6 Customer Loyalty Programs that You'd Absolutely Love!

What do you say when someone asks you what loyalty is and to whom you would be loyal? You would say that you are loyal to your family, friends, and your company, and that loyalty is the act of being faithful or showing your allegiance to a person or an institution.

What is Customer Loyalty?

Customer loyalty is nothing but customers’ willingness to consume a brand again and again as a result of the positive experience, satisfaction, and value associated with its products or services. For instance, if you are a foodie who wants to explore different cuisines, and you found Zomato to be the best, owing to its services and huge network of restaurants, you would go for Zomato and order food from it every time. In this case, you become a loyal customer of Zomato. These brands also put in place customer loyalty programs to make sure that they retain you.

Why Do Stores Run Customer Loyalty Programs?

You live in a world that offers a lot of options for anything you need to purchase. And if you buy products from the same brand again and again, they infer your loyalty from your shopping behavior and try to retain you by offering rewards. "Customer retention is the key to success" is the mantra for these brands, and hence they run customer loyalty programs in retail.

How Do Customers Benefit?

Have you ever been asked by a billing agent if you wanted to redeem your points on a retail store? You get to hear this mostly from apparel stores such as Pantaloons, Trends, Max, etc. These are the points that you have earned by purchasing at the same store repeatedly. These points can be redeemed as money, and hence you get your apparel at a discounted price. This sounds great, right? This is one example of the benefits you get from a loyalty program. Apart from these rewards, you can also avail a wide range of benefits. Let us discuss some of the types of loyalty programs that could benefit you the most.

Some Popular Loyalty Programs in India

Zomato Gold

Food is love. With increasing demand for restaurants these days, many apps have been offering amazing deals. Zomato provides a great example for successful loyalty programs, as it tries to retain its customers using Zomato Gold. It offers 1+1 on food orders and 2+2 on drinks at all partner restaurants across India, with a list of 4750+ top-rated restaurants. It has three packages - starter pack, medium pack, and unlimited pack, which come at very nominal charges.

Payback

Payback is one of the largest multi-brand loyalty programs. It makes every shopping experience a gratifying one, and hence, is one of the best platforms for customers. Customers can earn points across online and offline partners, and can redeem these points for free shopping or a reward.

Payback equips customers with the best online shopping deals and the opportunity to earn payback reward points on each purchase. Here, you can shop, earn, and redeem. Payback reward points can be earned on shopping of any kind, like filling fuel, buying apparel, or shopping for your favorite brands at over 30 shopping sites. Millions of customers enjoy the benefits that come with the payback app. The best deals are offered to its members, along with additional discount schemes. These deals can be in fashion, accessories, mobile phones, electronics, home appliances, recharge offers, or travel offers.

McDonald’s Breakfast Club

McDonald’s offers the best breakfast offers for its customers as a loyalty program. All you need to do is place an order of Rs. 100 during breakfast hours and get your card stamped on every visit to avail exciting offers such as:

• Free hash brown on your second visit.

• Free veg muffins/egg & cheese muffins on your third visit.

• Free hot cakes on your fourth visit.

• Fresh brew coffee/tea on the fifth visit.

• Veg supreme/ chicken sausage mc muffin with egg for free on the sixth visit.

Amazon Prime

Amazon has been successful in identifying its customers’ needs and launching the perfect loyalty program. As it is very keen on drawing the attention of customers as well as retaining them, Amazon has distinguished itself from other similar websites by introducing Prime. There are a lot of benefits to Prime membership apart from free shipping, such as:

• Free one-day and two-day delivery to eligible addresses

• Free scheduled delivery to eligible addresses

• Discounted delivery at Rs. 50

• No minimum order value for standard delivery

• Early access to Lightning Deals

• Lightning Deals and Deals of the Day

• Unlimited video streaming on Prime Video

• Unlimited, ad-free access to Prime Music

• Access to Amazon Kindle

Amazon rewards prime customers with all these benefits at once, making it one of the best customer loyalty programs.

Starbucks Rewards

Carrying all your membership cards can be a real bother at times. In this regard, Starbucks stole the hearts of its customers by introducing its own mobile application. Running the program through its app makes it easy for customers — no card to forget or lose, no sign-in required. Here’s how Starbucks Rewards work: You can earn rewards as stars, earning one star on a purchase of Rs. 300, when you order from the Starbucks app. This also creates a goldmine of data of your preferences, making it a great customer loyalty program example.

Swiggy Super

If you're loyal to Swiggy, you needn't pay some extra bucks to get some punchies for those hunger pangs during the wee hours of night. Swiggy, the popular food delivery platform, offers an excellently planned-out customer loyalty program that not only gives you food at heavily discounted rates but also minimizes the delivey charge. Their subscription schemes are flexible in terms of duration and come at a nominal price. Whether you live in the metro cities or a lesser known town - a Swiggy Super membership can help you save loads on food.

To Sum Up

These programs have gained a lot of significance by benefiting customers in all possible ways. Try checking out the rewards that you have, as you could avail a lot of benefits and save a handful of your hard-earned money.