What is the point? Reward card?

Question

You get the reward card for the store. Like best buy, advertise you get 800 points($10), when you buy the game on certain day. You did it. You give them reward card. No points, few days, a month later. It don't show on receipt. 

Is salesperson don't know what they doing? Is system not set up? Is whole thing just a joke?

Then, today supermarket, award point for bring in your reusable bag to use. Sales person don't bother or don't know to do it. I am sick of it, stop advertise something you won't do.

What is the Point?

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

The Reward/Loyalty Scheme is becoming such a 'me-too'. Retailers are feeling obligated that they must do this to keep customer loyalty. Implementing such a system requires much thought, cost and instructions. You are right that most schemes are not working well. 

It is complex to implement because it needs to be linked to the cash registration terminal. Eg, card needs to be swiped before the purchase amount is keyed. It is then linked to a statement system where points are being collated and mail to customers. Works for banks because they need to send you a monthly statement for credit cards anyway. But for certain categories, very diffcult because there is a lack of frequency of purchase. And the cost of mailing statements/generating them is high. So is the software implementation costs. For my last client who tried to do that for a 5-store chain, the software design/implement cost them $1 million.

At the end of the day, I blame the retailer for their choice of reward system. For someone like Best Buy, it should simply be a membership card (with a low annual fee) that allows discounts in % off various categories. However, the electronic prices are moving like stock market, resulting in these retailers having up and down margins, that they fear giving a fix discount value. Therein lies the problem of fulfilling points/discounts. Many an electronic retailer have tried rewards/points and have practically canned it. 

Sometimes I just wish they'll go back to doing cash vouchers for min. purchase of $x. That way, I know for sure what I get and I can be reminded easily to redeem them.

Anonymous · Answer

Whole point of Reward Advertising is to attract customers so that they can save more on the long run. If System doesn't show up the rewards that you collected so far than there's a problem or the rewards that you collected might need to be redeemed before certain duration.

Anonymous · Answer

In the reward systems that I've used, the cashier just has to scan the card and everything is automatic. Maybe you should talk to the store manager.

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What is the point? Reward card?

3 Answers