Multiple locations and business groups

Start with the honest part: there is no "location" in VivaPoints. You will not find a screen for adding a second shop to a business. What exists instead are two shapes, and between them they cover almost everything people mean when they say "we have more than one site".

1. One business, running one or more programs. A program belongs to the business, not to a building, so it already covers every counter you own.
2. Several businesses grouped into an organization, which can issue one business passport that a customer carries across all of them.

Which one you want is decided by ownership and branding, not by how many front doors you have.

One brand, several sites: one business, one program

If the sites share a name, a till system and an owner, they are one business as far as loyalty is concerned. Build one program and use it everywhere.

Bean & Bell has three shops: Market Street, the station and the university. It runs a single program at 10 points per 1 spent, with a free filter coffee at 400 points. A customer buys a 12.00 lunch at the station on Monday, earning 120 points, and claims the free coffee on Market Street on Friday. Nothing special had to be configured for that to work. The balance lives with the customer's membership of the program, and the program belongs to the business.

This is also the shape your customers want. One card, one balance, one number to watch. Splitting a single brand into three programs gives a regular three cards and three balances that are each too small to be worth chasing.

When a second program earns its place

A second program is worth it when the rules need to differ, not when the address does.

• A café that also runs a roastery subscription: different customers, different rhythm, different rewards.
• A salon that wants a separate program for its training courses.
• A seasonal program running alongside the year-round one.

Remember that each program a customer joins is a separate card with its own balance, and that how many programs you can run is one of the limits attached to your plan. Two well-used programs beat five neglected ones. Setting up your first program walks through the builder.

Separate brands or separate owners: an organization

Now the other shape. When the businesses are genuinely separate — different names, different owners, different tills — they should stay separate businesses, each with its own programs and its own Customers page. What ties them together is an organization.

An organization is a group of businesses. The classic cases:

• A food hall or market where each unit is independently owned.
• A high street association or a town centre scheme.
• A franchise where each franchisee owns their own books.
• A hotel group whose restaurant, spa and bar are run as different businesses.

The business passport

An organization can issue a business passport: one card that a customer collects stamps into across every business in the group. Visit the bakery, get a stamp. Visit the record shop, get another. The passport is the thing that makes a group of independent businesses feel like one place worth spending a Saturday in, without any of them giving up their own program.

A market with twelve traders might issue a passport where six stamps from six different traders earns something the group funds together. Each trader still runs whatever loyalty they like on their own counter; the passport sits above it.

Organizations also support shared experiences across their businesses — things the group puts on together rather than anything one member could offer alone.

What is true today

Two practical consequences. Each business keeps its own Customers page, so grouping does not merge two customer lists into one — see understanding your customer list. And because organizations are managed by us, the thing you can change on your own remains the programs inside your own business.

If you already have a live program and are about to restructure it, read editing a live program before you change anything. If a passport is what you are after, get in touch and bring the list of businesses you want in the group.