Customer Clubs

Any number of clubs can be created, with any number of customers belonging to any number of clubs. To set up a club see separate topic

General

As with most business things, 80% of the benefit of customer clubs comes from 20% of the possible range of clubs. Experience has shown that a small and well defined club is much more beneficial than several large clubs that can consume a lot of staff time.

Products that involve regular purchase work well, such as such as 'Contact lens', 'Sports nutrition', 'Vitamins'.

It is important that sales staff do not lose sight of the objective of clubs, which is to increase customer satisfaction and sales. The running of a club is not an end in itself.

Rewards

Clubs work by providing a credit with each purchase so that the customer returns to the same shop in order to add to their credit (and not lose the credit they have already earned.) The vulnerable time is when the reward is granted... if there is no credit remaining at this point the customer is free to move to another shop's customer club with no loss. Hence it is important to tell the customer that they are already on the way towards their next gift., "Here is your free lipstick. You already have .... Dollars towards your next gift !"

Discount/Gift psychology

As a reward, a free gift is more effective than a discount on future purchases. A discount may be equalled by someone else's 'special' but a credit towards a future gift cannot be. Even more effective than a gift at the time is to issue a voucher for a free gift with their next visit. This is the method used by the major chains (McDonalds "Free coke with next purchase") as it brings the customer in at least one more time to raise their accumulated credit to a level they will not wish to abandon.