Elisabeth Nebster
Jun 15, 20215 min
Updated: Jun 29, 2022
A general study by Oracle and CrowdTwist found that 71% of Gen X, 70% of Millennials, 63% of Baby Boomers, and 62% of Gen Z consider loyalty programs as a crucial landmark for choosing a brand. Yes, it's not a sin that every customer wants to receive personalized service and feel special.
Daily loyalty bonuses from retailers like Walmart, star rewards from Starbucks, or a birthday piece of cake from a nearby bakery. Well-integrated loyalty management systems (LMS) make such attentive behavior possible.
Sure, you can limit yourself to internal corporate usage. But why not launch its sale as a SaaS product, gaining an additional source of profit? In this case, multitenant architecture will be helpful.
XME.platform supports multi-tenancy. One of our clients needed the rapid development of a highly scalable workflow optimization system to launch it as a SaaS. Our team successfully implemented such an idea in a matter of months using XME. fast code platform.
As a result, users don't need to worry about data security. They can work safely, customize SaaS to fit their needs, and remain satisfied.
Take an authentication procedure as an example. If it can only happen through the login data entrance, what will happen if this feature fails? - You risk customer experience and loss of reputation. Your loyalty system should offer different ways of authentication: through social networks, email, or even through a phone message. A variety of options will reduce the likelihood of downtime.
You don't have to fix it forever, but you have to start somewhere. For this purpose, XME. platform contains ready-made product catalog templates, prices, and balances systems that allow you to make charges by a different logic, based on any client's activity.
Yes, goods/services purchase is the main engine here, but do not make it the only one. Shadow your clients. Let them benefit from walking in your brick-and-mortar store, contacting customer support, participating in promotions, etc. Reward your customers for each action and retain them in this way.
You may also like: Loyalty programs in Canada 2022 overview: paper coupons vs reward application. What's next?
When we told you to reward your customers for every action, we weren't kidding. Why don't you integrate with other businesses? Allow your customers to buy discounted flight tickets because they buy groceries in your supermarket. Allow them to order food delivery 20% cheaper, because they use your telecom services. Think about cooperation before development starts. Take care about flawless integrations with third-party systems. Expand your partnerships and encourage your audience.
What does the loyalty management program's development cycle look like? At first glance, everything is as usual. It consists of 4 stages:
Evaluation & Preparation
Development
Testing
Deployment
But from the inside, everything is not so simple. We are talking about complex product creation. It's hard to imagine a loyalty system's effectiveness without:
dozen of integrations with internal and third-party systems
user-friendly interface
services, like gamification or rewards programs
real-time data processing
omnichannel approach support
Building these components and providing such capabilities is the most time-consuming for businesses. It also requires attentive engineering work.
You have the opportunity to go through the thorns to the stars, developing from scratch. Or choose an easier but no less effective way - XME. fast code platform usage.
Let's look at what difficulties you may face in the first case and how the fast code platform will protect you from them.
#1 Evaluation & Preparation Stage
Find a skilled team experienced in loyalty program creation from scratch
Define an appropriate tech stack that directly affects future system's features and operation
Establish internal development processes
#2 Development Stage
Build all software components from scratch
High risk of critical human mistakes
Hard work on integration points creation. Engineers should ensure new loyalty management product interaction with product catalog, ERP, CRM, analytics, marketing, contact center, warehouse system, point of sales, international payment systems
#3 Testing Stage
The long period between the development start and prototype creation
Time-consuming testing process
Difficulties in prototype improving and arising necessity to create a new product in a short time
For a long time, management cannot check its hypothesis and predict the degree of investment success
#4 Deployment Stage
Potentially unsatisfactory level of integration with existing systems
Significant bugs missed by QA/AQA engineers may appear
High risk of practical product invalidity since no one has ever used something similar in natural market conditions
#1 Evaluation & Preparation Stage
The fast code platform environment, acting as an advanced low code solution. But it allows you to create a completely custom, independent product. Due to its properties, it eliminates the necessity for development from scratch.
You do not have to establish the general processes because half the work is already done.
XME.platform contains results of real experience reflected in ready-to-configure templates. Any developer can easily change them beyond recognition using a modern tech stack, like Node.Js, Electron, React, Node SerialPort, Node HID, Objection.Js, Knex.Js, Kubernetes, Docker, Kafka, TypeScript, NestJS, Jest, PostgreSQL, Redux, Redux Thunk, Semantic UI.
Here, you don't need to worry about expensive dream team selection or technology choosing. We have solved all the technical issues so that you can focus on software business logic.
#2 Development Stage
The fast code platform benefits allow you to avoid critical mistakes in your code that make the product completely unusable.
We also took care of the seamless loyalty management app's integration with other systems. Both the development environment and the future product will adapt flawlessly to any operating conditions.
Building 10+ points of integration, providing high scalability and real-time data transmission is possible and moderately difficult.
#3 Testing Stage
XME.platform will allow you to create a full-fledged prototype in 2-4 weeks after the development starts, depending on your idea. Thus, you insure yourself against failure by testing your idea for strength almost from the very project cycle.
Since it is hard to make critical code bugs, working with the fast code platform, the testing process will take place rather quickly.
After receiving the MVP testing results, you should not jump on the new product development. It is enough to improve the existing adaptable prototype.
#4 Deployment Stage
As seen, in the end, you will receive a loyalty management system flawlessly connected with internal and external software. Since you used a real corporate experience, a similar result is already successfully working somewhere.
Custom development from scratch is a great way to get a quality product. But all of us understand why a business doesn't hurry up to purchase it, and why the open source low code platforms market is mushrooming. It's all about speed and cost.
Development from scratch often takes years and requires constant investment. As a result, you can get a custom product when your business doesn't need it anymore.
XME.fast code platform eliminates these issues at the expense of its benefits. As seen, it allows you to get custom open-source software without risks, requiring a reasonable investment.
It's up to you what path to choose.