty world of politics – work the base, work the base, work the base. The same concept really holds true for the good world of retailing and restaurants.

This is where our Valutec Loyalty Card Program comes in. It can be run as either an add on to our Gift Card Program or be a totally independent standalone program. The choice is entirely yours. If you choose to add Loyalty to Gift this is simple because every time we set up a Valutec gift card merchant the program also includes the capability to add Loyalty. All that is required to begin is to print the new loyalty cards and you are ready to begin.

How It Works

Deciding Point Value

The first step towards creating a Loyalty Program is deciding what point value to assign to customer purchases. The most popular options are $1 = 1 point or $1 = 10 points.

Deciding Awards Levels & Redemptions

The next step is to decide what reward(s) to give your customers when a specific point level is reached. Rewards can be products, services, discounts, or dollar value added to the card.

Take for example the popular current Gold Point Rewards program that T.G.I. Friday’s® participates whereby it offers 10 points for each dollar spent plus 500 points at initial signup. As loyal customers accumulate points they are rewarded for reaching specific levels such as a free appetizer or dessert, free entrée, or dollar valued certificates for higher levels.

In a program such as Gold Points the merchant will print their own brochure, flyer, or store poster which spells out what is offered at different levels. Think about your individual situation. Let’s say you are a video store. How about each rental equals 1 point and after 5 rentals the customer can redeem their points for a free rental or if they want to accumulate points then at 12 points they can redeem for a free rental plus a free microwave popcorn.

This program is popular because we don’t determine the reward levels as it is totally up to you. Points are simply added to the card or redeemed in any amount you choose. This allows rewards and reward levels to be continuously flexible without making any award level or point value changes in the system. An example of the flexibility is that let’s say you have a restaurant and Tuesdays and Wednesdays are usually slow. Then how about everyone gets double points on Tuesdays and on Wednesdays it only takes 50 points to get a free dessert with dinner. This is a great way to fill more seats and create loyalty.

Auto Rewards Program

The easiest loyalty program is also one of the most effective. Your business will chose one point level that will trigger an automatic dollar-value reward added to the customer’s card. For example, the program may be set up so that:

$1 = 1 point, 50 points = $5 reward.
When 50 points are accrued, the system automatically redeems the points and adds $5
spendable value to the card.

With Auto Rewards, your customers are continuously motivated to return because they have dollars or points (or both) on their cards at all times. With the “add value” function disabled for this program, clerks are prevented from accidentally adding dollars to the card instead of points.

The Loyalty Receipt

The terminal prints a receipt which shows the amount of the customer’s purchase (for which points are being awarded), the reward value available to use for future purchases, and the current point balance. To eliminate confusion, no previous redemptions are shown on the printed receipt.

Customer Data Mining

Customer demographic information (name, address, phone, email and date of birth) may be tied to a specific card number and stored in the Valutec host database. This will allow you to generate custom reports used to target certain customers with marketing offers based on card usage.

Valutec has a simple popup web form that may easily be added to your website allowing customers to “register” their cards themselves by entering their personal identification information. This form will also allow you to quickly register your customers who complete a registration form that you provide that they complete when signing up for your VIP loyalty rewards program.

This valuable optional service is only $2.00 per month per thousand records.

Merchant Reports

Included in your program is access to a variety of valuable reports to assist you in managing your program.

Every merchant receives a monthly summary statement via email that reports all transactions captured on Valutec’s database during that time period as well as total fees billed. This report aggregates transactions at the corporate level and also provides detail for each location.

In addition, you will receive a user name and password in order to access the 24/7 web-based reporting system. This way you will have up to the minute control of your program.

Loyalty Program Pricing

As mentioned earlier on this page, if you already are signing up for the Valutec gift card program then all you need to do is print additional cards with a different design or color so that you can distinguish between your gift and loyalty card program. The pricing for the additional cards can be found on our pricing page.

If you are just signing up for our Loyalty Program then here are the costs:

Now that you are familiar with our Loyalty Card Program please feel free to contact us by either completing the show I Want More Info form on the left or sending an email directly to Kevin at Kevin@giftcardusa.com.