A loyalty program management software is a type of software that helps in the creation and management of customer loyalty programs for brands and businesses. It makes the program efficient to run and manage.

There are guidelines that will help you in your choice of good customer loyalty software. You must follow these specific guidelines critically, after analysing what you want your customer loyalty program to function as. Determine the goals and purposes you want your customer loyalty program to serve. The targets set for your customer loyalty program will determine the software choice you make. Importantly, you should go for a multifaceted software that can design various types of programs. 

To choose software, check out the various features of customer loyalty programs you would like to have. 

Characteristics of a Good Customer Loyalty Program Software 

• A good customer loyalty program software ought to be easy to work with and incorporate into your framework. 
• Another characteristic of a good customer loyalty program software is that it is speedy and makes the program creative to run. 
• It is easy to manage and allows you the liberty to customize rewards, timing and packages. 
• A good customer loyalty software saves personal data and ought to keep them secure. It has to be security-conscious and be abiding by legal conditions. 
• It can be linked with your social media platforms or a messaging chat box to chat and engage with your customers.
• It should be consistent with the image you portray as a brand and must be security conscious.
• A good customer loyalty software should not necessarily be expensive; rather you should look out for what is affordable and sustainable.

Just as we’ve seen the characteristics that a good customer loyalty program software should have, let’s delve into top features that a good customer loyalty software must possess for you to choose it. 

Features of a Good Customer Loyalty Software

Just as we’ve seen the characteristics of a good customer loyalty program software in a general view, not all software possesses all the features, but there are key features you must look out for to make your program design and launch run smoothly; 

1. Possession of CRM System Integration

You should incorporate CRM (Customer Relationship Management) into your software. As a good customer loyalty software, the ability to catalogue every data related to each customer and each incentive and reward system is important. 

2. Unique Segmentation 

Based on the customer data obtained, a good customer loyalty software should be able to categorise customers into the segment they belong to. This eases the analysis of the various customers and places them in their various classes, as well as make it easy for marketers to target the various customers and get them to become more loyal to the brand. Strategies can be put in place to push the various customers up the ladder of customer loyalty. 

3. Affordability is Key

With customer loyalty software, prices will vary, but you must go with an affordable software that provides the needed solution and features at comfortable rates. Choose a good customer loyalty software that can serve more than one purpose.

4. Offline Redeeming of Gifts

Your customer loyalty program software should be such that rewards can be redeemed offline as well as online. This will get all customers interested and ready to participate. 

5. Notifications

One major feature of a good customer loyalty software should be an automated notification setting to send reminders to customers on their progress as regards the reward program and also inform customers about happenings and events within the brand. These reminders aren’t to spam the customers but rather to keep them up to date per time.

6. The Presence of a Customer Service Portal

The need for quality customer service cannot be overemphasised. Surely, with a customer loyalty program put in place for your brand and its customers, there will be a lot of questions asked constantly, a structure has to be put in place for these questions to be answered on what the basis for each reward system is, it’s terms and conditions and all that a customer must do to redeem his or her reward. A wallet can be set up to store each tier of reward achieved until it’s complete. This way, the system automatically runs itself even in the absence of customer care agents, and for questions or help, agents can be placed to oversee and attend to such requests on an hourly basis. The service portal can also serve as a safe space to announce updates, advertise products and give help and tips that will proffer solutions to various problems. A perfectly running service portal is important to the success of your customer loyalty program and as such must be catered to specifically.

7. Eligibility Regulations 

You should be able to set up the rules and requirements for your program, it should also be in such a way that you can update it regularly as you switch offers or take in new customers with different profiles and loyalty types. A good customer loyalty program software should be able to allow you to set eligibility regulations. You can set these regulations based on the facts you have about your customers, like your customers’ location, as some programs could be country-specific or targeted towards customers from anywhere in the world. It could also be based on your customers’ purchase history, such that there is an amount that must be spent patronising you before they can partake in your program. You could even structure it such that for each accumulative amount spent, specific points are awarded and become redeemable. There are various criteria for setting these regulations and you ought to be able to set yours.

8. Personalization

Ensure that the customer loyalty software you go with can run a personalised system. This could take place in three different forms; 

•   Rewards personalization

Not all customers must have the same reward system per time. Run these differently based on each customer. For instance, not all customers should be on the VIP and VVIP reward system, it certainly is made for people who have earned it and as such should be shown this way. Some will get discounts, while others will get gift cards or free delivery

•   Eligibility rules personalization

The rules and directions should not be static, as time goes on, there must be a means to update terms and conditions.

•   Time personalization

This involves timing. Your software should be able to run specific timings for various customers, and let them know the expiry dates for each reward redeemable. A reward or offer could generally last a period of time, while a countdown could be run for specific customers as they start the first level towards redeeming the reward in question. Specific offers that are linked to brand anniversaries, specific holidays or celebrations should also be put into consideration during the set-up, and an update ought to be made where necessary. For instance, a Christmas-related discount should run at specific and different times from an Easter-specific package.

9. Maintenance and Follow-ups 

As you start to use the software, it could be such an arduous task, but as structures are set and put in place, it becomes a routine that is easily followed. Right after the launch of your customer loyalty programs, there will be requests, questions, complaints, and data submission. You must ensure that the software you work with is very detailed and organised and that there are self-help means such that customers can find answers to their questions quite easily without having to wait for customer service agents round the clock. Also, let it be easy for customers to see their details and track their progress too. There should be an automatic update of points when customers follow the instructions per time.

10. Loyalty Rewards Combination Rules

For your loyalty reward program, there might be a need to set clear rules on what is allowed or prohibited. For instance, a customer can get rewards or participate in a referral reward program, as well as getting cashback on goods or services bought. To ensure the program is run effectively and does not incur a loss for your brand, you should define what reward systems can be combined per time, and what cannot be combined at the same time. For instance, you can allow participation in a referral program, and also allow them to participate in the cashback wins on goods bought, but disallow the use of both wins to buy a product. So if a customer gets a 50% discount on a product for referring a customer and 5000 naira for spending 50,000 naira on products, they shouldn’t be combined to get one product, rather they should be won or redeemed separately. Your software should be able to afford such combinations and packages. It shouldn’t be streamlined to just one participation per time.

11. Loyalty Program Tiers

There are various types of customer loyalty program packages. Your software must be able to design or create various types without being limited to one. It should also be able to design levels, just as in a game, this feature makes it interesting and captivating for your customers. Basically, your software should be able to design packages such as the points system, multiple rewards system, cashback, tiers and VIP packages. The tier can be demarcated into levels based on the rewards worth, the time-bound to each tier and the rewards redeemable in each tier.

12. Software Safety and Security Measures

One important factor that must be looked out for is the safety measures that will be put in place. It is important that your customer loyalty program is safe, this is why you must be sure that the customer loyalty company or software in use provides tight security measures as well as an anti-fraud strategy to protect against program hacking. Ensure that the points timing and expiration are well monitored, insert 2-step verification, strong passwords and strategies that will prevent loss of customers’ accounts or loss of resources in your program as a whole, you don’t want to run a program where people can get access to rewards without actually working for it.

13. Multiple Testing and Analytics

A good customer loyalty program software should allow room for multiple testing, analysis, deductions and improvements made before the actual launch. You should be able to test your program in every way possible, view the results, possible errors and failures, get it corrected and rerun, up until everything is perfect. It is important to note that you should still be able to update and upgrade your program periodically after the launch, but for the initial launch, you have to be sure that all elements are functioning in the right order. With brand marketing and program launch, experimenting and test-running are of utmost importance and should be overseen by the program developer, marketers and software developers as well. You should also test the capacity of the program to entertain various numbers of users per time without being slow.

14. Take Legal Provisions into Consideration

This can be quite dicey, but seek the counsel of a legal practitioner in your choice of software. Clear, precise and well-detailed terms and conditions must be drawn, with emphasis on privacy for your customers and safety for every data collected on your program through the software. The timelines, data privacy, security measures and fees must be detailed thoughtfully. You don’t want to have problems down the line only to realise the agreement didn’t cover that part of the problem. For this, you need a good team of marketers, developers and software legal advisors to go through the details over and over again before approval.

15. Branding

Go with software that allows you to tweak colours, shapes and objects to fit your brand perspective. For instance, the colours, designs and details attached to Access bank office are the same as their apps and models, so also whatever design you come up with for your program should be in line with what you are known for.

A good customer loyalty program software basically sees to it that your customer loyalty program is launched and managed properly and that tracking is done seamlessly. The features mentioned and explained extensively in this article will be a safe guide for you as you make your software pick. Flexibility is key, as mentioned earlier, as you track and analyse results over time, there will be the need to change some things and you have to be sure you can get that done. An API-first build is more recommended.  

We do hope you have gained a deep insight into how to go about this, for further help you can partner with us to run your customer loyalty programs and packages for you smoothly and with no hassle.