Most businesses aim to have repeat customers. Unless you offer something that lasts a lifetime and have no relevant upsells or cross-sells, you typically hope to generate happy customers who will return for repeat purchases. Even undertakers can push for repeat business, albeit from their customers' families, not the deceased themselves.
Customer loyalty plays a critical role in the success of a business, with customer experience (CX) being a key driver of that loyalty. Many consumers feel loyal to particular brands and go out of their way to buy from them. However, customers are quick to leave if their expectations aren't met. A single bad experience can lead them to switch to a competitor, and multiple negative experiences can make it nearly impossible to win them back.
Consumers expect brands to earn their loyalty through consistent, positive experiences. Shoppers often need multiple purchases before they feel a strong sense of loyalty to a brand. Loyalty programs can be a powerful tool for fostering this connection, as they create personalized, valuable experiences for customers.
However, managing a loyalty program can be challenging, especially for small businesses with limited resources. Fortunately, there are various customer loyalty program software and apps that can help businesses design effective loyalty programs. But no matter how good your program is, customer service remains paramount. If you can't provide high-quality service, even loyal customers will leave for competitors.
In addition to the customer loyalty program software we include here, you might find additional programs of interest in our previous article, Loyalty Integrations and Tools for eCommerce Websites.
Countries available: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, UK, USA. InviteReferrals is powerful yet simple-to-integrate referral and loyalty software that helps you grow your business and acquire new customers through Referral Marketing. The software tracks every step of the program, from shares to clicks to successful referral conversions (registrations, sales, or mobile application installs). You can use it to make your customers your brand ambassadors. InviteReferrals rewards customers for every referral conversion. Conversion could be a sale, registration, or mobile application install. The software gives detailed customer referral program analytics, including invites filtered by referral channels. It tracks every step of the program, from shares to clicks to successful referral conversions. In addition to link-based tracking, InviteReferrals also provides personalized coupon-based tracking. Their system automatically assigns one coupon to an individual participant, which they can then share with friends. Countries available: Australia, Canada, Germany, UK, USA. Retently provides Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), and Customer Effort Score (CES) software for your team. You can use it to combine email, web pop ups, and messengers to reach your customers on the channels they’re most likely to engage. In addition, you can analyze sentiment, easily spot trends, and understand the key drivers impacting the customer experience (CX). Retently features a slick, easy-to-use, and highly intuitive interface. All the data and information show up in one place, making it easily accessible. In addition, data visualization is simple to follow and understand. Retently provides all the necessary tools to collect in-depth feedback throughout the customer journey to drive adoption and build products customers love. You can tailor your roadmap by prioritizing customer requests. Countries available: Canada. Social Spiral describes itself as loyalty made easy. You can start a customer loyalty program in just 10 minutes, and it’s simple for customers to join – they simply have to text “join.” In addition, you can easily track customer points and rewards. Social Spiral works on any device. It’s SaaS, so all you need is a web browser; no apps are required. No matter what operating system you use, Social Spiral has you covered. Their loyalty program software includes loyalty triggers that automatically send customers promotions, deals, and gifts based on their history. You can send electronic coupons, running as many campaigns as you like, hassle-free. Countries available: USA. Gleantap helps you automatically send the right message to the right customer at the right time, assisting you to drive positive action more accessible than ever. You can run everything from reviews and referrals to retention on autopilot. Gleantap’s laser-focused segmentation tools can break your customers into groups based on behavior. Engage with each segment by deploying targeted email content, SMS campaigns, and two-way conversations. You can create auto-responses based on keywords customers text and automate actions based on intent. Countries available: Canada, USA. WaveToGet is personalized gift, loyalty, and rewards program software for your business. It isn’t just the software, however. You work with their designers to create a card with your ideal business brand. Their marketing consultants also suggest strategies best designed to encourage new and existing customers to do more business with you. Their software implements high-security standards and is easy to use. WaveToGet is an all-in-one app designed and customized for your business, no matter how large. The system rewards regular customers for their commitment to your brand, allowing them to receive discounts, bonuses, cash back, special recognition, discounts, VIP membership, and more. In addition, WaveToGet’s system is simple for customers to use and easy for merchants to set up. Countries available: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, UK, USA. APEX Loyalty’s engagement-driven loyalty platform helps you auto-pilot your B2B marketing and incentivization. With a single platform, you can instantly communicate tailored content with different segment customers, transmit your messages, and receive their feedback. Engage with your customers by incentivizing and rewarding behaviors that drive loyalty and impressive business outputs. For example, you can reward your customers with points for almost any action you want them to take online and offline: from earning purchase points to in-store execution, from watching a new product video to downloading a new price list. The platform provides the tools to digitize your retail execution efforts blended with gamification and incentives. It incorporates built-in mechanics and image recognition technology. Countries available: 229 countries globally. Swiss-based Yawave offers a range of tools and services to improve customer experience and create more growth. These include a user hub (contact management, user portal, and loyalty program), an interaction hub (automation and user interface), and a content hub (website publishing, social media publishing, and email marketing). With Yawave’s loyalty program, you can motivate your users to share your posts, recommend your products and attend your events. Moreover, you can track their engagement in real-time. In addition, it lets you customize your reward system for your customers. For example, you can choose between cash, vouchers, owner-based rewards, and discounts, multiply your reach with motivating elements, and prevent unwanted reward redemption. Countries available: 160+ countries globally. Guusto provides recognition and rewards software for both employees and customers. They believe the #1 way to engage customers and build loyalty is by sending surprise gifts. Their customer loyalty platform powers a wide variety of rewards and loyalty programs with Mastercard. Recipients choose where to redeem from 60,000+ merchant locations, covering web, mobile app, and print-out options. Some types of rewards available through their software include client appreciation programs, sales contest rewards, repeat purchase rewards, bonuses for expanding business with you, gift-with-purchase programs, incentivized referrals, reviews and testimonials, and more. Countries available: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, UK, USA. NiceJob is a word-of-mouth reputation marketing platform for local businesses ready for growth. You can use it to increase your search rankings and get more leads and sales. You can turn your most loyal customers into advocates. You can get more referrals by sending automated, personalized, and customizable referral invites to your customers via email or SMS when they’re the most excited about your service. Loyal customers are happy customers, often willing to spread their happiness with your products and customer service. Ensure your message is sent at the right time by customizing your campaign rules and connecting your favorite CRM or app to NiceJob’s platform. Countries available: Australia, Canada, UK, USA. Okendo is a customer marketing platform that builds connections between consumers and the brands they love. It offers a suite of integrated solutions that help eCommerce brands turn one-off transactions into customers for life. An essential part of this is Okendo Reviews, which helps you build trust, showcase community, and drive more conversions with authentic customer ratings, reviews, Q&A, and visual user-generated content (UGC). Okendo’s smart review capture form streamlines the review submission process, minimizes friction, and prompts for target content. You can maximize response rates with advanced review request automations across channels, precise sending triggers, split conditions, and hyper-personalized messaging. It features a single, centralized record of all review program activities for every contact, which makes it easy to manage and respond to feedback at the individual customer level. And if you’re worried that your customers aren’t as loyal as you’d hope, Okendo includes an advanced suite of controls for effectively managing customer-generated content at scale, including auto-moderation, sentiment analysis, filters, and tagging. In addition, you can accelerate content generation by rewarding customers for their authentic reviews and UGC submissions with discount coupons or loyalty points. Countries available: Australia, Bahamas, Canada, Croatia, Ireland, Philippines, Portugal, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Spain, UK, USA. Preferred Patron offers a range of packages for businesses of all sizes, from Patron Deals (advertising coupons in your local area with no app needed) to Premium+ (white-labeled loyalty software, where you can have up to 20,000 members per outlet). In addition, Preferred Patron offers end-to-end integration to a few popular point-of-sale systems, such as Square Retail POS and VendHQ Retail POS, alongside Vend, Square, and Shopify integrations (included in some packages, upgrades to others). The Preferred Patron Loyalty solution has evolved since 1997 into a cloud-hosted SaaS model. Depending on the package you opt for, Preferred Patron offers multiple tiered-rewards programs with intelligent automatic advancement between tiers, unlimited incentive campaigns, product-based point accruals, and bounce-back incentives. In addition, enterprise-level businesses can benefit from advanced marketing capabilities like drip marketing, behavioral marketing, trigger-based marketing, fundraiser campaigns, interactive online surveys, and electronic gift card deliveries. Countries available: 229 countries globally. AiTrillion describes itself as the no-stress way to grow your online store, offering services relating to email marketing, loyalty rewards, product reviews, web push notification, smart popups, workflow automation, an announcement bar, affiliate marketing, and recurring membership. In addition, you can connect it with Shopify and Magento. It offers an all-in-one loyalty points and referrals program. You can create exclusive eCommerce rewards programs. AiTrillion also makes it easy for customers to redeem their points for awesome rewards. Reward your best customers with rewards and custom perks at various tiers. You can motivate your customers with exciting milestones. The tier system allows you to strengthen connections with your top customers through increasing rewards, perks, and special offers. They can auto-upgrade to a tier based on lifetime points earned. You can even make your customers feel special by giving points on their birthdays. Countries available: 229 countries globally. Zinrelo helps maximize repeat sales and per-customer revenue through 360-degree customer engagement. It encourages multiple dimensions of loyalty, including transactional, social, advocacy, engagement, and behavioral loyalty. In addition, it supports omnichannel deployments, spanning desktop, mobile and physical stores. Zinrelo considers itself the ideal customer loyalty platform for mid-size and large enterprises. You can reward customers for various actions, including repeat transactions, activities on social media, specific user behavior, referrals, and defined interactions. You can segment your customers into tiers, making them feel special. Then, engage with them using Zinrelo’s built-in messaging engine. You can adapt your loyalty promotions to encourage repeat buyers over one-time bargain hunters. For example, you can set up triple points weekend, double points Wednesday, 5X points for a particular product category, and more. You can likewise adapt your reward options to maximize margins, such as gift certificates, discounts, free shipping, and products. Countries available: 65 countries globally. In some ways, ChatFood may appear as an unusual app to include in this list. This is because they cater to a highly targeted customer base, offering a commission-free mobile ordering and marketing solution for leading hospitality brands. The three features they highlight on their website are Order at Table, Delivery & Pick-up Ordering, and Pay at Table. However, if you operate in that sector, you may find their software will solve many of your daily problems, including driving more customer loyalty. ChatFood’s integrated loyalty system makes it easy for customers to collect and use their points whether they eat in your restaurant or order for delivery. You can quickly start a loyalty program within your ChatFood Dashboard. You can collect feedback and leverage the data collected to improve your menu, understand your customers’ likes and dislikes, and take onboard any suggestions they have to enhance their experience. You can pair your delivery solution with Order at Table (OAT) or Pay at Table (PAT) in your restaurant to sync up the loyalty program. Reward your customers for every order, no matter where they are. Countries available: 17 countries globally. VoucherCart enables your business to sell products and services such as gift cards, vouchers, memberships, and tickets. Create gift vouchers and cards of all types in minutes, uniquely branded to your business and products/services. Then promote them, and publish them for sale automatically to your website, social media, and email. Your customers view and buy your vouchers, increasing your sales. VoucherCart is fully automated, from promotion to sale, through redeeming, order processing, and reporting. They even offer a RESTful API to integrate with your other software.1. InviteReferrals
2. Retently
3. Social Spiral
4. Gleantap
5. WaveToGet
6. APEX Loyalty
7. Yawave
8. Guusto
9. NiceJob
10. Okendo
11. Preferred Patron Loyalty
12. AiTrillion
13. Zinrelo
14. ChatFood
15. VoucherCart
Customer loyalty program software is a tool that helps businesses create, manage, and track loyalty programs. These programs reward customers for their repeat business, encouraging them to continue purchasing from the company. The software typically includes features like points tracking, rewards management, customer segmentation, and analytics. Customer loyalty programs benefit businesses by increasing customer retention, encouraging repeat purchases, and enhancing customer satisfaction. They help businesses build stronger relationships with their customers, gather valuable customer data, and create personalized marketing campaigns. Ultimately, loyalty programs can lead to increased sales and improved customer lifetime value. Rewards in a loyalty program can vary widely but often include discounts, free products or services, exclusive access to sales or events, cashback, points that can be redeemed for rewards, and personalized offers. The choice of rewards should align with what is valuable and appealing to the target customer base. Businesses can measure the success of their loyalty programs using various metrics, such as customer retention rates, repeat purchase rates, customer lifetime value, participation rates, and redemption rates. Additionally, tracking customer satisfaction through surveys and feedback can provide insights into how well the program is performing. Key features to look for in loyalty program software include ease of use, customization options, points and rewards management, customer segmentation, integration with other systems (e.g., CRM, POS), real-time analytics and reporting, automated communication tools, and scalability to grow with the business. Businesses should also consider the level of customer support offered by the software provider.Frequently Asked Questions
What is customer loyalty program software?
How do customer loyalty programs benefit businesses?
What types of rewards can be offered in a loyalty program?
How can businesses measure the success of their loyalty programs?
What features should businesses look for in loyalty program software?
