The last time you heard “make it like a game and it will go faster,” it may have been mom trying to motivate you to do unpleasant housework.

Instead of dreading every second of scrubbing dishes or cleaning the commode, her advice was to consider ways to make the task challenging but fun, so it instantly becomes not boring at all.

Unfortunately, the “required domestic duties challenge” likely lacked any pay-off other than “you don’t have to do this again for awhile.”

However, Mom’s concept of making things fun can actually work well for online customer loyalty programs.

The idea is sound: find ways to reward dedicated customers for sticking around. It’s self-serving, certainly. Happy customers today can mean happy and loyal customers tomorrow, along with any friends they may have shared about their experience. The opposite is true as well – if your customers have never been fully satisfied or poorly engaged/entertained, it won’t take much for them to go elsewhere, regardless of your price or quality.

What better way to make a loyalty program fun and engaging than to make it a game, especially something that can be interacted with via mobile device? When trying to find or develop a loyalty program software, make sure it can be accessed anytime, anywhere.

If you’re considering ‘gaming’ your loyalty program, try these options.

1. Offer points. Start by letting customers accrue a certain number of points, based on how much they spend. They can be redeemed for certain prizes or combined with cash for purchases. Members of GameStop Power Rewards, for instance, receive points with every purchase which can be used for a variety of merchandise or to enter contests.
2. Go beyond points. The New York Times described how Capriotti’s created an app to track customer purchases with different prizes and levels, such as a free sandwich after the customer buys 10. But they also use what they call “surprise and delight” offers. Using a loyalty program software called Punchh, each registered customer has the possibility of occasionally receiving free extra products at the register. This relies on the same hopes of slot machine players – you never know when you’ll hit that jackpot.
3.  Make joining easy. The registration process should be simple, and any required legal stuff should be kept to a minimum. Too much complexity or too many personal questions could encourage people to back off. New members should also receive some kind of incentive to sign up, such as extra points or a small prize. Even though you want their personal data for marketing purposes, you can require just a simple “text here to join” and then have “fill out your profile later” be an extra way to earn more points.
4. Incorporate your loyalty game with your texting program. Your loyalty program software should keep track of customer points. So it shouldn’t be hard to notify users if they’re approaching a threshold or if there’s a good opportunity to redeem them. “You’re only one shopping trip away from getting a T-shirt or 40% off your order.”
5. Achievements. Video games like to commend players for certain actions throughout the game, rather than postponing all the glory for the end. It keeps players interested and aware of their progress, instead of giving up if something appears to be taking forever. It also encourages them to stretch to try for special bonus rewards. Customers can offer their own loyalty bonuses for completing a certain challenge but not an overly difficult task: restaurants can recognize if someone buys the same item for 10 visits. Or maybe a midnight madness/early bird sale, where you get a bigger discount or a free gift for checking in or shopping between 2-4 a.m.
6. Create levels. Besides letting points accrue, businesses can also offer different perks for “more loyal” customers. This isn’t a new concept, since airlines have been doing this with different classes. In the mobile world, you could consider creating different sections of your site for different membership levels. Or, create different SMS/emailing lists with different voices and offers for the different levels.
7. Offer quick deals. Create a sense of urgency with occasional super offers. Amazon does this well with daily deals with deeper discounts. If you use the right language, people will want to feel like winners for taking advantage of the offer, and losers if they don’t, but either way they’re still in the game.

Businesses have plenty to gain by making a loyalty program with game features. Not just providing basic rewards for customers to keep playing, but the opportunity for customers to spread the word that the program is creative and easy to join.

For information on how to easily integrate a mass text program with your loyalty program or other marketing efforts, visit Trumpia.com.

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