LoyalBlocks Review: Restaurant Loyalty Program

LoyalBlocks is an interactive service that allows business owners to create and manage customer loyalty programs to reward people for patronage and encourage repeat sales. LoyalBlocks replaces the loyalty customer punch card, which is often forgotten or thrown away, by working automatically through a customer’s smartphone.

The application’s verifying data is stored on mobile phones and a central POS terminal so that loyalty benefits accrue automatically, taking advantage of the Bluetooth network on one’s mobile phone. By automating and streamlining a restaurant’s loyalty program, merchants are much more likely to achieve their marketing goals. The application recognizes returning customers, displays targeted promotions and menu suggestions, communicates information about upcoming seasonal menu changes, and rewards loyalty with discounts and freebies.

Restaurants Derive Many Benefits From Using LoyalBlocks

Social media and mobile marketing increasingly affect the restaurant industry and local searches for information and products. As technology and marketing are becoming more and more spun together, small restaurants often lack the resources to commission special applications and rewards programs for their businesses. Old marketing issues still persist. Customers lose punch cards, receipts and other physical validations, but mobile phones offer the ideal way to store guest-experience histories so that even the smallest neighborhood restaurants can maintain a social presence, personalize rewards and marketing, and get people to actually use the programs.

• LoyalBlocks enables restaurant owners to customize smart punch cards to reward customers automatically.
• Customers understand that they will receive an incentive by walking in the door.
• Special campaigns can target slow hours to increase business and keep staff busy.
• Customers can earn further rewards by recommending a restaurant to their friends and contacts on Facebook.

All restaurants need to do to participate is to register at LoyalBlocks, install a Loyal Blocks base station in the restaurant (which is sent by Loyal Blocks), and start recruiting guests for the program. Customers can download a free application for their mobile phones and use their devices to get custom-tailored rewards, advertising and information (after enabling BlueTooth).

People Use Their Phones for More than Communicating

Unlike other customer rewards programs, LoyalBlocks works automatically through mobile phones so that information never gets lost or misplaced. The fast-growing program has made inroads in most cities, and the restaurant-services partner increases a restaurant’s advertising reach through its promotions and participation in social media and mobile marketing forums.

Trends in Mobility Marketing

LoyalBlocks, which began in New York City, offers rewards programs for casual, neighborhood and fast food restaurants that might not otherwise participate in social media forums, mobile marketing and rewards programs. Unlike some of the other programs like Square, Foursquare, and OpenTable, LoyalBlocks offers greater flexibility to change rewards, offer custom programs, and make changes to meet evolving social and mobility trends. The program is easier for clients to use, has an intuitive dashboard, and delivers real-time rewards, menu suggestions and upgrade offers.

• Restaurants can upsell by offering rewards based on ordering desserts, taking home carryout food, or ordering premium entrées.
• Some loyalty card schemes promote the vendor more than the restaurant, but LoyalBlocks focuses on the restaurant and its guests.
• Mobility marketing increasingly influences local shopping and dining choices. Restaurants can post their daily specials and menus or offer discounts to move overstocked produce or slow-moving menu items.
• Mobility marketing allows guests to recommend restaurants to their friends, plan social gatherings on the fly, and take advantage of real incentives.

Pricing

According to our inquiries, LoyalBlocks charges a flat monthly rate of $99/month for our service, with no commitment so you can cancel at any time. With a commitment for 1 year,  the flat monthly rate goes down to $69/month.

LoyalBlocks does runs promotions so check in with them about actual prices. They may offer reduced rates for restaurants until they build up enough users to make it worthwhile. At the time of publication, there is no contract or commitment so you can cancel at any time and you are grandfathered into that rate for however long you use LoyalBlocks.

Comparing Benefits of Rewards Programs

OpenTable has captured the market for reservations, and many rewards programs offer loyalty programs as an additional feature to reservation-taking systems, local promotions, credit and debit card use, and other marketing strategies that often benefit large chain restaurants and large-capacity dining facilities.

LoyalBlocks offers distinct marketing and rewards incentives tailored to smaller restaurants, but the application has yet to gain as large a following as some of the other programs.

Loyalty programs often prove problematic for smaller restaurants that not only need to design effective programs but also convince their guests and prospective customers to use them. Restaurant patrons routinely forget to carry their customer loyalty cards, but nobody leaves the home or office without his or her smartphone. Customer loyalty cards only appeal to a small demographic, that don’t mind carrying around the card and have the mindfulness to actually use it.

With smartphones, LoyalBlocks rewards the actual act of loyalty of returning to the restaurant rather than adding the extra responsibility of remembering to bring the card. It pays off in many ways for merchants.

Tapping into mobile technology and storing information about purchases, coupons and customer preferences lets small or family-run operations understand their customers better and make better marketing decisions. LoyalBlocks participation help restaurateurs design worthwhile incentives, advertise loyalty programs and handle administrative duties with minimal disruption to regular restaurant operations.