When have you last used your plastic loyalty card? With loyalty schemes moving to apps, and buying patterns becoming a sought-after currency in consumer data management, loyalty programmes have to leave outdated hard-copy solutions behind. The time is ripe for more innovative, flexible, and rewarding loyalty schemes, argues Gabriele Giancola (pictured below), CEO and founder, qiibee,  in this exclusive Q&A with RetailTechNews.

RetailTechNews: As a bit of background, can you tell us how qiibee got started?

Gabriele Giancola, CEO & Founder, qiibee

Gabriele Giancola: The loyalty system market faces major challenges, from high fragmentation and operational inefficiencies, to concerns with centralisation and data ownership. By creating a loyalty platform and a developer interface, we not only provide organisations and brands with the opportunity to tokenise their own applications, but to also revolutionise the outdated market.

With these issues in mind, qiibee started its journey in the loyalty market by building a multi-branded and multi-activity loyalty programme, which brands could use to reward their users for activities such as shopping or creating and engaging with content. This prototype was launched in late 2016, with a Swiss user base of 100,000, making up approximately 1% of all Swiss internet users. Furthermore, qiibee had the chance to work with more than 900 local, national, and international brands.

Not only did we build an impressive user base and establish valuable relationships with companies, but we also came to the conclusion that we were not fully solving the challenges faced by the loyalty sector. We believe that loyalty programme owners, companies, or developers should have the freedom to build a bespoke application that meets their needs, while not concerning themselves with the integration of blockchain technology and tokenisation.

Will Blockchain technology intimidate the average consumer and even daunt smaller businesses?

The beauty of the qiibee loyalty ecosystem is that business owners, or marketing managers, don’t need to be experts in how the blockchain technology that powers the ecosystem works. Brands can simply integrate their loyalty programmes and, from there, have immediate access to the multiple customers within the ecosystem.

Just like businesses, consumers will not be aware that they are even using blockchain technology. Similar to the likes of Facebook or Twitter, users don’t need to know how Facebook or Twitter operate, they just need to know how to navigate and interact on the platform. The qiibee-wallet will be extremely user-friendly and will have a clear, streamlined interface so that your everyday consumer can participate and benefit from the platform.

With Amazon’s Prime membership having become an all-encompassing beast of a loyalty scheme that gives access to books, music, TV, photo storage, and next-day delivery, how will qiibee compete?

Amazon has most definitely pushed the boundaries when it comes to innovation and customer service, and are more or less the trailblazers who set the benchmark, whilst driving the industry forward. In my eyes, we do not see Amazon Prime as a competitor, but more like a business that could potentially integrate their loyalty programme onto the qiibee platform and join our budding ecosystem.

How can a business best measure the effectiveness of a loyalty rewards programme?

There are some basic indicators that can be used in order to measure how useful a certain loyalty programme is, such as the Net Promoter Score (how many of your customers would recommend your brand to their network), the amount of reviews produced by existing customers versus the amount of revenue received from new customers, the lifetime value per customer, and the customer retention rate. For example, a 5% increase in customer retention can lead to a 25-100% increase in profit for your organisation, reducing customer defections by 10%, and profitability of a credit card company rose by over 120%.

Why is blockchain believed to be the future of loyalty programmes?

There is a constant underlying risk that data associated with loyalty programmes could be attacked or manipulated. If this data is decentralised and stored on the blockchain, companies can remove the majority of costs associated with management and security of data and, additionally, they decrease the risk of attack and manipulation completely. Thus, the blockchain not only cuts away a central data authority, but saves these companies a lot of capital.

Do you think struggling consumer retail brands and hotel brands could leverage cryptocurrencies to renew their consumer appeal?

Of course, cryptocurrencies provide an opportunity to attract a lot of new customers and will be even more attractive as the acceptance of cryptocurrencies continuous to grow and becomes more mainstream. Nowadays, if struggling brands reward their loyal customers with points and they, unfortunately, go bankrupt, customers lose all of their points and receive nothing. On the other hand, if struggling brands reward customers with cryptocurrencies, and provide them with real value, customers can then exchange their cryptocurrencies into everyday fiat or alternative digital currencies. Summed up – yes, retail and hotel brands can most definitely leverage cryptocurrencies to renew their consumer appeal by attracting new customers and, in turn, safeguard customers with fewer risks.