Rewards App Development: How We Merged Beer and Software

Acquiring new clients via ads costs more than keeping old and loyal ones coming back. To expand your reach, it’s high time to re-think your customer experience and invest in loyalty apps. It is a powerful tool not only for rewarding consumers. It is a great option for measuring essential data on your audience habits and preferences as well as stimulating desired behavior to increase sales.

In this article, OpenGeeksLab has prepared essential tips on why you should prioritize mobile loyalty apps development. We will guide you through all the nuances of loyalty solutions development so that it could boost your business. You will also read about our experience in the Perky Pints loyalty program app development for Canadian craft brewers and craft beer enthusiasts.

What a Loyalty Rewards Program Is All About

People want to get rewards for their loyalty to your business or services. But people want to have all the perks in one place. Plastic or paper cards, coupons, deals, other hassle are long gone. That’s where customer loyalty rewards programs development comes in. With them, your customers can manage all their reward/loyalty programs – digital rewards or physical goods – at their fingertips.

With mobile rewards app, you can offer your customers almost endless options – earning some points that can act as in-app currency for a purchase at a store, social media shares, or making referrals to your business by driving new customers. Keep in mind that loyalty app development is not about promoting your brand. It is about creating real value for your customers. If your primary goal is to sell your clients stuff they don’t need, by all means, it can make people abandon your brand.

Starbucks was one of the first brands that launched the loyalty reward campaign and optimized it for mobile devices. Starbucks loyalty program combines a rewards program and a mobile payment method. It created a unique personalized service that its customers fell in love with.

How Your Business Can Benefit from a Loyalty Rewards Program Development

There are a bunch of opportunities a mobile rewards app development can give businesses. By investing in loyalty rewards program software, you can achieve the following objectives:

• continuously building clients’ base – both online and offline customers
• gathering and enrichment consumer data
• tracking your loyalty campaign results and impact
• connecting existing brand touchpoints for the best customer experience possible as well as creating new ones
• strengthening and increasing the desired behavior
• creating and running a successful brand ambassador program
• rewarding relationships
• increasing brand loyalty by keeping old customers coming back
• getting insights into business development opportunities via monitoring and analyzing consumers actions and reactions in order to develop and maintain a high level of customer satisfaction
• promoting new releases and events within an app
• increasing sales

Kinds of Rewards Programs for Businesses

You can expand your reach by incorporating mono- or multi-brand loyalty schemes.

Mono-brand loyalty program stands for a loyalty program app, which usually serves a particular business. For instance, Uber Rewards offers its customers to earn benefits with each ride. Nike rolled out a loyalty rewards program which allows sports enthusiasts to receive various perks as well as exclusive shopping service by using the brand app or making specific actions such as workouts.

Multi-brand loyalty program stands for mobile rewards app, which allows quickly and easily gathering bonuses or personalized offers from multiple brands as well as redeeming earned points – digital rewards or physical goods – available in one place. The Airbnb program rewards consumers for booking and allows its guests to earn promotional coupon credits by referring friends to become new users. The 6pm marketplace, in turn, rewards consumers for each purchase and converts earned points into discounts that people can use later.

Features Essential to Customer Loyalty Rewards Programs Development

Before starting mobile rewards app development, you should consider which software and functionality should be applied to meet your users’ needs. Here are the crucial elements to implement when creating a loyalty program:

1. Appropriate app layout, a simple user profile

Customize the look and feel of your program to make it attractive and super simple for users.

2. Validation criteria

Choose your validation criteria like check-in, QR code, etc.

3. Rewards strategy, suitable commercial offers

Hook your users by offering personalized rewards – stars, points, coins, premium membership – to show them your appreciation, and ensure the unique customer experience

4. Reward progress trail

Provide users with a convenient progress bar so that they could track rewards points as well as how they can redeem bonuses for perks.

5. Payment options

Implement a robust payment gateway so that users could make digital payments with credit/debit cards, online banking, PayPal, Stripe, other software. Ensure various payment options development to reach your audience.

6. Location awareness

With location-aware function development, your customers can easily find where you are, check working hours, browse current offers, make pre-order to pick up when it is convenient for them. Starbucks and Walmart, for instance, have successfully applied this feature in their applications Carrefour went even further. It adopted iBeacon software in its hypermarkets to keep consumers informed about products, services, actual offers on mobile. The company rolled out unique personalized shopping experience. Figures speak for themselves – within seven months after the app launch, the app user base increased by 600%, and the engagement rate rose by 400 percent.

7. Wearables

Wearables allow performing basic actions via Apple Watch or Android Wear – watching balance, checking items, searching locations, making payments.

How We Combined Beer and Software to Bring New Experience to Canadian Craft Beer Lovers

The Story Behind

What are the best drinks for goal celebration after a hockey game? Which beverage goes well with a backyard BBQ party? Frosty, cold, relaxing, delicious? It’s all about beer, Canada’s most iconic drink. As a craft beer lover, our client wanted to combine beverage enthusiasts, breweries, and technologies to bring a brand new experience. We couldn’t but help him with his idea – Perky Pints.

With the Perky Pints customer loyalty program, craft beer enthusiasts get some free stuff as a reward for check-ins in local breweries and attending specific events.

Development Process and Software Solutions

We developed Perky Pints as a multi-brand solution and applied a freemium business model. It means that users pay nothing to download or use an app, but they have to pay to get premium features, additional content, subscriptions.

Our team created a mobile app that is available on iOS and Android devices within two months. We provided backend and frontend development with React Native and Python as well as UI/UX design solutions, testing.

Implemented Features

We made Perky Pints super simple for users and implemented the following solutions to meet users needs:

• sign-up via email
• check-in by geolocation (one time per day)
• subscription to breweries to receive premium rewards, exclusive brewery events, premium membership
• payment gateway via Stripe (payments are conducted for subscriptions)
• customized rewards program software so that breweries can set the conditions of their rewards for basic/premium users
• monitor events in the beer industry
• track automatically brewery visits
• reward progress trail so that users can track visits to breweries, what perks they received, when they can redeem bonuses for some free stuff
• location-based awareness so that users can see brewery information

We built an admin panel for breweries where they can:

• brewery registration
• add events
• manage rewards

Cheers!

As you see, a loyalty rewards program is a powerful business tool which allows acquiring and retaining customers. To empower your digital presence and reach, you should make a mobile rewards app development the priority.

Customer loyalty rewards programs tend to expand, strengthen their positions, become more efficient and compelling. Loyalty rewards program is not only about commerce. Loyalty solutions are perfect for various niche markets – fitness, lifestyle, banking, insurance, healthcare, education, entertainment, and many others. The list is almost endless.

Got an idea for your mobile rewards app development? Drop us a line. And we at OpenGeeksLab will guide you through the best experiences to expand your business.