Creative Gardens launches new loyalty app
Creative Gardens, based in Northern-Ireland, launched its’ first loyalty app this week. The app allows Club Cardholders to access their coupons and receipts instantly and will enhance the shopping experience. Garden Connect developed the app, which is integrated with the POS system, OpSuite provided by Davidson Richards.
Every Club Cardholder can log in into the app. “We’ve made the sign-in process as easy as possible to allow every customer to log in” explains Sjors Hemmen, business developer at Garden Connect.
Post based coupon scheme
Philip Gass, director of Creative Gardens, explains why they decided to develop an app: “We’ve operated a postal based coupon scheme for over 25 years and felt it was time to use technology to assist our club members. It was important to us that the process is quick and simple and that the coupons look familiar to our members, even if they are on a phone screen.”
According to Philip, the postal vouchers won’t be abandoned in the short term: “We know many people don’t have smartphones and don’t want to know about App stores and logins! The best thing about this app is that it is fully integrated and the same personalised coupons will be available via either post or app to our members, giving them the choice which they prefer to use. Of course, the speed at which we can issue a digital coupon means we will be able to offer additional offers to app users.”
My Club Card
The Club Card plays a central role in the customer experience: “The app focuses on the Club Cardholders of Creative Gardens and offers benefits to their most loyal customers. The credit on the Club Card as well as all receipts of recent purchases can be found on the app.” tells Sjors Hemmen.
Customers can also find a breakdown of their credit on the app: “Customer service receives questions every day about the card credit. Having all the info and changes updated on the app in real-time will save a lot of time.”
Personal coupons
Creative Gardens is well-known for its personal coupons. “Every Club Cardholder regularly gets personal coupons by post. That’s a time consuming and expensive process for us. Even more important, some customers might lose their coupons or maybe haven’t updated their contact details so they will miss out.”
The app is integrated with OpSuite and coupons can be pushed instantly. Sjors Hemmen explains the benefits of this: “The real-time integration with OpSuite assures all customers will have their Cash and Promotional coupons on their phone, ready to use in-store. Scanning a coupon is as easy from a mobile phone as it is from a printed paper. All coupons are unique so you can only redeem them once. That is the benefit of an integrated solution.”
Adding extra coupons is also no problem: “Imagine you want to boost footfall during the weekend. You can push out a coupon instantly which is only valid during that weekend. The expiry date is shown on the app so customers know they have to pay a visit if they don’t want to miss out. You can’t do that by post.”
Other features
The app also allows customers to update their personal information, check upcoming events and lookup current openings hours of the three locations Creative Gardens has. Families who have multiple cards can log in once to access all individual cards.
“We’re very happy Creative Gardens accepted the challenge to get this done. It will reflect on their brand and will draw the attention of a younger audience. It’s also a good showcase for both Garden Connect and Davidson Richards. Working together helps garden centres to move forward and that’s exactly what we try to achieve.”
Future plans
Is this app the final step Creative Gardens is making on mobile? If it’s up to Philip Gass, definitely not: “We have exciting plans for the future of the app which not only is great for redeeming coupons but has several other wonderful features such as storing all receipts, point balances and allowing for instant updating of customer details such as changes of address.”
“We enjoyed working with Garden Connect and Davidson Richards on this project, complex in nature it took quite a long time to develop the functionality, but Garden Connects industry-specific experience was invaluable and we know it has been worth it - we now have a great product which will be of value to our important club members.”
You can download the app for iOS and Android by following the links. Please contact us on +44 203 475 5541 for more information or if you’re interested to learn more about developing an app for your loyalty program.
