During my life I have been called in, on occasion, to do what I call ‘Troubleshoot’ a business. This means coming in as a customer, client, employee, to see what is going on at ‘Ground Zero’ and make suggestions as to improvement.
One of the most interesting situations happened at a particular business. The suggestion was to have a kind of ‘lottery’ where those who spent over $X would get a ticket and be able to win one of a number of prizes.
Having been there, done that, I explained to the Board
“When someone wins a Jackpot and says it is the first time he bought a ticket, it causes many of those who buy tickets every week to get disgusted.”
I waited for the Board to catch up.
“To have the best effect this can not be a ‘random‘ draw. The most loyal customers have to win.”
A few politically correct folks made the expected noises.
Eventually, everyone ‘got it’ and I set the plan in motion.
Everyone who spent $X could enter the contest. They would write their names on their receipts and drop them into the bin. At closing, the Bin would be taken to the office, and behind closed doors, a Senior manager would go through the entries. Known customers would be kept and entries from strangers would be removed.
On Monday morning, in front of all onlookers, names would be drawn from the Bins. As only the receipts of the best customers were in the bin, they were the only ones which could be drawn.
All the good customers who won, felt that shopping here certainly had benefits. Sales went up.
The business was happy to give gifts to those who had spent thousands of dollars with the business.
Now yes, it was cheating. But, having seen these competitions before, I knew that it was likely that someone who’d stopped in for the first and last time could win.
Someone who happened to be in the area, someone who never shopped there. Someone who lived in a different area and never would shop there because it was inconvenient.
Someone who just popped in because they needed whatever it was, this place was on their route, so they did a fast set of transactions, and went on with their routine, shopping at their usual places.
To remove the strangers from the selection and leave just loyal customers, might be cheating, but it was better than the alternative.
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It is part of business strategy. I had seen this a couple of times. Some stories had been heard from hearsay. Well, the same phrase "Business is business." How can a business survive without the innovative strategies? I have a perfect example. My friend of mine was being hired to make comments on online shopping sites or giving good feedback upon.
One has to reward faithful customers, this keeps them faithful customers.
It worked i can see that, but then it worked for existing loyal customers, what about potential customers and first timers. You need to also come up with strategies of retaining that one time customer, make that customer feel like there is no other place better than yours, make them want to spend more. How about you have an award for the biggest spender then you revert to the fair raffle, that way you will be encouraging the seasoned customers aswell as motivating the new ones. Try it, it could work for you
Although one wants new customers, one must keep the ones they have. The fact is, when another supermarket opens in walking distance, if they don't feel prized here, they'll go there. We need to keep our loyal ones and others will trickle in.