How to Create a Great Customer Loyalty Program

"I'm going to the dentist today." Such a sentence, in today's society, is invariably met with sounds of sympathy and perhaps even a few groans. This, coupled with the pervading social attitude of "toughing it out" can make it hard to find customers for your healthcare clinic, and even harder to retain them. However, with this one simple trick, you can guarantee an improvement in customer retention and loyalty:

1. Customers like Loyalty Programs as long as they are simple and they feel that their program has already started:

Using a technique known as "Artificial Advancement", researchers were able to almost double the results of loyalty reward programs. In the Endowed Progress Effect, Nune and Dreze implemented two rewards systems consisting of car wash stamp cards. In the first system, customers received a card and a stamp upon each car wash and after 8 stamps, they got a free car wash. In the second system, customers received a card which required 10 stamps for a car wash, but with 2 free stamps added automatically. Although realistically, both cards required 8 stamps for a free car wash, the participation rate for the 8-stamp card was 19%, whereas the participation rate for the 10-stamp card was 34%.

People's brains tend to have some anxiety associated with beginning something, whether that be a new workplace, a purchase decision or customer loyalty programs. However, if you frame the program so that people feel it's already been started, they will feel that they have already taken the first steps and will be more likely to participate. Using artificial advancement tips can really help you improve your customer loyalty program!