A few months ago I earned coupons worth a few bucks on Aliexpress. I seldom shop on aliexpress except for phones and electronics in general and one doesn't buy those regularly but clothes are a much different story as one will always see wearables they love. I shop for clothes on a local website known as Jumia mostly due to speed in delivery and taste soothing to my locale. I did stumble on a lovely jacket I would definitely have purchased if only I could swap my aliexpress coupons for Jumia coupon codes of similar value or value based on exchange rates sadly that wasn't possible as at the time but the future has a different story to tell, this and a lot more is possible on loyalty programs thanks to Qiibee and the blockchain.
Let us Talk About Loyalty Programs
Before we talk about loyalty programs, one might ask what exactly is customer loyalty? customer loyalty is simply the willingness of a customer to patronize a brand time and time again due to excellent customer service, value for money or incentives posed by such transactions.
From the above definition of customer loyalty, we can simply conclude that loyalty programs are reward programs offered by brands to their loyal customers, might be in form of early access, bonuses, coupons, price slashes, points etc.
Studies show that loyal customers bring in more revenue than first time or one time customers and loyalty programs are a sure way to convert first time or one time customers to loyal customers. A little stat to drive home the point, according to a study conducted by technology advise, 82.4% of customers said they would rather patronize brands that had some kind of loyalty program. According to Bondbrandloyalty.com, 73% of customers are most likely to recommend brands with tested loyalty programs and 75% of companies in the US generate profit with their loyalty programs.
The loyalty management market is estimated to reach $4 billion by the year 2020, this estimate excludes the value of the points, coupons or gift cards being given out in loyalty programs. But is it all rosy in this sector? are the brands and customers satisfied with the current state of loyalty programs?
The Problems
On the side of the brands, loyalty programs are pretty expensive ventures and it is not guaranteed that new customers will be attracted to a brand as a result of loyalty programs.
A lot of times, customers receive points but hardly redeem such points. It is estimated that $100 billion in points go unredeemed. This shows a low level of engagement by the customers and brands have to make their programs more effective so as to drive customer activity.
It is also worthy of note that there are operational risks and inefficiencies involved when running loyalty programs as brands have to hold a large amount of customer data and the requirements for data management can be very complicated.
On the side of the customers, The loyalty market is a highly fragmented one with a vast number of loyalty programs. This makes picking suitable programs and Achilles hill for customers.
Secondly, loyalty programs restrict their customers to their brands alone by not offering any medium of exchange, which means that customers can only make use of collected points in a particular brands environment and have no real value away from the brand context.
The Solution: qiibee
qiibee is a platform that helps brands run their loyalty programs on the blockchain. qiibee started out in 2015 with an off-chain app which integrated 900 brands, 100k active users, 6M customer activities and 35M datasets where created. This shows they have a lot of experience in the loyalty sector knowing exactly what brands and customers want.
For Brands
qiibee offers a plug and play system where brands connect to qiibee and launch their tokens but remain in control of customer interactions.
qiibee helps brands achieve higher levels of engagement because customers are interested in the value of brand tokens, a fluctuation in fiat value of such tokens will make them hold for longer periods hence keeping them engaged.
Since tokens will have real value, brands will not have to worry about the tokens they give out hence helping them eliminate liabilities on their balance sheet
qiibee will enable brands reduce the cost of setting up loyalty problems and security since the customers will be responsible for their wallets.
For Customers
Customers have access to all their tokens in one place, a quick glance at the qiibee app can give information on all loyalty tokens a customer has earned and their value.
with qiibee customers now have the ability to exchange tokens across brands just like its done with cryptocurrencies and trade them as they wish. That means that Mr mike who has earned tokens purchasing on a drug store can exchange them for a plumbing store token enabling him to shop for plumbing supplies.
Tokens have real value which means profit for the customers, customers can trade loyalty points for fiat or cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, amazing.
Since everything is on the blockchain, security and integrity are guaranteed at high levels.
For details on how qiibee will provide these solutions, technical details and how brands can set up their loyalty programs, I would recommend the qiibee whitepaper.
The qiibee App
For me, the qiibee app is the best part from a customer perspective. It is the gateway through which customers can access the qiibee platform. On the qiibee app, a customer is required to create a single wallet which will manage all brand tokens collected. It doesn't matter if the user began by using brand apps. Another interesting thing about this app is that customers have an overview section where all loyalty tokens earned can be displayed and interacted with, they can exchange their tokens with other qiibee users giving them more control over their loyalty programs.
For more information on the mobile app, please see page 17 of the qiibee whitepaper.
Personal Experience and Opinion
In the first paragraph of this blog post, I shared a personal experience and up till this moment, I have been unable to use those coupons because I have no real need of them but I hope I do soon. Let us imagine a scenario where the aliexpress website was connected to the qiibee ecosystem, I would simply trade those coupons for some qbx(qiibee tokens). It would not matter if Jumia integrates with qiibee or not but if they do I simple exchange for their coupon codes and if they don't I exchange my qbx for fiat then go ahead to purchase that lovely jacket or better still go out with some friends(lol). This would keep me shopping more just to earn loyalty points I could use to do more shopping, creating a win-win situation for me (customer) and my choice brands.
The qiibee Team
The qiibee team is made up of seasoned professionals in diverse fields with a lot of experience which has helped raise my confidence that the qiibee project will attain fruition. please visit the qibee website for more information on this team.
References
qiibee whitepaper
Bond brand loyalty
Essential customer loyalty statistics 2017
More Information & Resources
qiibee website
qiibee whitepaper
qiibee facebook
qiibee twitter
qiibee medium
Please be advised that this is not a financial advise but an entry into the qiibee original writing contest and only reflects my position on the subject matter.
Link to contest post
qiibee2018