Short answer: a loyalty card without an app works better because it asks for no download, no account and no wallet. Your customer scans one QR code at the counter and keeps saving in the browser through a link. The lower the threshold, the more customers keep saving, and saving is what brings them back. With BLOK that is free forever, made in Belgium for local shops, and it works anywhere a browser does.
Every loyalty app starts with the same question to your customer: “Would you like to download our app?” For most people the answer is no. Not because they do not like your shop, but because a download is a hurdle: storage space, an account, one more icon on a full screen.
The hurdle is the loyalty card itself
A loyalty card that simply works in the browser asks nothing of your customer. They scan once, and their card lives on through a link. No app store, no password, no update they have to install. The lower the threshold, the more people actually keep saving, and saving is what brings them back.
Less for you to manage
Without an app there is less hassle on your side too: no software to install on a tablet at the till, no hardware, no subscription. You show the daily code on a board or scan your customer's card, and you are done in five minutes.
Without an app and without a wallet
Most “digital” loyalty cards are actually wallet passes: your customer first has to add the card to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. That is another hurdle, and on an older phone or with a customer who never uses Wallet it often stalls. A loyalty card without an app skips that step: the card lives in the browser through a link and a QR code, on any phone, with nothing to add or install.
A better alternative to the paper stamp card
A paper stamp card gets lost, stays at home or disappears at the bottom of a wallet. A loyalty card without an app keeps the same simplicity (buy ten, the eleventh is free) but cannot get lost: the balance is online and your customer finds it again through the link. You see straight away who comes back, without a box of loose cards. Curious which rewards work? Read which rewards work on a loyalty card, or see how it works for a coffee shop, a bakery or a butcher.
That is the whole idea behind BLOK: the technology fades into the background, so you can focus on your shop and your customers on their coffee.
Read the Dutch version of this article.