Ecommerce Summer School: Loyalty Programs a WASTE? Not if You Do THIS! — Hemant Purswani | Why Loyalty Programs Matter Now, How to Promote Your Loyalty Program, Dynamic Points Redemption: A Game-changer, VIP Tiers: Boosting Customer Engagement (#325)

In this episode, we discuss customer retention strategies that are revolutionizing the loyalty and rewards space. Our guest on the show is Hemant Purswani, Co-founder, and CTO at appstle.com.

Topics discussed in this episode: 

• Why loyalty programs are crucial for customer retention in times of economic uncertainty
• How integrating loyalty with subscription and membership programs creates a seamless customer experience
• Why dynamic point redemption is a game-changer for loyalty programs, allowing customers to use points more flexibly
• How loyalty programs can be effectively used across various industries, from cosmetics to hardware tools
• What strategies merchants can use to promote their loyalty programs, including email campaigns and social media sharing
  
  

Links & Resources

Website: https://appstle.com/
Shopify App Store: https://apps.shopify.com/partners/appstle
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/appstle/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/appstleinc

Get access to more free resources by visiting the show notes at
https://t.ly/Wqans

SPONSORS:

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Transcript

Claus Lauter: Welcome to the e commerce coffee break podcast and our summer school. This week, it's all about loyalty. So let's dive right into it. A 

Voice over: top rated Shopify growth podcast dedicated to Shopify merchants and business owners looking to grow their online stores, learn how to survive in the fast changing e commerce world.

Voice over: With your host Claus Lauter and get marketing advice you can't find on Google. Welcome to the show. 

Claus Lauter: Hello and welcome to another episode of the e commerce coffee break podcast. Today we want to talk about customer retention strategies, specifically about loyalty programs. Now we have Spoken about membership, subscriptions, all of this, these are all parts of retention strategies.

Claus Lauter: Loyalty is a different level, and we want to dive a little bit more into that. On me, with me on the show today, I have Hemant Purswani. He has been before on the show, and he's the co founder and CTO of appstle.Com. He's a coder by heart. Sold and mined, and he is driven by the need to provide the most robust and long term viable tech solutions to merchants so that they can focus on what really matters most growing their business.

Claus Lauter: So let's welcome him to the show. Hi, how are you today? 

Hemant Purswani: Good. 

Claus Lauter: Thanks for having me. I'm very well. Hemant, last time we talked about, talked about memberships and subscriptions. This time we want to dive a little bit more in loyalty programs. Now loyalty, specifically in times like this where the recession is kicking in and people are a bit more frugal when it comes to where they spend the money, loyalty is very important.

Claus Lauter: Tell me a little bit more on your approach when it comes to keeping someone within your business and bringing them back. Transcribed 

Hemant Purswani: Yeah, sure. So, uh, one of the reasons like, uh, we launched loyalty is because we heard from our subscription and membership merchants, like, you know, this is something they would want from apps.

Hemant Purswani: The reason being, uh, we, it integrates really well with our other two apps. And what I mean by that is ultimately acquisition costs is going, you know, it's going up and up. And, uh, what merchants want is a way to retain merchant, retain customers and a way for them, uh, Merchant should be able to incentivize their customers in one way or the other.

Hemant Purswani: And loyalty is just a step in that direction because, uh, you know, you are rewarded, uh, for making a purchase. You are rewarded for sharing your purchase on, um, social media, like Facebook, Twitter, you are rewarded for referring someone else. Uh, you are even rewarded if you exceed certain threshold, just like how airline industry is, where you become gold platinum member and also we support all that.

Hemant Purswani: So the idea is to basically help merchants to retain their customers and do it in a way which works, uh, no loyalty in itself. Standalone, uh, works great, but it works even better with a subscription and membership because If someone has a subscription with you, now those points would be automatically applied to those subscriptions and, you know, automatically discount would be given, or when someone buys a subscription, they would be rewarded points automatically.

Hemant Purswani: So it just, um, the, the entire, it gets super seamless. all three apps work together. Similarly with membership, ultimately membership is all about perks. And you want to, you know, with loyalty, we show all those perks in the loyalty widget. So it just adds up. And, um, yeah, that was the reason, uh, we sort of started this app and that's the whole motive of it.

Claus Lauter: You already said at absolute. com with the membership app that you have, you can basically reward people by giving them points and then becomes then part of the loyalty program. Now, loyalty can be a little bit of bribing, it can be a bit of motivation, it can be of everything. Obviously, there's a sort of a letter in there.

Claus Lauter: So where you go step by step and give them more, what would be the right approach for a merchant to do the first step to offer a loyalty program? 

Hemant Purswani: So, uh, one of the feature in our loyalty app is VIP tiers, where you can create multiple tiers, uh, that, Hey, if you reach up to, you know, uh, up to a thousand points, you're going to be just a bronze member.

Hemant Purswani: After that, from 1000 to 5000 points, you would be silver member and from, uh, 000, you would be gold member and based on those points, you know, you can decide or discounts that you want to offer, uh, or the number of points, maybe if you are a gold member and, uh, you know, you would be basically given a different set of bugs and even when you're, you know, Rewarded points, you will be rewarded a lot more points than let's say a silver member, which is how, uh, you know, hotel or airline industry works.

Hemant Purswani: So that is one of, uh, the way, uh, I'm seeing merchants using it. Other is, which is kind of unique to app. So as of now, I don't know if there is any other app, which has a referral program as robust as ours. Uh, we also have a referral in as part of loyalty. And, uh, uh, what that allows you to do is like, You can refer someone else and you can get points.

Hemant Purswani: And by the way, this feature is provided by most of the apps where apps and differentiates itself is that on what action you actually want to reward points. Do you want to reward points just when someone visits the store or do you want to reward points when someone may actually makes a purchase? Or maybe makes a purchase of a specific product.

Hemant Purswani: So, you know, there are the nuances and do you want a reward, but let's say if someone, um, you refer me and I end up buying a subscription product. So you should, should you be getting points every single time when I, you know, when my subscription is renewed or just one time we allow all that. So there is that, um, granularity that we have provided, which to my knowledge, no, no other, uh, program is currently providing.

Hemant Purswani: Yeah. And that's super useful for merchants. Yeah. 

Claus Lauter: Okay. Now with a loyalty program, um, obviously you need to create some clarity there on what people get for their loyalty points and sort of self management so that you can log in and figure out how many, how does that work? What's the best way to deal with that?

Hemant Purswani: Yeah. So by default, uh, you know, our app supports both, uh, loyalty widget, you know, when someone is logged in, they would see their points on the loyalty widget. Uh, they can reading points while loyalty widgets, plus we also have a dedicated page and it has a URL. Yeah. If you would like, you can. Yeah.

Hemant Purswani: redirect your user to that specific page. Again, it has everything. It would show you the activity rules that you set up. For example, certain merchants may not want to reward points for social media, which I was, uh, alluding earlier. Uh, maybe they just want to give points for make a purchase. So you decide your rules, uh, in the merchant portal and those rules then are reflected on the page.

Hemant Purswani: Uh, and, uh, you know, whatever rewards are. Currently available to the customer. They can redeem it. And again, one of the feature that we have released, which is rare. I won't say it's not available anywhere, but which is as we call it dynamic, redeeming dynamic points, redeeming. Most loyalty programs would allow you to redeem points only when you reach 50 points only when you reach 100 points, which is great.

Hemant Purswani: And that's how we started. But if you want to use your loyalty program for store credit as well, and the difference between store credit and loyalty is very minor. The only difference is that. Usually merchants give store credit when someone is returning something and you give points as, you know, store credits.

Hemant Purswani: And those need to be dynamic. Like you, even if you award someone 27 points, you want them to redeem that. You don't want them to wait until they reach 50 points. And so that's also something. three or four weeks back we released. Uh, so that's another, uh, but yeah, all this information is available via widget as well as via page.

Hemant Purswani: It's up to merchants, some merchants like preferred page over budget. Uh, we support. 

Claus Lauter: Okay. I like the, the example that you just gave, um, that you have a store credit and then you can basically use your points immediately when you check out and you're done. Um, I, I had an example that I had a few weeks ago, um, with some, you know, Rewards program where I even didn't know I have so many points and basically the purchase didn't buy anything.

Claus Lauter: Now I was a very happy customer at that point. So when it comes to reward points, it does not work for every business. Probably. Um, are there specific businesses where reward points, loyalty programs work better than others? 

Hemant Purswani: Usually, you know, It's an incentivization technique, and I'm seeing it being used a lot on cosmetics, like merchants who are selling some sort of cosmetics.

Hemant Purswani: I'm seeing it a lot over there. But having said that, I'm also seeing, I mean, as surprising as it can be, I've even seen merchants who are in hardware tools, just selling hardware tools, and they are also using loyalty. So to me, it's an incentivization technique. And, you know, as the saying goes, uh, whatever you incentivize, it grows.

Hemant Purswani: So the whole idea is that you, one way or the other, you want to incentivize, uh, your customer, um, uh, you know, like incentivize customers to come back to your store. And loyalty is a great way. One more thing I would want to say that, uh, apart from widget and page, the fact that if you also have install app subscription, you would also see all your loyalty points, details, everything on, uh, your customer portal page.

Hemant Purswani: So, you know, while you are managing subscription, you would also see that, Hey, I have these many points and you can decide if those should be used to redeem for your next subscription renewal. Or maybe you don't want to use it for subscription renewal. You want to use it for some one time purchase product.

Hemant Purswani: So all that is available too. And yeah, that's the whole benefit of it. 

Claus Lauter: Hey, Claus here. Just a quick one. If you like the content of this episode, sign up for our free newsletter and become a smarter Shopify merchant in just seven minutes per week. We curate content from more than 50 sources, saving you hours of research and helping you stay on top of your e commerce game with the latest news insights and trends.

Claus Lauter: Every Thursday in your inbox, a hundred percent free. Join now at newsletter. ecommercecoffeebreak. com. That is newsletter. ecommercecoffeebreak. com. And now back to the show. With the loyalty program, obviously you need to market that and promote it to your customers. And I know that you have a lot of APIs to other apps.

Claus Lauter: How does that work? What's the best way? 

Hemant Purswani: So, uh, referral is really a great way because, uh, what, uh, merchants are doing is like, you know, they just activate the referral program and ask their existing customers to, Hey, if anyone is coming to you through a wire referral, you would get points. And, uh, that's actually one of the most popular program we have in loyalty.

Hemant Purswani: I'm seeing apart from, uh, you know, setting up activity rules for social media. So that's also something merchant do, uh, what they do is like, uh, they set up these activity rules that, Hey, if you would share, uh, uh, about our merchant store on, uh, on Facebook or Twitter, uh, you know, you would get points and, uh, you know, they can activate those rules and, uh, and ultimately, you know, uh, customer get points and as well as merchant store is promoted on these media on this platform.

Hemant Purswani: So these are the way, uh, apart from like, Thank you. Uh, if you're talking about how merchants are promoting their loyalty program, uh, there are many ways. One of the ways is email campaigns like, you know, they can run a blast email campaign to all, uh, their customer address list and say that, Hey, we have released a new loyalty program and all.

Hemant Purswani: And, uh, but yeah, these are the ways that I'm seeing, uh, merchants, uh, you know, utilizing, uh, this tool or this, uh, set of features. 

Claus Lauter: Okay. Do you have any kind of example or case study on, uh, successful merchants implementing a loyalty program? 

Hemant Purswani: Uh, we have quite a few, uh, who are using, uh, loyalty, but, uh, in terms of case study, uh, it hasn't got to that point yet, uh, where like, like subscription membership, you already have case studies.

Hemant Purswani: Uh, it's, it's been what two, three months. Uh, once it's basically reaches a point where we feel like, you know, it, there needs to be a case study, we'll create one, but as of now, there are no case studies. 

Claus Lauter: Is there any, any kind of, um, homework to do for emergent before they start implementing a loyalty program?

Hemant Purswani: No, actually, in fact, it's one of our, um, uh, easiest onboarding app. Uh, like, uh, you know, uh, this is something my personal experience that when you install subscription, Um, it has a lot more technicalities in terms of a, you need to set up your product on subscription, uh, and subscription has its own, uh, loyalty component, which, um, I'll, I'll discuss in a bit, but so it's slightly more, um, um, I guess intensive than loyalty because you install it.

Hemant Purswani: The very first thing you see is like set up activity rules and activity rules are essentially the way your customers would get points and there you go and then, you know, you have set up activity rules. The second thing you should do is like, okay, once they get points, how would they redeem it? So that's reward rules.

Hemant Purswani: You set those up. It's one of the easier app to, Okay. Install and this is my personal experience, because, uh, apart from, you know, developing and building, I also get into support calls and, you know, discuss with merchants, like, hey, what are the things they're liking? What are the things they're not liking?

Hemant Purswani: Most of the functionalities that we have implemented is based on the feedback, the fact that our referral that I was mentioning is, uh, probably at this point ahead of any other program is because of the feedback that we got, like, hey, can we have this sort of functionality on that? Uh, that sort of functionality.

Claus Lauter: Okay. How does it implement within your existing framework within your tech stack, within your theme, what's the technical implementation? 

Hemant Purswani: Yeah. So, uh, let me first go over like how it started. So in subscription, um, you know, we had a small loyalty component that would. allow you to, uh, um, you know, incentivize your customers to retain subscription.

Hemant Purswani: What, what I mean by that is in subscription as of now, as of today, you can set up something like, Hey, if you stay with us up to third cycle, you would get free shipping. Or if you stay up to us, stay up with us up to, State cycle, you would get 20% additional offs. Uh, if you stay, you know, up to 10 cycle, you will get a free product.

Hemant Purswani: So we already had that and, and we were also integrating with some of some of the other loyalty apps that are out there. And that was great. But more and more, uh, merchants for like, okay, can we, uh, you know, uh, can we have a point system too where mm-Hmm. . Uh, you know, they get points for, you know, staying with us.

Hemant Purswani: I'm like that earlier. We were like, we were trying to push that away. We were like, you know, there are already apps out there that are doing it. Uh, we are just going to offer these, uh, bugs, nothing else. And similarly from membership side, we were also realizing that people were asking more and more about that.

Hemant Purswani: Hey, you are offering membership bugs, but I need a, uh, you know, sort of a dedicated widget where merchant customers can go and check out, check out all the other bugs. And. You're like, yeah, that's also true. So, uh, that's how it started. Uh, in terms of tech stack, uh, a tech stack for all three apps, uh, is pretty, uh, you know, like, uh, the standard be, uh, like I'm an engineer myself.

Hemant Purswani: So we use AWS heavily and, uh, Uh, yeah, AWS and completely like microservice architecture and, uh, very scalable, uh, and that's why it has never been an issue, whether, but if you talk about subscription app, which has over 16, 000 merchants, actually 17, 000 merchants or, uh, loyalty app, which is like four, three, three months old app, uh, it just scales really smooth for us, but yeah, that was the reason we.

Hemant Purswani: We started and, uh, in fact, initially it was, it used to be part of subscription, but gradually we turned it out, turned it into, uh, a dedicated app. Yeah. 

Claus Lauter: Okay. So we're talking about the technical part about the onboarding. Give me an idea about the pricing. How does that work? 

Hemant Purswani: Uh, so yeah. Okay. So the great news for all merchants for creating this as of now, loyalty is a free app and the reason being.

Hemant Purswani: We want to, uh, like I said, most of the app features that we are building is based on the feedback. We want it to be the best app out there. I personally believe because, uh, I'm heavily involved. Uh, I think as of now, we are the best app out there in terms of features. You can't beat it. And, uh, And the idea is to, you know, uh, and the only way we can be like that is because if we keep, you know, listening to the feedback of our merchants and that's what we have done.

Hemant Purswani: So as of now, if anyone is listening to this, uh, all your merchants who are listening to this podcast, I would really, really. Encourage them to install our app. It's free and it's going to be free for them. Uh, even when we introduce pricing tier, it's going to be whatever features they already have, we would never charge them for that.

Hemant Purswani: Sure. If you build any new features, uh, and they are part, if they happen to be part of a pricing tier, they will have to pay for it. But I really encourage, and that's what I have encouraged, I've encouraged to all my, uh, subscription and membership merchants that, hey, this is a nice opportunity to, and we, we, uh, uh, without naming, like, we have merchants who are using really popular, popular apps, like, uh, the, the, the apps that you can consider the best in loyalty.

Hemant Purswani: Uh, you know, they have migrated to, uh, to our app and again, we have created a migration tool that makes it super easy to migrate from any loyalty app. And, uh, and yeah, this is a good time to install our app, check it out yourself. It's not going to cause any issues. Uh, and like, it's not, you just install it.

Hemant Purswani: It's just going to take you. Two minutes of your life and you would see the feature difference and, and absolute support is, uh, well renowned in terms of the reviews and also, yeah, this is a good time to install an app. Yeah. 

Claus Lauter: Definitely sounds like that because, um, for that price, you can't beat it. And if you're a grandfathered in for the future with the features, it's basically a no brainer, absolutely.

Claus Lauter: No brainer. We have been always very 

Hemant Purswani: transparent with our pricing. 

Claus Lauter: Before we come to the end of our coffee break today, is there a question that I should have asked you and that I didn't? Is there anything that you want to highlight? 

Hemant Purswani: Uh, probably, uh, um, probably what are the new things that we are doing with subscription membership or loyalty?

Hemant Purswani: This is something, so yesterday I had a discussion with a team of developers and we are releasing a new feature where some merchants want to, you know, take away points if they see inactivity, uh, by a customer. So let's say if you are a customer, you have thousand points, but you haven't made any purchase in last, uh, uh, you know, I don't know, two years, we would give you flexibility, what should be the inactivity rule.

Hemant Purswani: So at that point, we want to retire. Uh, so, uh, so that's something we are building on loyalty side. On a subscription site, uh, as of now, the idea is to, uh, like we feel it's super feature rich, but at this point we are more focused on integrating with as many apps as possible. So, uh, we are, uh, you know, doubling down on, uh, uh, bundling apps, uh, as well as build a box app.

Hemant Purswani: So that's something you would see, uh, and membership, uh, as of now, the whole idea is to make it more and more. I guess native to loyalty app. So like I said that we recently introduced this that membership bugs are not going to be available on loyalty. You would see something more along the lines. But yeah, these are the things we are working on.

Hemant Purswani: And, uh, hopefully, uh, we will, you know, loyalty would be just, uh, at par with subscription and membership. 

Claus Lauter: Yeah. I like the approach that you put all of these together because it's at the end of the day, it's customer retention and bringing them back to your store. And if you have that coming from one source, then that's, that's a great idea.

Claus Lauter: Cool. Where can people find out more about you guys? 

Hemant Purswani: Uh, so we have our website, appsell. com. That's one way. And over there, we also have a chat widget. One thing we take pride about is, um, that we are 24 seven available. We make it, make it a point that anytime you message us, we would message you back. So, uh, so please, please reach out to us by appsell.

Hemant Purswani: com. And from there, you can also check out our apps on app store, Shopify app store. Uh, that's, uh, uh, and then obviously we have our emails too. So, uh, support at appsell. com is one way to reach out to us. And if you happen to have installed our app, then I mean, over there also, you would see our chat with it.

Hemant Purswani: Uh, support is, uh, one of our, uh, you know, uh, I think strong pillars and we would continue to keep it like that always. Okay. 

Claus Lauter: I would, I would put the links in the show notes as always, and you just one click away and, um, obviously with having your app right now for free, I would encourage our listeners to try it out.

Claus Lauter: Um, there's no risk there and I think it's a really good solution that's on the market there right now. Thanks so much for your time today. Thanks for having me. Hey, Claus here. Thank you for joining me on another episode of the e commerce Coffee Break podcast. Before you go, I'd like to ask two things from you.

Claus Lauter: First, please help me with the algorithm so I can bring more impactful guests on the show. It will make it also easier for others to discover the podcast. Simply like, comment and subscribe in the app you're using to listen to the podcast and even better if you could leave a rating. And finally, sign up for our free newsletter and become a Smarter Shopify merchant in just seven minutes per week.

Claus Lauter: We create content from more than 50 sources, saving you hours of research and helping you stay on top of your e commerce game with the latest news, insights, and trends. Every Thursday in your inbox, 100 percent free. Join now at newsletter. ecommercecoffeebreak. com. That is newsletter. ecommercecoffeebreak.

Claus Lauter: com. Thanks again, and I'll catch you in the next episode. Have a good one.