A loyalty programme is a promise to reward the customer for behaving in ways you value — buying again, buying more, referring, reviewing. It fails when the reward is invisible, the rules are opaque, or the programme communicates only through a balance on a receipt. It works when the customer is told, at the right moment, what they have earned and what it is worth to them.

Earn on what you want more of

Points for purchases, yes, but also for the second purchase within a window, for reviews, for referrals, for completing a profile, for choosing a slower delivery option. Weight the behaviours by their value to the business. The earn rules are a statement of strategy.

Tiers with benefits that cost little and mean a lot

Early access, free shipping, a birthday gift, a direct line to support, a say in the next product. Tiers should be reachable by a customer who buys a few times a year and unmistakable when reached — a message that says what changed, not a badge on a page.

Message at the moments

Points earned, with the running balance and what it can get. Close to a tier, with what it takes. A reward about to expire, once. A tier reached, with the benefits. All of it triggered by events in the store and the CRM, on the customer's preferred channel, and suppressed when the customer has an open complaint.

Measure incremental behaviour

Repeat rate and order frequency of members versus a matched group of non-members, cost of rewards redeemed, and the share of reward-driven purchases that are truly incremental. A programme that only discounts purchases customers would have made is a margin leak with a name.