Digital Loyalty

Customer loyalty can be gained at the press of a button by Sergiusz Prokurat An increasing number of companies bet on quality, and not quantity when it comes to target clients. High-value clients consider a given producer as trustworthy and are ready to pay more for his products. In exchange, the seller should do everything to maintain this situation for as long as possible. This is the aim of loyalty programs where people have cards for collecting stamps or points awarded for each purchase. “We help change the relationship between vendor and client, turning it into a friendship,” said Adam Zajdzik and Tomasz Bucholc, the founders of Kekemeke, a smartphone app. When entering the headquarters of Kekemeke in the Warsaw district of Żoliborz, you can’t avoid the feeling that this is what a real start-up looks like. A relaxed atmosphere prevails in the office, not the typical corporate scene. The start-up’s owners, Adam Zajdzik and Tomasz Bucholc, are former corporate employees who decided to leave their jobs. “We saw the poor quality of customer service, how rarely companies think about client-users – in spite of fairly good intentions. We wanted to do something different, our own project, on our own terms,” they said. No more rudeness The idea behind Kekemeke was born after many outings to restaurants and shops. “We saw that people are rude, they don’t greet each other or say hello,” Zajdzik pointed out. “I was once at a grocery store and was slapped on the hand by the cashier. I wanted to pay with my paypass card and placed it over the reader too quickly. The vendor reprimanded me with her hand. I heard, ‘where are you putting that hand?’ A century or so ago, customer service looked different. Back then a client who entered a local shop immediately received a few articles of clothing in his size and favorite color, because the vendor knew what he wore and even knew his name. This changed when socialism was imposed on the country. The quality of customer service ceased to be important. We are helping to change that,” Bucholc added. An individual approach to a client is the way to succeed for small companies. Gary Vaynerchuk, the author of the book “Thank You Economy,” agrees with this statement. The writer describes how he transformed a local family business into a flourishing internet store with wine (from $3 million to $45 million annual profits in 8 years). It was a special way of treating clients, coupled with individual relationships with the customers, which helped develop the business to such a large scale and lead Vaynerchuk to become a respected customer service advisor. This is why the Kekemeke team also writes a blog called uprzejmoscstosowana.pl (“politeness in practice”), which is full of content on adequate customer relations. The blog is filled with interviews and industry statistical data, which would otherwise be difficult to find. Faster, Simpler At Kekemeke, there are currently 17 people working on developing the app. But how does it actually work? Simply put, in restaurants in which a client usually eats, he or she can collect stamps, and then exchange them for gifts. For example, after accumulating five stamps, the client can receive a free drink. The user function is very simple: install Kekemeke, add one’s favorite places to the list and during the next purchase ask the staff for a digital stamp. The client will be asked to hand their phone over to the waiter or seller, who will introduce a PIN code in 3-4 seconds. Time is of the essence – the staff of a small restaurant or cafe is very busy. Most revenue is generated by returning customers. This is in line with the Pareto rule: 20 percent of clients generate 80 percent of revenue. Kekemeke allows businesses to bond with the clients that visit them often. Some people don’t want to use loyalty programs with stickers or cards because they lose them or leave them at home. Meanwhile, clients always have their phone with them. The idea of handing over your phone is very controversial. “Our phone is one of our most private belongings,” said Bucholc. It turns out that handing your phone over to the vendor minimizes the time required to receive the points and is a unique interaction in and of itself. Handing over your phone is a gesture of trust, even greater than in the case of a payment card – your phone is your personal assistant, it contains your entire life. Therefore, the Kekemeke app makes the loyalty process more efficient and takes the client-business relationship to the next level. The entire process creates relationships. “Isn’t it great, when the owner of a restaurant approaches you and thanks you for being his returning customer?” Creating a lasting relationship Kekemeke can currently be used with a few hundred businesses all over Poland, out of which the majority (over 200) are [caption id="attachment_58362" align="alignright" width="300"] (L-R) Adam Zajdzik and Tomasz Bucholc, creators of Kekemeke[/caption] available in Warsaw according to Zajdzik and Bucholc. In each of these places, 20-30 percent of the clients develop very strong loyalty thanks to the stamps they accumulate, and the average bill of these people increases within a couple of months by 60 percent, this coupled with a twofold increase in the frequency of their visits. “For business owners this translates into a revenue increase of 5-12 percent,” stated Bucholc. The owners have experience in the field. Kekemeke acquired indispensable investors – Protos Venture Capital, made up of experienced professionals, who previously worked on projects such as Niania.pl, Goldenline.pl and Point Nine Capital. There is a growing number of smartphone users and more clients can accumulate stamps or points for their loyalty with the help of an app. The clients who use Kekemeke have accumulated to date over 215,000 stamps. Popularity of mobile loyalty programs is bound to rise.