Loyale: Inception, Incubation, Validation
Building a product customers will love is the difference between success and failure. However, with the cost and time requirements in the software world, startups only get one chance to ship a product.
Nobel-Prize winning economist, Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking Fast and Slow discusses the psychological phenomenon of loss aversion. At its core, loss aversion refers to the tendency of the human brain to react more strongly to losses than it does to gains. Wikipedia puts it into perspective as people “prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains: it is better to not lose €5 than to find €5.” This phenomenon is so ingrained into our psyche that studies suggest that losses are twice as powerful, psychologically, as gains.
Kahneman, in his book alludes to a study of professional golfers. The aim of the study was to see whether their concentration and focus was greater on par putts (failure) or birdie putts (success). In an analysis of 2.5 million putts, the study found that regardless of putt difficulty, pro golfers were more successful on par putts, where they avoided losses than they were on birdie putts where they had a potential gain. The subconscious aversion to loss pushed them to greater focus.
Agile in a Nutshell: Iterative Product Development
Agile methodology represents an effective way of building applications, as it shows visible progression of software development in real time by supplying working material in short periods, called iterations. Iterative product development is a process designed to help teams ship efficiently and effectively by actively reducing the initial complexity of features and functionality. This is useful as it helps get the product to the user sooner, allowing the team to quickly validate whether they’ve built the right product or not.
This was the approach we used to build Loyale. One aspect of this is using the minimum viable product (MVP) approach, which means taking the possible feature set that could be included in a product and cutting it down to the minimum needed to bring value to the end user. Once Loyale was live, the team quickly assessed its success, and with the minimum time invested, moved rapidly to build on the initial functionality.
Loyale is a rewards marketing platform that has proven to increase customer retention rates by enabling users to reward their customers both online and offline. It was initially built for enterprise clients, that being said, those clients which are medium to large business owners with multiple brands and multiple stores. With Loyale’s API we are able to integrate with any mobile application, website or POS system to seamlessly connect both online and offline stores. We validated our product and moved from strength to strength.
Strength based product development
We leveraged the existing behaviour of our users to maximise the value they got from our product and capitalised on the momentum of Loyale. In doing so, we created Loyalty Wallet, a mobile application that acts as an online wallet for users loyalty cards. This application is targeted at small to medium sized businesses who don’t necessarily have the capabilities of investing in a mobile application out right and therefore have the opportunity to be part of ours through a subscription based model.
Initially, we focused on keeping our feature set limited for a long period of time instead of building new features, we were focused on embracing existing value. We prioritised things like making the sign up process smoother and easier to navigate, enabling user search-ability and two factor authentication to make the product more secure. Arguably, the biggest change we’ve made over the past four years is updating the website. We capitalised on our core strengths and an existing behaviour (rewarding customers with points) to streamline the product and embrace the existing value of Loyale.
Loyale’s journey
We implemented the above product development processes in order to successfully create our rewards marketing platform, Loyale. We’ve iterated on the product from branding, to the design and the development of the product, through to its launch and validation. In summary, we grew Loyale from inception to incubation, and it’s now a successful product with big brands having been built upon its API.
Brands that reward with Loyale
Lava Rewards
Lava Rewards is one of Malta’s most renowned loyalty application, which was custom built using Loyale’s API to allow customers to get rewarded for shopping at over 40 outlets across the island.
The outlets listed on the application have a very broad audience, therefore the product needed to be flexible enough to appeal to different clientele. From the start and in close collaboration with our client, we wanted to create something that stood out. From naming to branding to designing and developing the app, we made sure that we executed each step meticulously.
Welbee’s Loyalty Club
Welbee’s Loyalty Club is a custom built application enabling Welbee’s to retain and reward their loyal customers using Loyale’s API. Combining four of Malta’s most loved supermarkets; Park Towers, Valyou, Tower & Trolees under one roof. Although these supermarkets now have a new name, Welbee’s, they still retain the same brands with added value. They tasked us with creating their rewards marketing platform so as to keep their customers engaged and coming back for more.
Aljamo + Club
Alajmo is a Michelin star restaurant group based in Italy with several chains around the world. We were tasked with making their Whitelabel rewards marketing mobile application as luxurious and professional as they are. We incorporated the Shopify plugin into their web store enabling customers to purchase their products online.
Dizz Loyalty
Dizz Loyalty is a whitelabel mobile rewards marketing application which serves to encourage new customers to stick around by creating mutually beneficial shopping experiences as well as ensuring that existing loyal customers of Dizz feel valued.
As part of the project we also curated the launch campaign from coining the tagline ‘Shop Dizz, Get Rewarded‘ to creating the collateral. The tagline was selected as it encapsulated the essence of the campaign to a tee.
Panino Giusto
Panino Giusto is an Italian sandwich shop with over 20 outlets spanning across Italy. We created a custom built rewards marketing mobile application which is integrated with Loyale. Customers who download their application can get rewarded for purchasing from all their outlets and can collect points to be redeemed online or in-store.
Costa Club Malta
Costa Club Malta is built on Loyale and offers ten’s of options on how customers can be rewarded. Our team delivered and to date, ten’s of thousands of transactions has passed through Costa Club Malta. One of the highlights is that customers are also awarded points depending on the frequency of their visits to a store in a rolling 30 day period.
Everyone loves coffee, now you can get rewarded for drinking what you love!
Zen Sushi to Go
Zen Sushi to Go is Malta’s first take-away sushi restaurant to have it’s own custom built mobile delivery application that’s integrated with Loyale. Customers can order sushi on the go wherever they are, count their calories, get points, track their orders and enjoy faster delivery straight to their door.
Besides allowing signed in users to save their favourite items on the menu for quicker access it also enables users to add entire previous orders to their basket. Users can get rewarded with points for every purchase. They can then redeem the points as cash on their next purchase or save them for future purchases. Resulting in a large percentage of users returning time and time again.
MPG Rewards
MPG Rewards is a custom built rewards marketing mobile application housing sports, fashion and pharmaceutical brands with a rewards scheme. We incorporated Loyale into this mobile application so customers can get instant savings and redeem rewards.
Hudson Rewards
An international retailer and distributor primarily involved in the athleisure wear, fashion and footwear sectors. Once again, we used our API to create a custom built rewards application for them and their clients.
Although this is just the beginning for Loyale and Loyalty Wallet, we perceive big things to come our way and are excited for where the journey will take us.
If you’re interested to find out more about how you could integrate with Loyale with your mobile application or web application and do not hesitate to contact us.
