How Long Does it Take to Implement a Gift and Loyalty Program?

When it comes to creating a personalized experience for your customers, a gift and loyalty program is a key aspect of that process. By being able to monitor your customers' purchase behaviours, you are able to tailor promotions and product offerings based on their individual habits.

Implementing a gift and loyalty program will engage your customers, encourage more frequent visits, increase spending amount, and create brand advocates. 

In our previous blogs, we covered when loyalty is right for you and the 5 benefits of a loyalty program post pandemic. Now that you’re excited and ready to start your own gift and loyalty program, we want to set your expectations over the process of implementing it with Paystone!

As an operator of a small to medium sized business, your time is precious. Launching a gift and loyalty program can seem like a daunting task. Some companies can take up to a month to implement a gift and loyalty program for small to medium sized businesses. With Paystone? As little as 10 days!

In this blog we will go over the steps involved as well as a timeline when launching a gift and loyalty program with Paystone. 

What to consider before starting the process?

When you sign up for a gift and loyalty solution with us, one of our representatives will have some questions for you to set up the right features for your specific program. 

When you’re onboarding for a gift and loyalty program at Paystone, some questions you can expect include:

• Do you want a points program or a punch card program?
• Do you want automated text messaging?
• Will you run this program from your terminal or your POS?
• Do you currently have an existing gift card or loyalty program? 

Thinking about these questions before talking to a representative enables you to figure out what will work best for your business. Our representatives will walk you through any of these if you have any questions or uncertainties! Once you’ve answered, provide your contact information and payment method and, boom, it’s that simple!

*If you choose to go with one of our payment processing solutions in addition to the gift and loyalty program, simply fill out a merchant application form. For a walk-through of this form, refer to this blog!

What to expect after you sign up

So you’ve just gotten off the phone with one of our representatives and you’re all excited about your new gift and loyalty program. Now what?

About 30 minutes after your onboarding call, you will receive an email welcoming you to Paystone. In this email, there will be a link with some instructions on where to design and customize your gift and loyalty cards.

Once you’ve customized your cards and submitted the design, a followup email will confirm your order. This email will also contain a branding form to submit your logos and brand colours into your customer portal. 

In this portal, you can track all of your statistics from your gift and loyalty members. This is also where you can set up automated text messages to your loyalty members and the yield or frequency of your rewards. 

If you choose not to submit anything, we provide a standard design for your portal. You can complete all of these steps the same day that you receive your welcome email. 

Within two days of signing up with us, you will receive an email that explains what to do once you receive your cards. This will contain instructions on how to set up the program on whatever device you chose to use it on (Terminal or POS).

The final email you receive will inform you that your cards have been shipped and are on their way! When you receive this email depends on when you order your cards and how many orders we are processing at that given time.

Assuming you order your cards the day you sign up, they should arrive in about 8 - 10 days. This email will also include a best practice guide to help you make the most of your gift and loyalty program. 

What to do after you receive your cards?

Now that you’ve successfully implemented your gift and loyalty program, it’s time to let your customers know about it! There are many great ways to do so. 

First, it’s important to train your employees on how to use the program properly. They should ask customers every time they check out if they want to sign up for your loyalty rewards. 

Another important step is to advertise the program across your business. Whether you let your customers know about your new gift and loyalty program on social media or you advertise it around your store/restaurant, let your customers know that you offer this program! 

Finally, encourage your customers to sign up! Reward them with coupons/discounts, extra loyalty points on their next visit, or by simply telling them about all the benefits of your program. 

We know many clients are eager to get their program up and running once they’ve learned about all the benefits. That’s why we wanted to make our implementation process easy and straightforward. 

If you want a fast implementation, you can do all of the steps on your end in one day! After you order your cards, just prep your staff and inform your customers about the new program while the cards are being shipped to you. 

We hope this blog has been helpful in terms of what to expect after signing up for our gift and loyalty solution!

If you want to get started today, head over to our website and sign up for our gift and loyalty solution here.