7 Next Level Practices for the Best Pharmacy Customer Loyalty Program

Customer Loyalty Programs are simple right? Award customers on a points per dollar basis every time they come into your pharmacy. When they reach a certain number of points, they earn a reward. Usually in the form of a few dollars off their current purchase.

This is certainly the foundation of many customer loyalty programs used by pharmacies today. However, the best customer loyalty programs offer so much more.

Create excitement.

This is where a successful customer loyalty program starts, and how it continues to grow. Technology based tools can help, (keep reading for more on this) but there’s nothing that will beat some good old-fashioned marketing. Promote your program and accompanying promotions on social media, have a section on your website, note the benefits in any mailers you send, or radio spots you do. Even print information on the bottom of your receipts or monthly statements.

Above all, make sure you are cultivating buy-in and excitement with your pharmacy team. If they’re excited about, and on-board with your customer loyalty program goals, you’ll see that excitement filtered down to your customers.

Loyalty levels.

Doesn’t it feel awesome to achieve something? Whether it’s beating a level in a game, or simply washing, drying and folding all the laundry in one day, we feel great when we can see our accomplishments and even better when they get recognized.

This is why it’s a great idea to create loyalty levels. Think Bronze, Silver and Gold. Or whatever you want to call them. When customers can see they’ve achieved a special status with your pharmacy for shopping regularly, it will encourage them to do it more, and helps to make them feel recognized and appreciated.

You can even hold promo events recognizing your best customers, or let Gold level members shop 30 minutes early. The sky’s the limit so don’t be afraid to get creative.

P.S. Loyalty levels are a great excitement builder, too!

Customize your loyalty program.

Set key parameters to make sure your loyalty program remains beneficial to both you and your customers. These include things like how many points are earned per dollar spent, or points per item purchase, minimum purchase amount to accumulate points, loyalty reward redemption rates, excluded departments, or departments you want to offer higher points for. (Like your private label OTC products for example.)

Don’t rely on what everyone else does, or what you think the standard is. Take the time to figure out what’s right for your pharmacy business.

Prompt for the loyalty card at the register.

Especially if your loyalty program is new, it’s helpful to remind your team and your customers to participate on a regular basis. Set your register to remind clerks to ask about the program. This helps customers to remember to add their loyalty account and can also ramp up adoption. Just keep in mind, you might want to turn off this reminder down the road as your employees develop a habit of verifying loyalty participation on every transaction.

Collect email addresses.

Make sure that a customer email address is on the list of information you collect as you enroll customers in your loyalty program. This way you can email marketing materials like special promotions and newsletters (to keep that excitement going) and also send their loyalty rewards without having to pay for postage.

Pro Tip: You can also email receipts and statements once you have this information on file.

Issue certificates for future use.

At the register rewards are convenient. Yay! You’ve reached 100 points, you get $5 off this transaction. It’s a great unexpected reward, customers appreciate it, and you don’t have to think about it any more.

Here’s the thing though, that at the register reward does nothing to encourage the customer to come back in. If you can send a gift certificate or print a reward for future use during the transaction, you can get customers coming back in.

Run loyalty promotions.

Create promotional events for loyalty members that run outside of your standard store promotion plans. Consider a promo where you give double points for a particular department, product or category. Again, you can get creative with this and take it any direction you want to go!

Ready to bring it all together?  

See how you can do all of these things and so much more using RMS’ Customer Loyalty Program! Click here to watch the video now!