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Maria Rilo Zoo Diller case study

“I would never buy a cash register system without an integrated loyalty program”

Rilo Zoo is a pet shop in Jönköping, Sweden that was established 50 years ago. Owner Maria Quarnström has run the store for the past 10 years, being the third owner of the company. Rilo Zoo has 9 employees and an annual turnover of SEK 14 million (2022). It is a store with many regular and local customers. We interviewed Maria to hear about her transition to Diller at the start of 2023.

Why did you start a loyalty program?

I set up a program back in 2015, because I wanted to promote our loyal customers, those who chose to shop with us again and again. I wanted my customers to profit from being loyal and get something back as a thank you.

You switched over to Diller 6 months ago – why is that?

I switched the cash register system to Yabie, and Diller was a part of the POS. For me, it was essential to have a good loyalty program included in the POS, and that they were fully integrated with each other.

We had a transition with only Yabie before we started up with Diller. We were without a loyalty program for 6 months. We used excel and other things to keep track of members during that period, and it was incrediblydifficult and cumbersome. That half year of manual handling was terrible – I’ll never go back! It was anhuge difference not having a loyalty program. Our customers were disappointed because it didn’t work.

I was really pushing Yabie in the buying process, telling them that there had to be a loyalty program included in the POS. It was an absolute necessity. I would never buy a cash register system without an integrated loyalty program.

How was the Diller onboarding process?

It was really easy to set up the bonus program – everything was smooth and went very well. I had expected more problems and bugs at first, but everything went great.  I also got great help from Diller – excellent customer service!

The attitude from Support is always “no problem – we’ll fix this”. It’s fantastic, and I really feel like I’m getting the help I need.

What kind of results have you seen so far?

The biggest difference is from having a loyalty program to not having one. The half year of manual handling was terrible. What I like about our bonus program is that the customer’s bonus shows up as a kind of “lottery ticket”.

When we say they have a bonus to use, they’re so happy. It’s very, very positive. They say “I got a bonus from you again” and are so pleased.

In that sense, I don’t think that the bonus system is a direct reason for customers choosing us, but we are becoming much more “top of mind” to our customers, and become something positive to them. They chooseto  come to us instead of others, and I think the positivity pays off in this way.

Do you think Diller works well?

Yes, I think so. If there have been any problems, it is because we ourselves have done something wrong. It really works great. Very smooth!

Do you have examples of successful campaigns?

We mainly run a bonus program, and it works great. However, we did one SMS sendout – a campaign for everyone with a 300 kr unused bonus – and it was very well received. We should probably do this more, because we see that customers like it and we connect with them even when they are not in the store. We will also send out a market survey by SMS, where everyone who participates receives points as a thank you, or a gift when they shop.

What do you think of the collaboration with Diller?

Five stars! Support is there for me and it works superbly. Diller has first class customer service.

How do you recruit new members?

We do that at the checkout. We ask all customers if they would like to join. The majority accept, because they like our points-based system. All employees are good at recruiting new members, since it’s so easy. Just press a button and a text message will go out to new members for verification.

How did you train employees in using Diller at checkout?

We don’t have to teach them– everything is self-explanatory in the system. The only thing they need to learn is which of our store items are part of the bonus system. If you have a coupon card, for example, you don’t get a bonus.

How will you develop your loyalty program going forward?

We will have more SMS campaigns and probably also have more coupon cards, plus we’ll be sending out market research via SMS. We will basically be utilizing the system more in the future, because it is so easy to use.

Tone Tengesdal_Tengesdal Sport

“A loyalty program is the absolute best way to increase sales numbers”

Tengesdal Sport in Norway  was established as Egersund Maskinforretning already in 1918, and today the store is run by Tone Tengesdal Stavnheim, who is 4th generation. The company has over the years had great development and is now a modern and customer-friendly store, with a large selection of products and great customer service. Tengesdal Sport is part of the Stadion sport retail chain. The Diller team has interviewed Tone to learn about her experience since the starting up with a loyalty program in 2020.

Why did you decide to have a loyalty program?

We started up with Diller during covid, just before the summer of 2020. We just had to be more innovative in the new circumstances. In addition to setting up an online store, I thought that a loyaltyprogram would be a great way to reach customers, since they couldn’t get to the store.

I am really happy that we created a loyalty program at that time. It has resulted in us reaching our customers in a much better way than before. We meet them directly by SMS, which means that they drop by the store when we have promotions.

During covid, customers would never have noticed our campaigns if they hadn’t seen them on their mobile. When the store was open again, the would come and shop, or they would could shop in our online store.

What is the main benefit of a loyalty program?

A loyalty program is by far the more economic way to reach out to customers, compared to other types of advertising ormarketing.

You can use Diller as much as you need without worrying about the costs. Every store can afford to use this solution!

How do you use SMS to communicate with members?

We have chosen to use SMS messages for campaigns only, such as extra offers to members, so that we don’t “bother” them too much. We make sure to tell customers that they will only receive 1.2 SMS’es per month, and that these will contain promotions and member benefits.

We don’t want to be like the major nationwide chains that “flood” their customers with information. There’s going to be a real benefit coming from us, and our customers have understood this – and like it.

We get very good feedback from customers saying that our loyalty program is the best there is. This makes us both proud and happy!

How did you hear about Diller?

It was via the Stadion retain chain system, and I think it was mentioned at a trade show, or perhaps it came from a newsletter. We received many recommendations to start up with a webstore and loyalty program. We are indeed pleased that we decided to begin using Diller.

How did you get started with Diller?

I primarily had an information meeting with Charlotte at Diller. The onboarding went very well, and only stated that I said that I had one prerequisite; namely that I would get help with messaging and promotions in Diller. Charlotte said “sure, we’ll take care of it!” and she’s helped me send out every time. The assistance and support from Diller has been fantastic.

If the store isn’t quite busy enough or the weather makes it suitable to send out a particular promotion to members, I can easily request help to create a new promotion – and it happens right away!

Advertising must be planned 2 weeks in advance, but at that time the campaign may be completely irrelevant. With Diller we can turn around and act in no time! We can put out a campaign overnight. This is absolutely invaluable to us.

Do you see results on sales and revenue?

I think it’s perfectly fine to give discounts to our members, because we get many more, loyal customers who come by the store more often. If the customer looks at full-priced products, they earn a bonus, so it pays off anyway for the members. It also, however, provides us with good sales figures and margins at the end of the day.

We give new members a welcome coupon of 15%. We see that we often sell expensive products this way, and our customers are very satisfied and return to the store, because they feel that they have received great service and benefits.

How important is it that Diller is integrated into the POS and in the webstore?

This is absolutely essential.

How do you recruit new members?

We recruit new members in our web store and have posters around the store, but 90% of our new members come from employees recruiting in the cash register. We explain about the bonus program and promotions, as well as assure them that they won’t receive too much information from us.

Customers realize that there are many good benefits to be had, and it’s easy for us to get new members.

What would you recommend to the other Stadium stores?

Especially for small stores, and the stores located away from city centres, a loyalty program will be a fantastic way to reach customers.

We all need to carefully consider every dollar we spend these days, and Diller is the absolute best method to get more in-store sales.

Customers see our loyalty program purely as providing them with benefits and advantages. They are truly happy with it!

What do you think of the collaboration with Diller?

I think it works perfectly! Support is always quick to help out, and that’s important. I am really pleased with you!

 

Linestore storefront Shopify_1

A Shopify case study: How Linestore motivated customers to return to their Shopify store

Diller’s partnership with Shopify has brought enhanced loyalty and reward programs to the Shopify e-commerce platform. It provides a low-priced loyalty platform for all Shopify stores – to help store owners boost customer retention and increase revenue. Reward your customers, and they’ll reward you back!

In our new downloadable Shopify and Linestore customer case you can not only read about Linestore, their start – up with Diller in August 2022, and their General Managers’ results and experiences with loyalty programs previously. We also provide deeper insight into some of our other stores’ success with Diller and SMS – marketing, as well as the success of stores that utilizes the Diller Loyalty app for Shopify.

 Download as PDF

Image: Courtesy of Linestore

 

Linda Løkken Tegne Diller

“We can communicate with customers even after they have left the store”

The retail chain Tegne was founded 100 years ago with the store Christ. Engebretsen & Søn in Oslo, Norway. They started out as a paint store with a small artist paint department, but eventually became an institution for high-quality artist materials. Today Tegne has 5 stores in Norway, as well as the online store tegne.no.  The Diller team interviewed Linda Løkken, who is the General Manager of Tegne Bergen city center and store coordinator for all the stores.

First and foremost – congratulations on your 100th anniversary!

Thank you so much – it was a great celebration!

 Why did you start with a loyalty program?

We realized that there was a need to organize and systematize our discounts and customer benefits. Our stores have had various discounts, with programs that only worked in-store and not online. It was confusing for both customers and employees. Customers had to keep receipts to claim their benefits. In other words, it was too cumbersome.

We wanted to simplify and improve our program and make it easier to offer benefits. We spoke to our POS supplier, Extenda Retail, who recommended Diller. We realized that we had access to an integrated system that works in both stores and online.

What are the most important benefits of a loyalty program?

First and foremost we want to get a closer relationships with our customers, so that they become more loyal. A loyalty program simply gives us the opportunity to communicate, with the consent they give when becoming a member. It is a matter of trust that we send information that is relevant and useful. This is important to us.

The loyalty program provides the opportunity to communicate with the customers even after they have left the store, and the loyalty program connects the physical store and the online store.

What do you think of Diller’s functionality?

It’s fantastic to be able to dive into to product-level details, enabling us to provide the best possible customer service.  We have 30,000 product lines in our range, so it is essential to be able to hit the mark with our marketing. Diller really helps us in this regard.

With products ranging from finger paint for children and the best oil paint for artists, to knitting needles, it is of course a challenge to communicate effectively to everyone.

The purchase history of our customers makes it possible to target our communication, so that everyone experience that they receive relevant content, promotions and benefits from us.

What results have you seen so far?

We started at the beginning of 2022 and currently recruit an average of 1000 new members every month. We have around 15,000 members today and are very pleased with that. When we send campaigns by email and SMS, we experience increased traffic in the stores. We have customers who state that they came just because of a message they received, so we see a clear effect.

One example is when we had a late-night promotion in Bergen and sent out a text message to members the same afternoon. We got a high visit rate to the store because of that one SMS.

We have used various email systems for communicating with customers, but have experienced some challenges with these. Now we’ve moved to MailChimp, which is fully integrated with Diller, and this provides us with a completely different range of options. Among other things, we have started with segmentation, which is incredibly important for us in order to be able to send out relevant information.

Those who buy a paint product receive an email a few days later with information about courses, where a landing page from the email presents the teachers in our various painting courses.

How important is it that Diller is integrated with the cash register system?

It was absolutely crucial to our choice!

How important is it that Diller is integrated with the online store?

This is really what made us swap the loyalty program we had previously with Diller. Without the link to the online store, we would have postponed the launch or looked for other solutions.

How do you recruit new members?

We market the loyalty program on the online store tegne.no. There is information at several locations on the webpage and in the chat as a separate button – “ask us about the loyalty program” – plus at checkout in the webstore. We also encourage everyone who shops in the stores to become a member.

A popup message in the POS requesting the customer’s telephone number reminds employees to ask at checkout. The vast majority say yes to becoming a member and save money. We try to encourage them in with a 10% discount on their first purchase.

What do you think of the collaboration with Diller?

We get very good help from Knut in Diller!

An example of good customer support is that we have an employee who responded to the gender segmentation in the Diller solution. It was possible to select “Male”, “Female” or “Do not want to answer”.  My colleague pointed out that “non-binary” is the right 3rd choice, and Diller changed this to accommodate us. We find that Diller is both flexible and willing to join us into the future!

Tobias Tjørstad Holzweiler linestore Diller

“We want to be top of mind”

Linestore is Holzweiler’s multi-brand flagship store at Fornebu S outside Oslo. The famous architecture firm Snøhetta designed the exclusive 450 m² store, previously known as Holzweiler Multi Store. Linestore also has the online store linestore.no. The Holzweiler Group has shops in Oslo, Bærum, Stavanger, Bergen, and Copenhagen.

Why did you start a loyalty program?

The main reason is that we want to give something back to regular, loyal customers, while at the same time better understand customers’ purchasing patterns. It is key for us to be able to adjust the information we send to our members with their purchase history and preferences.

From my previous experience at NET-A-PORTER, we saw that as much as 90% of the revenue came from returning customers. We learned that a good relationship with loyal customers was incredibly important. My goal is for us to achieve something similar with Linestore.

Loyalty programs are very effective for luxury brands, because customers who shop a lot can earn a good bonus. We want to give members a chance to be rewarded well when they shop a lot and often with us.

The loyalty program will also be an incentive to head out to Fornebu S, which is located just outside Oslo. We have many regular customers locally, but we also want to attract customers from larger parts of the Oslo area.

How did you hear about Diller?

We were in talks with several providers of loyalty programs, but they were too extensive and had extremely high prices. It would have been difficult to calculate a sensible ROI on such an investment.

However, our POS provider Front Systems told us of an integrated solution also working with Shopify. We were then introduced to Diller.

We quickly saw that Diller as a very interesting solution, since we could easily segment by gender and age, which is an important feature for us. We also found that Diller is super easy to use, affordable in price, and that the system works great in both the cash register and our webstore.

How did you get started with Diller?

Holzweiler has used Front Systems since 2014, while the CEO and purchaser have used Front Systems from the very beginning in 2004. We have their POS system in all our shops. It’s a very good cash register system, and their online solution with login and control is awesome.  They also have RFID tags on products, so that we can scan the code at checkout. The web portal provides reports, history, and transactions.

After we had decided on Diller, we set up an onboarding meeting, and were quickly up and running. It was a very smooth and straightforward process. 

What do you see as the main advantages of loyalty program?

Undoubtably the most important is being able to reward loyal customers who shop regularly, so that they come back to our store instead of shopping with others.

There is a strong competition in the fashion industry, and we want good customers to get great benefits and be hence be motivated to return.

With a loyalty program we get to know the customer much better and can create relevant campaigns and content for them. This is really important. We avoid the mid-season sales and can reward those who choose us over time.

How do you recruit new members?

First we transferred the GDPR compliant customers from our database to Diller. We sent them an SMS and already over 200 customers have consented to becoming members, just after launching the program.

The most important job starts now, with recruiting new members. We register new members at checkout, and when we ask thme whether they want to join, no one really declines. It’s just important to remember to ask them! We will also put up a poster at the cash register to remind customers that we have a loyalty program with great benefits.

We give a 15% discount on the first purchase to new members. What’s interesting is that we can see directly that it leads to a larger shopping cart. We had a customer who ended up buying an item in two colors, because she thought it was such a good offer with the 15%.

What do you think of the collaboration with Diller?

Very, very good! It’s been really easy to set up, and the support from Diller is awesome.  I have worked quite a lot with online stores before, and the team at Diller provides good input all the way. I find that they are not “order recipients”, but rather advisors who work with us. They are solution-oriented and provide great recommendations.

What do you think of the collaboration with Front Systems?

It’s fantastic. We get good help from both Lars and Haakon and everyone at Support!

How important is it that Diller is integrated with the POS system?

It is simply alfa and omega, because what happens at the cash register is key. It is a very smooth process, both in the stores and online.

How important is it that Diller is integrated with the webstore?

It’s essential. The integration between Diller and Shopify is seamless and good. This is absolutely necessary for us.

For example, if we have a customer who has bought a gift for a family member, we can simply look up the customer and all the purchases will show, with sizes and. It enables us to provide good customer service. It’s also easy to give our customers recommendations based on previous purchases, and this often leads to additional sales.

What do you expect going forward?

We hope that we will take big steps in terms of revenue increase, and that we will have many active members. It is important that we spend enough time and resources to achieve our goals now from the start. We are very excited. Now it’s all about recruiting new members!

We believe that analyzing purchase data over time will become important, and that it is absolutely necessary to have good segmentation. We want to send SMS messages that are tailored to segments instead of campaigns on menswear to women and vice versa. An SMS from us should be relevant and interesting.

People are members everywhere, but we have something that is unique in our segment. We want to offer an exciting loyalty program to be a member of, which gives loyal customers great benefits.

We plan to run in-store events to showcase new products and collections, and for example let members shop 7-10 days in advance during our sales periods. Loyal members should also have access to in-demand items earlier than others.

How have you set up your loyalty program?

We have built up a bonus program with Gold/Silver/Bronze levels, so that we give back in the best possible way for different levels of purchases with us.

We want to do things a little differently. On Black Friday, for example, we do our own thing – no offers or discounts on everything, but rather  a good discount coupon for everyone who has become a member of the loyalty program since we launched it.

We also plan to run competitions, such as member X or Y getting a pair of free shoes. In the fashion industry there are very many players. We want to be top of mind!

What do you think about the combination of physical store and online store?

We have linestore.no webstore, and it is of course very important to make our product range easily available online.

At the same time we have great faith in the personal experience in-store, with good communication at the time of purchase. We have had the same part- and full time employees for 6-7 years, and it means a lot to us that our customers experience continuity. Customers sometimes just come to say hello. Over time it provides both good revenue, high conversion rates, and happy, loyal customers.

Our webstore went live just 3 weeks ago and we will be using the website actively to draw customers to our store. The webstore is therefore a virtual  “look book”.  We invest in marketing both the physical store, webstore, and loyalty program going forward, so that we get at great start of the program with many new members.

Olivenlunden Diller

“The Diller team made us feel very well taken care of”

Olivenlunden 1830 is a gastronomic specialty store for olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and culinary products from the Mediterranean. It is a nationwide chain with 13 stores in Norway. We interviewed Marketing Manager Lene Sagenes to learn about their experiences with the start-up of a new loyalty program.

Why did you start a loyalty program?

For many years we have had a non-digital loyalty program. We found it difficult to follow up and didn’t think it worked very well. We therefore needed to renew ourselves and get better control of our customer base.

We have always known that a good loyalty program is essential to be able to communicate with customers to a greater extent, and to be able to adapt the communication so that it is more relevant. It was long over due!

What made you make the decision to make the change?

I started working at Olivenlunden in March 2021, and then we began looking into it. We went into a process with multiple vendors to see who could help us.

We chose Diller because they were a good fit to our size in addition to the fact that the program has very good functionality. We focused on collaboration and consulting, because it’s important to work with someone who can help us in the process of building a really good loyalty program.

Several suppliers presented their solutions, but with some of them we would become a very small customer. With Diller, we felt very well taken care of. Diller had lots of good input and advice on how to help us.

What do you see as the main benefits of a loyalty program?

For us it is to be able to adapt the communication and make it more relevant. In our industry, competition is intensified, because now you even can get olive oil at the pharmacy and in many other places.

We see that there are competitors coming in several industries, and we need to do what we can to keep our loyal customers. We therefore want to reward those who shop with us, and with a loyalty program we can achieve exactly that.

In our stores we always let customers taste our products, because with us you will get an experience of a generous concept. The fact that we can now also reward the most loyal customers fits like a glove with the concept. We do what we can to stand out positively!

How important is it that Diller is integrated with the cash register?

It’s very important. We want as few systems as possible, and with the integration with PCKasse we felt confident in the process of introducing a loyalty platform.

.. and how important is it that Diller is integrated into the online store?

It is equally necessary that the loyalty program is fully integrated with the online store, which we have built on WooCommerce. We used to have an outdated website, but after we launched a new website just before Christmas in 2021, we look forward to taking full advantage of all the new systems and processes. Now the basics are in place, and we look forward to developing this further!

How do you recruit new members?

We mainly recruit members in stores. Every time someone shops, you’re asked to join. The website will eventually become an important recruitment channel for us as well.

In the past, we have given new members a welcome gift when they sign up, but we want to change the concept and are in the process of thinking about our new loyalty program for both the store and the online store. It should be a really good thing for customers to become a member of our loyalty program.

What kind of results have you seen so far?

You’re always excited before the launch of a new system. What immediately came to light when we moved to a digital loyalty program was that it was very well received by the stores, because it is so easy to use. That was the first thing we noticed, and it was a very good launch. We also saw that the employees became eager to recruit, and that the customers wanted to become members.

We have seen a tremendous increase in the number of new members per month since we switched to Diller. We already have over 20,000 members in our customer base, and we enlist 1,500-1,700 members per month without any special promotions or activities.

What we’ve done is compare the stores to track the number of members per store. In the beginning, there was a big difference between the best recruiters and those who did not have much focus on it. Now we see that all the stores are recruiting consistently well.

Our Digital Manager will spend a lot of time with follow-up and structure going forward. Segmentation, analysis, and custom communication are some of the keywords. One of the company’s most important goals this year is to develop the loyalty program.

Do you have examples of successful campaigns?

Recruiting new members has gone very well, and it gives us a good foundation for developing custom campaigns for our members.

We look forward to using SMS campaigns, as it is such an effective channel for communication and response. I see for myself that I respond very quickly when I receive SMS.

We also have good potential for in-store events, and we have done this a lot in the past. Then we invited good customers “over the counter”. Now we can do this in a much better way. For example, we can hold olive oil courses, balsamic courses or invite to relaunch products. Now through data analysis we can easily see who are our most loyal customers. Then we can invite exactly them to courses or pre-tasting and so on. This will be fantastically good going forward.

How did you hear about Diller?

It was through PCKasse and our checkout supplier Totall, where we received a recommendation for Diller. In addition, our Digital Manager Krissa had heard of Diller.

What do you think of your collaboration with Diller?

We find that the Diller team is very helpful and positive, and it only takes a few minutes from asking for something until we get an answer! It’s really good follow-up. We would like for Diller to be advisors in our further journey to develop the loyalty program, and we feel well taken care of.

What are your plans going forward?

This year the plan is to establish the new tools, further develop the loyalty program and the program we offer the members, as well as to reinforce the website. We want to optimize the work we have done so far. We have a good team in place and good tools, so this will be fun.

We at Olivenlunden want to get even more people to discover our products and to get our story out. It hasn’t come out clear enough. We work closely with our suppliers and manufacturers. We have a lot of nice things to talk about, and we want to be even more visible.

Funky Frozen Yogurt Diller

“With a loyalty platform, we have got more regular customers who shop more often”

Funky Frozen Yogurt is a Norwegian ice cream chain with 22 stores in shopping malls across the country. We interviewed District and Marketing Manager Ida Marie Juliussen to learn about their experiences with the Diller loyalty platform after the setup in August 2021.

Why did you start with a loyalty program?

I had for a long time thought that we should set up a program to get more loyal customers. We wanted to reach more people in an easier and better way. We have a vision to be that little extra for customers – we want to give them a “funky” experience. With a loyalty program you get a nice dialogue that extends and reinforces this atmosphere.

When we realized that we could get a loyalty platform that is fully integrated into our checkout system, we wanted to try it out. It was also important that it was easy to use, just using customer’s the mobile number.

How did you get started with Diller?

We first started out with two pilot stores in August 2021. We tested a welcome coupon with a 50% discount on first purchase for new members. In addition, we offered digital stamp cards to members, where they get a 50% discount on every ten purchase. It worked great, so in November ´21 we launched the loyalty program for all of our 22 stores.

What kind of results have you seen so far?

People use their stamp cards every day, and we’ve got a lot of new, regular customers. Since November, we have recruited over 11,000 new members, and we are incredibly pleased with that.

We see that our welcome coupon and digital stamp cards work absolutely brilliantly!

How do you recruit new members?

We’ve got an extremely high number of new members in a short period of time. We couldn’t get off to a better start. We have had internal referral competitions between the stores, and this brings out the competitive instinct in a good way. Over a 3-month period, the three stores that register the most members receive prizes. It builds culture and is a lot of fun.

We register new members in stores, either by providing mobile numbers or scanning a QR code. It is incredibly easy for us and for our customers. And especially important, it’s a quick and easy process.

Do you see results on sales and sales?

With the loyalty program we have got more regular customers who shop more often. This means good potential for upsell of additional products, and thus higher turnover and better margins. We are very pleased with that.

How did you train employees to use Diller?

It was very easy for store managers and employees to learn how the loyalty platform works. We sent out the manual from Diller to all the store managers, and there were almost no questions – our employees found it easy to understand.

It took no short time to get started after we had sent out the information and introduced the member recruitment competitions.

How did you hear about Diller?

Stian Aaserud of Com2Gether, our PCK cash register provider, introduced Diller to our CEO. He passed it on to me, and I was very happy, because I had wanted a loyalty program for a long time. I was introduced to Charlotte Stallemo in Diller, and she gave a video tutorial for 30 min. After that, we hust started with the program!

What do you think of your collaboration with Diller?

It’s great! I would like to highlight fantastic customer service and follow-up, which made it so easy for us to launch the program. I just have to praise Charlotte, who’s my contact at Diller. When I have any questions, I get a response within a few minutes. It’s been incredibly helpful to me.

For example, I mentioned to Charlotte that it would be useful with QR code for recruiting new members. She brought it up with the Development department, and a few weeks later it was arranged. It’s really good when you can have a dialogue like that. Then we were able to measure results per store with QR functionality.

Do you have examples of successful campaigns?

What has worked superbly is digital stamp cards. We have different cards, and people use them every day. Customers are also satisfied with the welcome coupon. Not many people have opted out, only about 40 people. It tells us that the program works.

We have also tried to send SMS on campaign days and have noticed a clear effect of it. We have only done this once so far, but SMS campaigns are now included in our marketing plan. We’ll be testing different campaigns going forward so we can measure performance.

It is very easy to get members, and we know that there is so much more that we can do to make members even more satisfied and loyal. I am incredibly satisfied that it is as easy as just entering the mobile number.

We haven’t started segmenting our membership base or targeted campaigns yet, but we look forward to exploring and developing this in the future.

What do you see as the main benefits of a loyalty platform?

It is that we get more loyal customers, and that we get more new customers. We can communicate in a new way, not just in the store. We reach our members when they’re at home or on the go.

With a loyalty program, it’s also easier to get the customer back in the store – they have extra good reason to come back. We see that club only gives us many opportunities to have targeted promotions.

How important is it that Diller is integrated into the cash register?

Very important, because it makes everything so much easier for us!

Should the loyalty program be integrated with an online store in the long term?

We do not have an online store today, but we are working on creating an order page that is fully integrated into the checkout, where you can also pay with payment provider Vipps. We think it will be a great solution for our customers and look forward to it being ready. It will also be a good way to recruit new members to the loyalty platform, and not least good for our customers becoming even more pre-happy and loyal.

What are your plans going forward?

Our goal is to become the world’s largest ice cream chain! We plan to open stores in London in 2025, and we are constantly looking for new, good locations in Norway.

With the new concept we have developed, we will create that little extra for our customers every day so that they get an experience with us – not just a product. Funky should be associated with positivity and a good atmosphere!

What’s it like working at Funky Frozen Yogurt?

We have a lot of young people employed by us, and we are often their first employer. It is important for us to invest in young people and help them move on to their next job.

I myself have held many job roles in the company, from joining the company as a part-time employee when I studied marketing to moving into a full-time position, and later becoming a Store Manager, District Manager, and now Marketing Manager.

We are very concerned about having a good working environment. It should be a good experience to be employed with us.

“The goal is for the loyalty program to be the “icing on the cake” for our customers”

PetXL is a Norwegian retail chain that offers a complete range of equipment and services to pet owners. There are PetXL warehouses in Stavanger, Kristiansand, Tønsberg, Ålesund and Haugesund, “Hund som Hobby” in Trondheim and “Oslo Dyrebutikk” in Oslo, in addition to 3 online stores. The company is growing rapidly and opens new warehouses in Vestby and Skien during 2021/2022. The Diller team interviewed Marketing Manager Jon Grøteig Andersen at PetXL to learn about their experience after starting using the Diller loyalty platform in September 2021.

Why did you start with a loyalty program?

Our main goal was to create a better customer experience. We wanted it to be easier than it was before, when we had paper coupon cards, and we wanted to get closer to our customers. We also wished to make it easier for our employees to have good customer dialogue in the store. With Diller, the customer just enters their phone number at checkout, and employees easily register new members or see purchase history and interests of existing members. It works great and provides a good customer experience.

What made you decide to switch to the Diller platform?

We have known for a long time that it is necessary to have a good loyalty program. We had a program before as well, but Diller has a much better recruitment system, and is very intuitive and easy to use. The old system had no integration to our cash register, so we decided to switch to Diller which is fully integrated with the checkout.

When we investigated whether Diller was right for us, I recognized the same features from loyalty programs I personally am a member of and that I believe are good. Diller has all the features that make me stay loyal to a company or store.

How did you hear about Diller?

We learned about Diller both through our own web searches and via Pål Bakken in ExtendaRetail. They deliver the ExtendaGO POS system that we use. We got a demonstration of Diller and decided to switch to a new loyalty platform and transfer the membership base, so that all existing members had the opportunity to join our new loyalty program.

What kind of results have you seen so far?

Already after only 1 month of running the new platform, we see that average sales are significantly higher for members compared to non-members. We also see that recruitment of new members in the store is going very well – above all expectations!

We started on September 21st 2021, and during the nine days of September we recruited 2080 new members. And to this day, on October 18th, we have recruited 5050 new members in October alone. We estimate that we get more new members in October with Diller than we recruited in total from October 2019 to September 2021. This is possible because it is so easy for employees to handle registration of new members at checkout. Everyone who shops with us gets asked if they want to join the loyalty program, and the employees tells them that they get a 10% welcome coupon, digital coupon cards, and other great benefits as a member.

We experience that sales and margins are higher despite providing an initial 10% discount. The customers tend to put a little extra in the shopping cart to make the most of the discount.

What are your goals for the loyalty program?

We aim to reach 100,000 new members within 1 year – and we believe that is a rather careful estimate. We open new stores in Vestby and Skien over the next few months, so there is potential for a good increase in the membership base.

The goal is for the loyalty program to be the “icing on the cake” for our customers, so that they wish to continue shopping with us.

What will you do going forward to keep the high recruitment rate?

We have several measures in progress. Today we have all employees ask customers at checkout if they want to become a member. Employees inform about the welcome gift of 10%, about digital coupon cards, and that members get offers before others in weekly newsletters. In addition to this, we are going to put up posters with QR codes in the stores, so that customers can register themselves before they get to the cash register. We’re also going to set up displays with member benefits in all of our warehouses, and seeing that some stores and employees are “super recruiters,” we’re also going to share more information between warehouses.

What do you think about the opportunities in segmenting the member base?

We see great potential to use segmentation to benefit our customers. Our customers belong to very different groups, and communicating to for example dog owners is completely different from reptile owners. Member segmentation help us navigate better to make sure we communicate in a good way to all our customers.

Today we divide members into different segments. First of all, we categorize members to their preferred store and what kind of pets they have. Next, we segment on interests, such as hunting, breeding, family with pets, hiking & outdoors, pet shows, agility, or feeding. Diller offers “multi choice” opportunity, which is great, because many multiple pets and interests.

Because of the segmentation, we can add many more tailormade member benefits into our program, such as invitation to free dog training for loyal members who have accumulated a certain bonus level.

What vision do you have for PetXL as a company?

We want to be the ultimate destination for pet owners. With us, you get everything you need for your pet, whether it’s products in the store, veterinary services, dog grooming or rehabilitation. All these services and products are to be made available to the pet owners in a simple and intuitive way, so that they get a great overall experience when shopping. With the loyalty program as the “icing on the cake”, it really pays off to shop with us. Loyal customers get great customized benefits and offers. We also want to build communities for like-minded pet owners with common interests.

How important is it that Diller is integrated with the cash register?

That was a decisive factor. It was essential with good integration between the POS and loyalty program. The alternative would be far too cumbersome, and we only want seamless, fully integrated solutions.

What do you think of your collaboration with Diller?

Very good! Knut Ole Hauge in Diller has been extremely good at following us up along the way, and we are very pleased with that.

How did you get started, and what do you envis imagine going forward?

It was important that the loyalty program had good benefits from the start, with a welcome coupon and digital coupon cards for different pet owners. We plan to have bonus points systems and different membership levels coming up, because this will create an even better loyalty program for our members.

Diller is really a marketing platform more than just a loyalty program, and we are very much looking forward to giving our customers great experiences in our stores. Even better segmentation and custom advantages should benefit our members going forward!

 

Diller®. All you need in a loyalty program – easy, affordable and profitable

The Diller® loyalty platform helps small and medium-sized businesses increase their competitiveness by getting customers to shop more, and more often. This saves costs and increases the lifetime value.

Diller® is a smart solution for companies that do not have a large marketing budgets, but still want to increase sales. Marketing is expensive, and a loyalty program offers huge savings because you do not spend precious funds getting new customers into the store and webshop.

With a good loyalty program, you can convert single sales to repeat sales and get much better customer dialogue.

Cosmetic retail chain with a fast-growing loyalty program

Fredrik & Louisa is a Norwegian nationwide cosmetic retailer with 50 stores from Kirkenes to Kristiansand, as well as an online store. The first Fredrik & Louisa store was founded in Oslo in 1984, and they sell luxury products from the beauty industry’s leading brands. The Diller team interviewed Stine Handley, Head of Administration at Fredrik & Louisa, to learn about their experience with moving to the Diller loyalty platform in April 2021.

Why did you start with a loyalty program?

First and foremost, we wanted to build loyalty and get closer to our customers, and also to help make it a more conscious decision which cosmetic store a customer end up visiting. We wanted to make a difference and give customers good reasons to come to us. We were very clear about the importance of a good loyalty program – we simply saw the need.

Our goal is to create shopping experiences that hopefully exceed the expectations of our customers. We try to run our loyalty program in a way that makes our customers feel it is both enjoyable and useful to be a member.

The loyalty program is a marketing platform that is part of our marketing budget. The communication to club members via SMS and email reaches customers more directly than many other marketing channels. It is cost effective and works well for us.

What kind of results have you seen so far?

We see good results from the loyalty program. The immediate feedback comes from employees in the store, who notice that customers enter the stores just 5-10 minutes after we send out an SMS. These SMS messages have a big effect. We believe that SMS is the best channel for reaching members, since it is personal and direct. We make sure to have a good mix of email newsletters and promotions by SMS, so that customers don’t get too many inquiries from us, because we don’t want to “bother” them.

We send SMS campaigns every month with a good offer and a simple message. We see that this is effective, and that customers are responding by visiting our stores and shopping with us.

Do you have examples of successful campaigns?

Campaigns with a 30% discount on an optional item or category campaigns with for example a good skincare offer are always very successful. Once you get the customer into the store, there will often be upsell opportunities of other items, so we see that such promotions pay off in a good way.

We also believe that there may be good potential in inviting loyal customers at a certain bonus level to e.g. skincare events in the store or other relevant and exclusive events. It definitely doesn’t always have to be discounts that drive loyalty. A combination of discounts and exclusive events is quite effective. We look forward to doing more of this going forward.

How important is it that Diller is integrated with the POS / cash register?

It was simply essential!

What do you think of the cooperation between you, Diller and Dekon?

Diller was recommended to us by Fredrik Halvorsen in Dekon,which is our supplier of cash register systems. It’s been an excellent collaboration between the parties. In particular, I’d like to mention Knut Ole Hauge in Diller, who has been phenomenal in assisting us through the process.

How did you get started —and how do you recruit new club members?

We started with Diller in April 2021 and we are very pleased with the recruitment of new members to the loyalty program. We had 85,000 members from our previous loyalty member database when we started, and after only six months we have doubled this to 170,000 customers in our membership base.

Recruitment of new members takes place in our stores, and all employees ask customers if they want to become a member. They mention the welcome coupon, which is a 30% discount on an optional item, and that members save 2.5% bonus every time they shop. We see that this works really well.

What do you think about the potential of segmenting the member base?

We believe that it’s important and that it will enable us to create really good concepts and benefits for our members. We look forward to addressing this more going forward. Both segmentation on demographics and interests, but also campaigns based on purchase history are interesting. For example, it might be good to have campaigns towards non-active customers with a good offer to encourage a revisit to their local store.

What is your vision for the loyalty program going forward?

Today’s consumers aren’t necessarily super loyal, so it’s important to have a loyalty program that makes them enjoy shopping with us. We always have great offers, but we also try to create good shopping experiences. If a customer leaves the store with a bag full of products, it is a happy and satisfied customer who has had a good customer experience.

We believe that we will have around 250,000 members by next year, and it is more important to us that we have active customers than to have as many members as possible. We look forward to developing the loyalty program, to make sure that it’s an important part of creating these great shopping experiences.

 

Diller®. All you need in a loyalty program – easy, affordable and profitable

The Diller® loyalty platform helps small and medium-sized businesses increase their competitiveness by getting customers to shop more, and more often. This saves costs and increases the lifetime value.

Diller® is a smart solution for companies that do not have a large marketing budgets, but still want to increase sales. Marketing is expensive, and a loyalty program offers huge savings because you do not spend precious funds getting new customers into the store and webshop.

With a good loyalty program, you can convert single sales to repeat sales and get much better customer dialogue.