Common loyalty mistakes

Almost every program that fails does so in one of seven ways, and all seven are visible from your Overview long before anyone complains. Here is what each looks like and where the fix is.

Seven mistakes and their fixes

1. The reward is too far away

What it looks like: Members climbing, Redemptions near zero, and Outstanding liability rising every week. Your customers did the sum once, decided the reward was theoretical, and stopped thinking about it.

The fix: add a cheaper first rung rather than discounting the big reward. A reward is only a title and a cost, so this is a small change: pick one a regular reaches in five to ten visits. Setting earn and redeem rates has the arithmetic, and editing a live program covers changing one that is already running.

2. The rate is so generous it hurts

What it looks like: every second transaction ends in a redemption and your margin on regulars has quietly disappeared. This is almost always a rate chosen by feel. "10 points per 1.00 spent, free coffee at 100 points" sounds modest, but it is 10.00 of spend for a 3.00 coffee — a 30% give-back.

The fix: work out the real percentage before you defend it. Two to five per cent is the usual band. A reward's cost can be raised from here on, and the ledger means nobody loses what they have already earned, but read mistake 6 before you change anything.

3. Rewarding what customers would do anyway

What it looks like: the same people, the same visits, now with a discount attached. Your most loyal customers were never the ones at risk, and you have just cut your price for them.

The fix: make the reward something extra rather than money off the thing they always buy. An add-on, a size up, something they have never tried. And set the cost so that reaching it takes an extra visit or two, not just the passage of time.

4. Launching without telling your staff

What it looks like: a customer asks about points and gets a blank look. Nothing gets awarded for a fortnight. Pending redemptions sit unconfirmed on the Customers page while people wait at the counter.

The fix: ten minutes with the team before you launch, and one sentence everybody says the same way. Give whoever works the counter their own access — team members have a scanner preset that can confirm redemptions without the owner's full reach. There is no invite screen yet, so ask us and we will add them. See team members and roles and training your staff.

5. Running too many programs

What it looks like: three programs, members split across all of them, and nobody at the counter able to say what the offer is in one sentence.

The fix: one program with several Rewards beats three programs almost every time. Add a second only when the rules genuinely differ. If what you actually have is several sites or several businesses, group them instead — multiple locations and groups.

6. Changing the rules without warning

What it looks like: someone sitting on 90 points discovers the reward now costs 150, and tells everyone in the queue about it.

The fix: balances are safe — nothing already earned is deleted, because every point is a permanent line in a ledger. It is the target moving that feels like a betrayal. Add the new reward alongside the old one and retire the old one after a notice period. VivaPoints does not send email or messages for you, so give the notice where you already talk to customers: a card by the till, your social account, a line on the receipt. Editing a live program covers what is safe to change.

7. No reason to come back a second time

What it looks like: Members healthy, Active (30d) flat. People join on their first visit because you asked nicely, and then nothing pulls them back.

The fix: a first rung reachable in two or three visits, even a very small one. Its job is to be reached. For the people who have already drifted, winning back lapsed customers is the next read.

What to check every month

Open Overview and read three pairs. Members against Active (30d): a widening gap means mistake 1 or 7. Redemptions against Outstanding liability: liability climbing with flat redemptions means the same thing from the other side. And Members by tier, if you run tiers, tells you whether the top tier is decoration or a destination.

If all three look healthy, leave the program alone. The most common eighth mistake is fiddling with a program that was already working.