Shoppers Optimum



Optimum Points Card

 Shoppers Optimum is also a well known customer loyalty program, which offers you "to earn 10 Shoppers Optimum Points® for every $1 you spend on almost anything in-store. And once you’ve accumulated enough points, you can spend them to get what you want – FREE."   (http://www1.shoppersdrugmart.ca/en/Optimum.aspx) Shoppers Drugmart also has a credit card called Optimum Mastercard, where you can gain more then double your points when using your card at Shoppers Drugmart. Getting the Shoppers Optimum loyalty card is free for every customer, all you have to do is fill out a form and they give you your card right away so you can start gaining points. When signing up for the Optimum Mastercard, you get 15,000 points right away just for signing up! I have a Shoppers Drugmart Optimum points card and I love it, I gain points for purchasing almost anything in the store except for perscriptions and you can save them or spend them when you accumulate enough points. There are so many customer loyalty programs out there, have you found yours yet?

Canadian Tire Loyalty Program

Did you know that Canadian Tire has a customer loyalty program? even though you are not gaining "points", you do get Canadian Tire money back when you make a purchase as little as $5. You can get this by going to the Canadian Tire store or the Canadian Tire gas station, as well as you get double your points or Canadian tire money by using your Options credit card, but you also gain points or "funny-money" by using debit or cash the only way you don't get Canadian tire money is by using any other credit card. They also give out coupons for gas every two weeks to get 5-10x the points so instead of getting 5 cents back you could get up to 50 cents for purchasing gas and you get another 2x the points by using your options credit card. If you use the Options Credit card, you gain points on EVERY purchase you make at any store, so the more times you use the card, the more Canadian tire money you get. Let's say you go to the grocery store and purchase groceries for $200, if you use your Options card you gain Canadian Tire money on your card that could be used or "redeemed" at any Canadian tire store or gas station. This is to keep the customers happy and wanting to come back for more. The points have no expiry date and can be redeemed at any time towards the thousands of eligible products in-store. Have you been to Canadian tire recently?

Restaurant Loyalty Programs

So far in my other posts I have talked about customer loyalty programs in general as well as LoyaltyOne program. There are many other place in the world that participate in the customer loyalty programs, one of them that would benefit from the loyalty programs is restaurants. When you go out to eat what better way to gain "points" or rewards then somewhere you can eat at. If restaurants had "loyalty cards", customers who came in to eat could gain points from ordering food, or they could track the foods that the customers like and when their birthday's are so they could get a "reward" for going to the restaurant. They could also offer an appetizer after a certain amount of points or visits to get the customers to keep coming back, this could be tracked by either how many visits or how much they spend. Although SPC (Student Price Card) also offers some kind of discount or free appetizer at certain restaurants such as Swiss Chalet or Harvey's, this is not really considered a loyalty program because you are not getting points although you are getting the discount. What do you think about customer loyalty programs in restaurants?

LoyaltyOne

There are many loyalty programs around the world and LoyaltyOne is one of them. At LoyaltyOne they have the Air Miles reward program, "where it consists of over 10 million Collector accounts in more than two-thirds of Canadian households. There are 300 customer contacts, $500 million worth of rewards redeemed annually and 1,000 cards swiped every minute."(http://loyalty.com/solutions/loyalty-programs) LoyaltyOne, is one of the most recognized customer loyalty organizations out there to date. Air Miles rewards program was "officially launched on March 30, 1992,  the AIR MILES Reward Program attracted nearly 2 million Collectors in its first six months. The AIR MILES brand became one of the most recognized in Canada, and the business behind it helped shape the loyalty industry across North America and around the globe." (http://loyalty.com/solutions/loyalty-programs) Air Miles allows your to gain points for travelling through purchases at certain stores and banks such as Metro, gas stations and Bank of Montreal. Having Air Miles start from Canada and move around the world is a great honor for the makers of Air Miles: Craig Underwood, Sam Duboc and Rob Gierkink, this was a big accomplishment. To think that this has inspired other stores to follow as well but with their own reward programs is incredible. What will they think of next?

Did you know?

Did you know that customer loyalty programs are everywhere now from Zellers and Air miles to banks such as BMO and Royal Bank. Most people like to use their points towards money rewards, travel, or other merchandise in the store but others will donate a certain amount of points to charities. An example of a company that has this option is the Royal Bank. They have a program where you can donate miles to Hope Air, which flies people to a remote locations to larger centres to recieve medical treatment. Alot of people don't know about these options, but others donate through there own charities as well. The Hudson Bay Company was one of the companies to capitalize on donating programs to charities(Guffey, Rhodes & Rogin, 2008, p.272). Through the Hudson Bay Company customers can donate to the Canadian Red Cross, this support has grown, and now it is estimated that Hbc cardholders donate approximately $50,000 per year for each initiatives the company supports. These initiatives are (1)the Zellers Family funs, which supports organizations committed to family causes; (2)the Bay's Well Into the future program, which assists cancer support, research and patients; and (3) the Canadian Red Cross (Guffey, Rhodes & Rogin, 2008, p.272). Hopefully now some people can have a different outlook on how and where they could use their rewards points towards!

Have you got the card?

      Now a day almost everyone is enrolled in some kind of customer loyalty program from Canadian tires "funny money" to Air miles reward programs. We are part of the over 86% of Canadian consumers who are enrolled in a loyalty marketing program (Guffey, Rhodes & Rogin, 2008, p.272). Companies can get a more accurate response on customer service from the customers who have the loyalty card, where as it would be harder for companies who do not have a customer loyalty program. For example, when you go to certain stores like Shoppers Drugmart, you can gain "points" towards another purchase or they can be redeemed for a gift card. This helps Shoppers to bring in more cliental and thus more profit. Research reveals that customers participate in loyalty programs there are "high levels of customer satisfaction, high engagement to the sponsoring brands and overall responsiveness to the loyalty value proposition" (Guffey, Rhodes & Rogin, 2008, p.272). Although the customers may have a loyalty card, it does not mean that the rewards will be redeemed right away or even for a while. An example would be Air Miles, some people like to save their rewards for a rainy day or when the timing is appropriate, therefore saving them would not benefit the company but the customer. So I will leave this blog with a question, how many of you bloggers have any type of loyalty cards and what do you think people who don’t would benefit from?