10 Best Customer Loyalty Program Software Tools of 2020
Picking the right technology platform is a critical step in running a successful customer loyalty program. Find which platform is right for your team from our top picks.
Learn from the best - subscribe to our clienteling newsletter now.
Latest posts in Best Practices
As we’ve mentioned before, customer loyalty refers to a customer’s willingness to buy goods and services from you on a repeat basis. It can be measured through metrics like customer retention rate or customer lifetime value, but overall your goal is to increase customer loyalty in order to increase your return on marketing dollars.
Once your company is ready for a loyalty program, you’re going to want a tech solution that helps you launch and grow your program and stay informed about your customers’ engagement levels.
Fortunately, there are tons of customer loyalty software options in the market no matter how big or small you are or what you sell. However, the wide variety of these options also means that it’s important to first make sure you know what you’re looking for from your platform.
Our list of top loyalty program software options is meant to help you make the right choice for your business, so we’ve done our best to point out distinct qualities about each of the solutions below. If you haven’t already, I recommend first knowing what type of program you want to run so you can pick an option that aligns with the structure of your program. Otherwise, I hope you find your match below!
Best Resource Overall
Endear
As an omnichannel CRM, messaging platform, and sales tracker, Endear has all the resources your team needs in order to develop a high-touch loyalty program that keeps customers coming back over and over again. The Endear platform is best for teams looking to make personalization a priority thanks to its easy-to-use filtering and segmenting features, as well as the platform’s recommendations features that help ensure customers are only seeing the products that are relevant to their taste and preferences.
Used primarily by small and medium-sized omnichannel brands, Endear ensures that you’re empowering your entire sales team to drive loyalty among repeat customers rather than leaving loyalty exclusively in the hands of marketers. By empowering the people who likely already know your customers on a first-name basis to drive loyalty through high-touch customer support, you can increase your customers’ interest in sticking with you and staying informed about what you have to offer.
If You’re A Shopify Merchant
Smile.io
Beloved by Shopify merchants, Smile.io offers the key ingredients for a successful loyalty program, including the ability to reward customers through points and incentivize them through status upgrades and special offers. With a referral program built in, Smile.io also integrates with other Shopify apps so that all your systems can easily talk to one another without any special coding or development on your end. Smile.io works with all types of small e-commerce merchants across a variety of verticals.
LoyaltyLion
Similar to Smile.io, LoyaltyLion prides itself on its ability to serve the Shopify community. Focused more on the customer data analysis side of loyalty, the platform promises to help you, “unlock real insights to increase your customers’ lifetime value.” A slightly more advanced platform than Smile.io, LoyaltyLion is a great option if you’re trying to put together a more custom program that spans various touchpoints and platforms.
Rise.ai
Another strong option if you run on Shopify, Rise.ai is primarily focused on loyalty in its truest form—managing your customers’ spending. Rise makes it easy to provide loyal customers with gift cards, refunds and discounts in order to encourage your audience to keep their dollars with you.
If You Have Physical Retail
CandyBar
An app for businesses and customers, Candybar has brought the old-fashioned punch card into the digital age. Candybar equips you and your customers with an app that customers can use to easily collect loyalty points for every visit or dollar spent while also receiving promotions you make available to them. Candybar is a great way to market unique offers to local shoppers, particularly around slower traffic hours during the workday.
Glue
Designed specifically for small business owners, Glue wants to take all the work off your plate when it comes to loyalty. The platform has you covered on points, coupons, and loyalty rewards to help get your new customers back in the door, and notifies them over text as their points accrue and they reach new statuses. With a big focus on automation, Glue is a great option if you want to leave it up to technology to take care of business.
Goody
Similar to Endear, Goody equips you with the right data from your point of sale (POS) system in order for you to determine which customers are your most loyal and design your own reward program based on their activity. Offering a loyalty marketing software suite on top of its analytics, the platform enables you to target customers with unique promotions over email to motivate them to come back. You can also use Goody to enable customers to provide ratings and feedback on your customer experience. Customers are automatically opted into points instead of needing to use a physical rewards card so that they never miss out on perks and no one gets overlooked.
If You’re Ready to Scale Up
Antavo
With Antavo, you’re getting it all. The software focuses on an omnichannel loyalty strategy, making sure that you can accomplish all your goals across e-commerce, in-store, and mobile. Antavo is not only a loyalty solution, they also offer hardware to help you build customer loyalty through in-person opportunities.
Disciple
If your goal is to build loyalty through community, consider Disciple—the app makes it easy to build a fully-integrated community experience as part of your website or mobile app. Their community platform includes everything from creating groups for different segments of customers, to real-time streaming and sharing updates with your community members. Their analytics platform will keep you in-the-know on customer engagement and the impact on your business.
Annex Cloud
Annex Cloud pretty much does it all, across every channel. Whether you’re e-commerce, brick-and-mortar, or a mobile app, you can use Annex Cloud to build a loyalty rewards program that spans your customer journey, including tracking social media engagement, referrals, and reviews. Focused primarily on retail, Annex Cloud’s unique offering revolves around helping you manage user generated content (UGC), such as building a library of customer photos or providing customers with forums for questions and answers. Annex Cloud is a great option if you’re building on top of an already highly-engaged audience.
This list is a great way to educate yourself on the kinds of options available for managing a loyalty program successfully. At the end of the day though, it’s important to keep in mind what your core objectives are and which strategies you think are best suited to reach your goals.
Loyalty is all about building strong, long-lasting relationships with your customer base, so it’s important that first and foremost you’re equipping your customers with an easy way to keep in touch with you through resources like Endear, whether it’s your only loyalty platform or an add-on to one of the other options above.