Managing Digital Loyalty Programmes in Cyprus June 2023

Loyalty programmes have long been established in Cyprus, to the extent that Cypriot consumers are already familiar with them, and potentially saturated by them. Major Cypriot organisations in retail, HORECA, travel and other sectors all have loyalty programmes.

These tend to work using three main technologies at physical checkout, which is also known as the Point of Sale (POS):

1.  A card-and-chip system: This is an intelligent card that can be swiped upon checkout and automatically tallies the purchase to the customer loyalty account. This is the most sophisticated and convenient system, but is also expensive to operate and maintain.

2.  A simple card system (a number): This system essentially uses a number to correlate the loyalty points to the customer account. When you buy a coffee at Costa Coffee, and the barrista at checkout asks for your phone number, this is to assign the points from your transaction to your account.

3.  An application, usually with a scanning system: In order to bypass the costs of cards, many companies now use apps. Most apps can scan an expenditure receipt. Once you do that, the points from the transaction enter your account.

In a Digital Loyalty System, consumers have access to their loyalty accounts online, usually both on a website and on an app. This enables consumers to check past purchases and check how many points or incentives they have earned. This is significantly easier for Cypriot vendors to manage. 

The “Managing Digital Loyalty Programmes” training will train Cypriot managers on how to effectively structure and manage customer loyalty programmes that lead to improved sales results. This seminar will focus on both the strategy and the technology of managing a loyalty programme. 

Strategic issues include developing proper loyalty incentives that serve multiple purposes, such as increased spending; spending in specific areas or times; regeneration of lost accounts and more. 

Technological issues include improving existing programmes, or using a range of best-in-class applications to develop a new loyalty programme using simple online tools. 

Once Cypriot managers implement the tools and strategies covered, they should see a rapid change in consumer purchase behaviour, leading to enhanced profitability and productivity. No technical background is needed for this seminar.

 Training Agenda Day 1 

08:30 – 08:45  Registration

08:45 – 10:00  Understanding Digital Loyalty Programmes 

This module introduces the concept of digital loyalty programmes in terms of technology, deployment, and results.

·  Core concept of digital loyalty programmes

·  How technology has changed over time

·  Review of successful programmes

First Workshop: Vision for Digital Loyalty

Each company will brainstorm to see how they would like to position themselves and their digital loyalty programme.

10:00 – 10:45  Part 1: Strategic Analysis 

This module introduces the concept of strategic analysis as a precursor for developing digital loyalty programmes. The concepts that will be covered include:

·  Corporate profitability models: How is profit generated?

·  Corporate sales models: Physical versus online Points of Sale

·  Competitors and differentiation

·  Customer Behaviour: B2B, B2C, B2B2C, P2P, etc.

·  Post-COVID and Inflationary Impacts on Sales and Profitability

10:45 – 11:00  Morning Coffee Break

11:00 – 13:00  Part 2: Customer Experience 

This module looks at customer experience and customer motivation. It introduces quantitative and qualitative methods of assessing customer behaviour, and will cover B2B customers and B2C consumers.

·  Customer Psychology and Consumer Behaviour

·  Sales Analysis Methods

·  Offline Customer Experience

·  Online Customer Experience

·  Integrating Digital Loyalty Measurement into Customer Experience

·  Key Types of Loyalty Campaigns: Account Regeneration; Account Reward; Differentiation; Sales Steering; Store Visits; Purchase Incentives; Purchase Frequency.

Second Workshop: Developing Digital Loyalty Strategies

Each company will be asked to prioritise which of the key types of loyalty campaigns it will implement in the next 2 months. This in turn informs the work during the company visit.

13:00 – 14:00  Lunch Break

14:00 – 17:15  Part 3: Incentive Design 

This module looks at what kinds of incentives are truly useful. It also introduces methods of measuring the perceived versus cash cost of different incentive types.

·  Review of different categories of incentives

·  Examples of each category

·  Calculating the cash and non-cash costs of incentives

·  Profit / loss analysis of each category

·  Black-out periods and other qualifiers

·  Campaign budgeting for incentives

·  Return on investment (ROI) of incentives

·  Customer purchase behaviour and likely incentive response

·  Staffing, fulfilment and delivery requirements for each incentive

The afternoon coffee break will be held from during this session.

15:45 – 16:00  Afternoon Coffee Break

Third Workshop: Incentive Selection and Design.

Each company will revise their vision for incentives in light of the specific budgeting and campaign methodology introduced. Each company will be asked to select 1-2 incentives for each campaign type:

·  Account regeneration

·  Rewarding top clients

·  New product launches

·  Stock movement

·  Increasing store visits, frequency and average order value (AOV)

·  Increasing website visits, frequency and average order value (AOV)

  Training Agenda Day 2  08:45 – 13:00 Part 4: Technology Selection & Implementation 

This module will focus on the different categories of loyalty programmes in terms of technology. It will take time to demonstrate specific online tools that are available and have been pre-selected by the trainer for their applicability to Cyprus.

·  The four types of loyalty programme technologies: chip-and-card; card-only; app with scanner; third-party app.

·  Review of different loyalty technologies in each category. 

The following tools will be reviewed (these are a range of different technologies):

o  Prodata Chip-and-Card System

o  Prodata Card System

o  Liquid Barcodes (2-3 options)

o  Yotpo

o  Smile

o  Reperks

o  Marsello

o  Glue Loyalty

Each review will include functionality, cost structure, pros, cons and a case study of an actual company implementing the system. 

A morning coffee break will be held during this module.

10:45 – 11:00 Morning Coffee Break

Fourth Workshop: Budgeting and Scoping

In this workshop, the participants will be asked to brainstorm what kind of budget they have available for a loyalty app, and what this budget needs to cover: technology, external support for set-up, licensing fees, in-company expenditure, etc.

13:00 – 14:00  Lunch Break

14:00 – 15:45  Running Loyalty Campaigns 

This module will present a methodology for running loyalty campaign. It will take a structured approach, including:

·  Internal preparation and announcement to staff; staff training;

·  Customer preparations and communications;

·  Assuring stock and fulfilment capability;

·  Marketing and communications campaigns;

·  Campaign management;

·  In-store, online; communications reactions and outreach;

·  Scheduling and timing;

·  Campaign risks and risk mitigation;

Fifth Workshop: Campaign Methodology

A campaign methodology worksheet will be distributed to each enterprise for reference. This will provide a detailed checklist of everything that needs to be done in preparing and implementing a loyalty campaign.

15:45 – 16:00  Coffee Break

16:00 – 17:15  Evaluation and Monitoring 

This module will close the training with an in-depth look at ROI evaluation and monitoring of each loyalty campaign as well as the programme as a whole.

·  Measuring ROI on a campaign basis

·  Measuring ROI on a portfolio and enterprise basis

·  Tangible and intangible results

·  Next steps and future initiatives

Sixth Workshop: Campaign Planning

The last, brief workshop will ask enterprises to make a preliminary selection of what loyalty campaigns can be offered, setting the scene for the in-company visit.

 17:15 – 17:30   Conclusions & Closing 

The seminar will close with concluding remarks. A communications plan with each company will be defined to follow-up between the seminar and the company visit.