How to track client loyalty on the Build plan

Retaining your existing clients is just as important as bringing in new clients. Providing a motivating loyalty system can be one way to encourage clients to return.

We want you and your clients to have the best possible experience. Due to the number of workarounds to track loyalty on Build, we would recommend upgrading to our Elevate or Innovate plans.

• The Elevate package is our most popular package as it includes everything Build has, plus extra features focused on adding your client experience. E.g. Rewards, online booking deposits, double the SMS messages, automated marketing, campaign marketing, stock ordering, marketing, photos, documents and our Consult integration.

• The Innovate package is our most advanced package with all the features Elevate has plus crucial features for growing and scaling a business. E.g. Advanced client retention messages, API integrations with Zapier, Google Tag Manager and premium phone support.

If you can't upgrade at this time, we do have a couple of suggestions for how you can use Timely to track and reward client loyalty.

Why not try the following:

1. Treat them like VIP's.
2. Give them a discount.
3. Reward client spending.
4. Use Gift vouchers.
5. Encourage referrals.
6. Sell services in bulk with Packages.

Treat them like VIP's

If you're wanting to identify your regulars and make sure they are taken care of, then you can use the VIP status in Timely. This adds a star to their client profile, as well as on their appointments in the calendar: 

Mark a client as a VIP

1. Click Edit on their client profile: 
2. Go to the More info tab: 
3. Select the Is VIP? button: 
4. Click Save to update their record.

 Check out our  How to identify new and VIP clients guide for more information.

Give them a discount

Instead of giving your

new

 clients discounts, you could reward long standing clients with their own unique discount. 

You could use this with the VIP status above and call it your VIP discount, which is sure to make clients feel that little bit special:

1. Create a new VIP discount.
2. Add this to the client's invoices.

 Discounts work really well for rewarding cost-sensitive clients, but they do directly affect your profits. Have a think about which clients might benefit from this kind of approach before implementing a loyalty discount across the board.

If you have loyal clients that aren't cost-sensitive, you could look at throwing in a free treatment, or additional service to their appointment at no extra charge. That way the client gets something a little extra and you're not affecting your bottom line. Next time, they might even buy that service themselves!

Reward client spending

Another popular approach is to reward clients based on their purchase history, where clients are awarded points based on the products and services they're buying.

Some businesses will award points based on the client's total spend, or have a different points systems for retail versus appointment sales.

Track client spend

In Timely, you can use the Customer spend report to track client purchasing history over a given period. 

You can then award points to clients based on their Total invoice value or on their Invoiced service and/or Invoiced product value. 

You can run the report regularly e.g. monthly, to stay on top of client purchases. You can then track the rewards balance using a spreadsheet or external system, or keep a running total going in the client's notes or alerts.

Redeem loyalty points

When a client wants to redeem their loyalty points, you could approach this in a number of different ways:

1. Apply a discount to the client's sale for the value of the points: How to use discounts.
2. Issue the client credit that they can redeem in store: How to issue customer credit
3. Issue the client a gift voucher, which they can redeem in store and online (see below).
4. Create your own payment type for loyalty points! Then you can track how often these are redeemed: How to create your own payment types.

 Both Customer credit and Gift vouchers require a payment to be applied to activate the voucher/credit. If you want to gift free credit or vouchers, then we recommend creating and using a custom payment type. That way you can still activate the voucher and keep track of how many free vouchers you're issuing.

Use Gift vouchers

Selling Gift vouchers is a fantastic way to keep clients coming back. You get some cash in the bank immediately and the client will need to return to the business to receive their treatment/service.

Gift vouchers can be sold and redeemed both in store and online.

Check out our

Getting started with Timely Gift Vouchers [Video]

guide for more information on using vouchers in your business. 

Encourage referrals

Loyal clients that keep coming back can also be great at bringing in new clients - word of mouth is still a really powerful marketing strategy!

In Timely, you can track who referred a client by updating the

Referred by

 field in their profile:

Report on referrals

You can then use the Customer list report to see which clients are referring their friends and family. Whatever you entered in the Referred by field will show up in the Refer column:

You can then choose how you want to reward them.This could be a voucher, or a free service or product, or whatever works best for your business.

 To keep track of referrals, you can edit the client's record and add an (x) after the client;s name in the Referred by field. This allows you to see at a glance when the client has been rewarded for that referral.

Sell services in bulk with Packages

Our Packages feature allows you to pre-sell bookings in bulk, which can be redeemed when the client visits.

You could presell appointments in bulk, at a discounted price. Or, use the Packages feature to replace a loyalty card and stamp. 

This allows you to track how many visits the client has remaining, until they can redeem their free visit.

 You can issue packages for a specific service, or create packages that can be redeemed against any service or appointment.

1. Create the loyalty package e.g. If this is a buy 9, get your 10th free offer, you would issue a package with 10 visits in total. You can make the package free by not setting a price.
2. Issue the package to the client.
3. When the client visits, you can redeem the package against their appointment. You would then raise a sale and apply a payment for each booking as normal.
4. When the client has one visit remaining, you can let them know that their next visit will be free. 

 Check out our Getting started with Packages guide for more information.