Why it's time to ditch the paper loyalty card

The paper loyalty card has one merit: it costs almost nothing to print. That’s about the only one, and it hides a bill far heavier than the hundred euros you pay the printer.

What it really costs you

One customer in two loses their card before filling it. They don’t tell you: they leave with a fresh card, start again from zero, and lose interest. You never see that giving-up, because a piece of card reports nothing.

• You don’t know how many customers come back
• You don’t know which ones have stopped coming
• You don’t know what your programme is worth

Paper can’t win anyone back

When a customer stops coming, a paper card can do nothing about it. It’s in a drawer at their place, and you have no way to remind them they were two stamps short.

We’d had a thousand cards printed. We had no idea whether it was working. All we knew was that we were ordering more.

What digital changes, in practice

It isn’t a question of being modern, it’s a question of information. A digital loyalty card tells you who comes back, how often, and who has disappeared. From there you can decide — and a decision based on something beats a hunch.

The rest follows: the card no longer gets lost, the customer no longer starts from zero, and you finally know what your loyalty programme costs you and what it brings in.