Loyalty Programs for Product Growth

Loyalty programs are a definite way to acquire, identify and retain valuable customers. Each and every organization wants to have customers who come to buy day after day. Let's understand the loyalty program of Apollo Pharmacy in India.

Apollo Pharmacy sells medicines and wellness products. The company has established stores in every kilometer in a densely populated area so that customers can buy from the nearest shop. We can read more about it here https://www.apollopharmacy.in/ and we can also download the app on our mobile.

A loyalty program for a product needs the following to start:

1. Where we want to run the loyalty program.
2. What kind of customers the product is attracting, creating cohorts.
3. Indicators — ARPU, what is getting ordered, avg value per order, number of orders per customer.
4. RFM for orders.
5. Creating positive and negative persona of users.
6. What kind of revenue growth do we expect?
7. What the product can offer as a loyalty program, needs to be approved by the leadership in the company and agreed by the sales team.

Let us jump to understand what apollo is doing:

Good Things of the Program

1. The loyalty program in the app is known as Circle Membership Plans.
2. Has three plans — 2 Months @ 99, 6 months @ 199, and 12 months @ 299
3. Has six benefits — Doctor on call, Consult Apollo doctors at the best value, cashback on orders(up to 20%), diagnostic tests, health checkups, free delivery of medicines, and more.
4. A clear explanation of Terms and conditions is a good feature.
5. A hook of how much the member saves every month if he is a circle member.

Gaps in the program

1. Better design of the offer when the user clicks more. So that the user understands the benefits, and it is not expected to go in fine prints.
2. In place of keeping numbers ending with 9, we can keep it ending with zero, so that it gets a premium service feel.
3. In place of offering discounts in terms of money, offer extra months, at a price. For example, we can offer Rs. 50 per month. Rs. 200 for 4 months and Rs. 300 for 6 months. Mention that they get some extra months free, so we can make an offer which is worded better.
4. The saving of Rs. 848 can be highlighted, also free delivery, as that is the best bargain for convenience.

5. When a user clicks on Know More, the user is looking for details of the offer. Here the copy can say, how do you save money if you subscribe, showing a calculation of the same for each service on offer. So the user gets tempted to buy.

6. In case the user drops from this page, the app needs to show, how many users subscribed today and how much savings they made. This is social proof and narrative gamification technique.

7. If the user drops after reading about the loyalty program, then he can be prompted with the amount of saving he is missing if he is not choosing the loyalty program. FOMO will work here.

The more gamification we have in such loyalty programs, the better it is.

About Me — I am working as an AVP, Products & Solutions at Educational Initiatives. I am part of the team which is making the best learning product ‘Mindspark’ in India.