Make the earn-and-reward loop obvious in a thirty-second visit.
Sector
Café loyalty programmes
Café loyalty built around habit, not another stamp for the sake of it.
Programme design for cafés and coffee shops where frequency is high, the visit is short and the next cup has to feel worth coming back for.
Protect quieter hours and midweek trade without training customers to wait for a cheaper cup.
Keep the mechanic simple enough for counter staff to explain without slowing the queue.
Frequency is the business
Guests often decide in a few seconds. A loyalty scheme that needs explaining at the till will lose to whatever is already in the cup.
When stamps still work
Stamp cards work when the reward is close and the visit is habitual. They fail when the card is forgotten, the threshold is too far away, or every offer looks like a discount on a drink the regular would have bought anyway.
Timing over markdowns
Choose a model the operation can run at pace, then use timing — almost there, come back soon, quieter hours — to influence the next visit rather than the next markdown.
How we help this sector