Coffee has become an increasingly important part of our daily lives: making coffee shops community hubs, where we socialise, relax or just grab a tasty brew on our way to work. This makes them an excellent business opportunity and new coffee shops pop up in neighbourhoods regularly.

However, this breeds competition, meaning that any successful coffee shop will need to as much as possible to ensure that they stand out from the crowd. Every business is defined by its relationship to its customers, so they have to strike a delicate balance between attracting new customers and retaining their loyal regulars.

One of the best ways to do this is to reward customers for their loyalty, via a scheme that offers them benefits for their continued custom. Such schemes have been shown to generate between 12-18% more revenue than shops that are not a part of a loyalty scheme. This is even more effective, when combined with all the other things that exceptional businesses do, such as delivering exceptional service, providing an outstanding product and a host of other things that are too numerous to list here.

However, if you really want to take the loyalty scheme to the next level, then you should also do the following:

Create Awareness

Make your baristas and customers, ambassadors for your brand.

Every person who steps into your shop must know you have a loyalty scheme. Great loyalty programs create chains and your baristas are the first link in that chain. They should highlight your loyalty scheme to every customer and encourage them to take part in it. Then, those customers will tell their friends about it and bring more people into your shop. There is no better way to generate new business than word of mouth and a loyalty scheme is bound to help in this regard.

You should also encourage potential customers to ask about it of their own volition: put stickers on the door, a brochure on the counter or write about it on the menu. There’s no point in having a wonderful loyalty scheme and not shouting about it, so make sure that your customers can see it!

We would also recommend using digital mediums to promote your loyalty scheme: write about it on your website and social media, create little competitions and have customers tag friends that might be interested in them.

Be Generous

Customers love to be rewarded for their loyalty, and the more generous that you make the rewards, the more they will love your shop!

Rewards should be related to the purchase, easy to redeem and worth spending the time and money on. Obviously, you need to balance this with the need to make money, but the more worthwhile you make the scheme, the more loyal your customers will be to it.

We would recommend that you keep the purchase requirements of the scheme low and make sure the stamps last a long time: because it will be better for your business in the long run.

Add some fun

We all enjoy doing fun things, so the more unique and novel your scheme is, the more successful it will be. One way to do this is by turning your stamp card into a game, which will encourage your customers to spend more.

Instead of creating a stamp card with 5 spaces on it, why not create a card with 12? After 5 purchases of one product, you can give your customers a reward and then encourage them to try something different by rewarding them for getting 5 of another product, then, you can offer them a bigger reward for getting all 12 stamps, which will really get them involved in the scheme!

Make them feel exclusive

Everybody likes to feel valued and special! A great digital loyalty scheme will really help you to do this with your customers. Set the app to reward them for being a frequent customer or the date when they joined your program and invite them to your shop to celebrate it.

Offer them treats

One of the major benefits of a digital loyalty program is that it can flag up customer patterns that a non-digital one cannot recognise. If formerly loyal customers are now visiting your shop less, then an app can flag this up and allow you to send them a tempting treat that will draw them back in.

Do all of this and more on Magic Stamp

Magic Stamp is a loyalty platform that allows you to reward your customers for their commitment to your business. It also provides sophisticated insights into your customers, ensuring that you can give them a better overall experience. If you want to develop deeper bonds with your customers and attract new loyal customers, then contact a member of the Magic Stamp team today and take your business to the next level.

5 Ways To Increase Customer Loyalty In Your Coffee Shop