Switching digital loyalty card providers

The worst moment to find out what a loyalty provider will let you take away is the day you want to leave. Here is what to ask before you sign, what a move actually involves, and what to tell your customers while it happens.

What you are actually trying to keep

Three things, and they are not equally portable.

What usually survives a move, and what usually does not
What	Usually portable	Why it matters
Your member list, with contact details	sometimes, on request	without it you are starting from nothing
Each member's points balance	rarely, in a usable form	customers notice this one immediately
Purchase history per member	almost never	this is what any future personalisation needs
The programme rules and branding	not portable, and not worth moving	these take ten minutes to rebuild

The second row is the one that causes the arguments. A balance is meaningless without the ledger behind it, and some platforms will hand you a total per member and nothing else, which leaves you unable to prove anything if a customer disputes it.

The questions to ask before you sign

Can I export my members, with their points and the date they joined, without asking you? If the answer involves a support ticket, assume it involves a delay at the worst moment.
What format, and does it include the transactions behind the balance rather than just the total?
If I stop paying, do I still get the export, or does the account close first?
Is my data used for anything beyond running my programme?

A provider that answers all four plainly is telling you something about how they expect to keep you. One that cannot is telling you something too.

How to actually move

The mechanics are less painful than people expect, provided you do them in this order. Export from the old platform first, while the account is still live and paid. Set up the new programme and check the rules against the old ones. Then import, and only then tell customers.

Honour the old balances at the value the customer expects, even where the points numbers do not line up. If a customer had four pounds waiting, give them four pounds waiting. Converting into a new points scale and hoping nobody checks is how a move turns into a complaint.

What to tell your customers

Less than you think, and before rather than after. They do not care which company runs the software. They care that the card still works and the balance is still there. One message saying the app has a new address, your points have come with you, and nothing else changes will do.

The wider point

If moving is hard, that is a feature of the product you chose rather than an accident. The reason to care about portability on the day you sign up, when it feels irrelevant, is that it is the only day you have any leverage.

Written for shopkeepers rather than for a search engine. The arithmetic here is yours to check, and if a figure looks wrong for your trade, tell us and we will correct it.