Definition
Enrollment
Enrollment is the point at which a customer joins a loyalty programme and gets their card. It is the single biggest determinant of whether a programme works, because every customer who never joins is one the scheme cannot affect.
Also called enrolment, signup, joining.
Seconds decide it
A customer is standing at a counter with a queue behind them and about ten seconds of patience. Anything longer than a scan and a tap — an app download, an email verification, a form — loses a large share of them, and worse, loses your staff, who quickly learn the request is awkward and stop making it. Every design decision in enrolment should be measured against the clock.
Where the code goes
On the counter at the point of payment, facing the customer, when their phone is already in their hand. Not on the wall behind the till, not on the door, not on a table tent by the window. The largest single factor in signup rate is whether joining requires the customer to move.
What to ask for
As little as you will actually use. A name is enough for most cafés. Every additional required field — phone, email, birthday — costs you a percentage of signups in exchange for data you may never act on. If you have no plan for the email addresses, do not collect them; storing personal data you do not use is a liability with no matching benefit.
Questions
- What is a good enrollment rate?
- There is no universal figure worth chasing. What matters is the trend after you introduce a script and move the code to the payment point — if it barely moves, the cause is almost always that staff are not mentioning it.
- Should the first stamp be free?
- Usually yes. A card at one of ten is a thing in progress that people are reluctant to abandon; a card at zero is a blank. It costs very little and measurably raises the number of cards that get completed.
Related terms
QR code
A QR code is a square barcode a phone camera can read. In a loyalty programme it does one of two jobs: on the counter it takes a new customer to the page where they add their card, and on a customer’s card it identifies them so staff can add a stamp.
Loyalty program
A loyalty program is an arrangement that rewards customers for coming back. In hospitality it usually takes one of two forms: stamps counted per visit toward a free item, or points accrued against how much is spent.
Repeat rate
Repeat rate is the proportion of customers who return at least once after their first visit. It is the most useful single number for judging a loyalty programme, because it measures the behaviour the programme is meant to change.
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