Treat yourself to the most customizable loyalty program: iPuraskar

Loyalty programs have long been utilized by businesses, to attract and retain customers by offering exciting rewards, discounts, and other special incentives. They are an excellent means of offering value to the target group which encourages repeat business, in exchange for brand loyalty.

T7E designed iPuraskar with the same intent, to cater to the influencers in all industries where B2B loyalty programs are a requirement. It is a fully configurable loyalty suite that aims to meet a variety of business requirements, building advocacy with your influencers, customers and trade.

Just how configurable are we talking about? Let’s understand through the example of a leading Vehicle Refinishing brand we worked for, which came to us with a rich legacy of over 80 years.

The company sold their product— paints— in loose, which presented the problem of not being able to attach QR codes, along with the possible discrepancies in the primary and secondary sales.

What are these?

A primary sale is a sale made by the manufacturer to their retailer/distributor, which in this case, the paint shop. While a secondary sale is a sale made by the retailer to the painter.

The backdrop

At the outset, we would like to provide you with a brief overview of how loyalty programs are typically implemented in the industry. Nowadays, running a loyalty program is seen as a basic necessity for most companies, rather than a unique offering. As a result, most loyalty programs are executed simply by affixing a QR code or unique code on the products, which ensures seamless functioning and error-free program execution.

However, implementing a QR code or unique code mechanism on products is not an easy task, as it involves managing a considerable amount of logistics and requires a significant investment for a near-flawless execution. Furthermore, this method becomes obsolete when products are sold in loose quantities without the original packaging of a company, such as tints in the paint industry or other similar products– which was the precise challenge we encountered while working on a loyalty program for the aforementioned brand.

Therefore, we had to develop a unique approach that could help our client overcome these challenges and create a loyalty program that was both effective and feasible.

Key challenges

In addition to being unable to implement a unique code mechanism due to the product being sold in small quantities after being mixed, we encountered several other challenges.

One such challenge was the creation of a single colour shade that required multiple SKUs in varying quantities, each with its unique payout. This made the pay-out calculation process quite complex, as we had to account for each individual SKU and its corresponding payout.

Another challenge we faced was trying to get retailers to confirm the painter’s purchases without offering any additional incentives. This proved to be difficult, as many retailers were hesitant to purchase without some sort of added benefit.

Finally, we found that many of the painters we worked with were not tech-savvy.  And though we implemented an efficient digital tracking system, we had to simplify the payout earning and redemption process for the painters. We could not ask them to mention SKU details or collect a lot of information, keeping in mind their constraints.

Despite these challenges, we were able to overcome them through creative problem-solving and collaboration with our partners.

Our objective and solutions

After rigorous research and development, we decided to launch a loyalty program for the brand, with the following objectives:

• Every purchase was verified before allocating pay-out to painters.
• There was no discrepancy in primary and secondary sales, to ensure that the company did not lose money.
• Instant redemption was offered to the painters.

We wanted to ensure that the program was effective and fair and that all participants received their rewards in a timely and accurate manner. To achieve this, we offered the following solutions for our client:

• A retailer-led painter loyalty program was designed that empowered retailers to confirm purchases of painters before the payout got released. This power of being able to approve or reject the pay-out to painters enabled the retailers to recover credits from painters, empowering them, and becoming a source of motivation for the additional work that was assigned to them.
• An easy-to-use self-help loyalty application was designed for the painters, where the painter had to simply select the product or paint shade they purchased along with its quantity.  The complex calculation of SKUs used and their pay-out was taken care of in the backend.
• A retailer application and a painter application were designed that allowed users to see consumption patterns.
• An instant e-voucher redemption system was set up for the users.

The result

Overall, the loyalty program was a huge success, and it helped to solidify our position as a leader in the industry. Within the span of a year, we achieved the following results:

• App rating of 4.2
• 90%+ KYC verified users
• 80%+ Active users
• 5L+ Transactions
• 45L+ redemptions

These positive numbers are a glaring testimony to the amount and the quality of research T7E had conducted to narrow down the root of the problem: the tech-illiteracy of the painters and the QR-code handicap of the product.

We believe it was our market research that empowered us to keep our finger on the pulse of these obstacles, while our inter-team coordination and collaboration with the client allowed us to present a unique solution which met the painters where they were, along with being acutely customized for the company. A multi-layered win, we think.

That’s it from us for now. To know more about T7E’s latest endeavours, or the configurability of iPuraskar for your brand, reach out to us today.