Glossary
What is no-app loyalty?
No-app loyalty is any loyalty programme that does not require the customer to install software, typically by delivering the card to the phone's built-in wallet instead.
The case for no-app loyalty is simple arithmetic: asking customers to download an app for a single local business removes the large majority of them. Wallet cards deliver most of the benefit of an app (a card on the phone, push notifications, real-time updates) with none of the install requirement. For an independent business, it is the only realistic way to compete with chains that can afford app-based programmes.
What does a no-app programme give up?
Three things: in-app ordering, a rich browsing interface, and a home-screen icon carrying the brand. For most small businesses none of them matters, and the third is worth less than it sounds because an icon belonging to a deleted app has no value at all.
What is kept is the part that drives retention: a card on the phone, visible progress, automatic updates, and a channel to reach customers who have stopped coming.
When is an app justified?
When the customer needs to do something between visits that a card cannot express: ordering ahead, booking, browsing a catalogue or managing an account. Build the app for that reason and let loyalty ride inside it.
It is not justified by loyalty alone at any size of independent business. If the only thing the app would do is show a stamp count, the wallet already does it on a phone the customer will never uninstall.
Do no-app programmes still reach customers?
Yes. Updating a wallet card pushes a notification to the lock screen, so a business can reach every enrolled customer without owning an app and without paying per message. This is the feature that surprises businesses most, and the one that makes the model work.
See also
- Wallet card: A wallet card is a digital card stored in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet (the same place people keep boarding passes, event tickets and payment cards) that can update itself remotely after it has been issued.
- Friction: Friction is any step that stands between a customer and joining a loyalty programme, and each additional step measurably reduces how many people complete it.
- Enrolment rate: Enrolment rate is the percentage of customers who join a loyalty programme when offered it, and it is the number that determines whether the programme is worth running.
- Cohort analysis: Cohort analysis groups customers by when they first bought and tracks each group forward, which separates a retention problem from a recruitment one in a way a single overall figure cannot.
- Purchase frequency: Purchase frequency is how often a customer buys within a period, and its inverse, the typical gap between one customer's visits, is what sets every other number in a loyalty programme.
Further reading
Loyalty programmes that do not need a customer app
Why asking customers to install an app destroys loyalty enrolment, and how wallet cards deliver the same benefits without the download.
How to add a loyalty card to Apple Wallet
A step-by-step guide for customers and business owners on getting a loyalty card into Apple Wallet, and what to do when the Add button does not appear.