[Updated 2017] List Of Top 9 Loyalty Software Reviews : With Pros & Cons

Companies throughout the nation are now utilizing loyalty programs more often than ever before. These organizations understand the importance of retaining existing customers and choose to implement a system directed specifically at building customer loyalty.

What exactly is a loyalty program, then? While the specifics of each program may differ, the premise remains the same: a loyalty program is a marketing system instituted by a business that rewards purchasing behavior, thus increasing the customer's urge to stay loyal to the company. A loyalty program may offer convenience, store credit, prizes, or any other benefit that would entice the loyalty of a customer.

Of course, like all other marketing efforts, a well-crafted loyalty program requires resources that may currently be allocated towards other endeavors. If you have not yet implemented a loyalty program in your marketing strategy, or are unsure about its efficacy, consider the following review why a loyalty program may be a worthwhile option for you.

[Updated] List Of Top 9 Loyalty Software 2017: With Pros & Cons

1. Sweet Tooth

Sweet Tooth began as an e-commerce web development agency. After developing a successful loyalty software for one of their clients, Sweet Tooth decided to go full loyalty. The company works with over 3500 merchants worldwide, including Delta, Universal, and Olympus. According to Sweet Tooth, case studies from many of these clients have seen over 20% increases in customer lifetime value, sales, and repeated purchases.

The software is currently available through Magento, BigCommerce, and Shopify, and is developing an integration with WooCommerce. If you're using Magento, a configuration may be a little cumbersome, but Sweet Tooth's extensive program offers great benefits and manageable costs for a wide variety of merchants, including offline solutions for brick and mortar stores, API access for developers, and omnichannel loyalty connections.

Features

Point Based Loyalty Program - Sweet Tooth offers a comprehensive program with several tools to configure your loyalty program. You can view the Magento features in full detail on their website. Some of the customizable features of the program include:
Rule Engine - Set parameters for numerous earning and spending rules.
Bonus Rewards - Create special or limited time offers for clients at will.
Referral Rewards - Set up rewards for referrals via email, Facebook, and Twitter.
Social Sharing - Customers can share your site info directly to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Google+. Customers can share purchases on FB and Twitter as well.
Reward Holds - Points can be held for authorization before being awarded to a customer.
Points Expiry - Manage when points expire from a customer's account.
Product reviews - Customer reviews posted on your site can be awarded points pending your approval.

Pros

Positive Results - Sweet Tooth boasts an average 28% annual sales lift, 40% increase in customer lifetime value and a 20% increase in repeat purchase rates for clients. They offer client case studies and testimonials to back up their claims. Reviews on Magento as well as Shopify rank Sweet Tooth pretty high.
Great Technical Support - With all the complicated configurations associated with creating your loyalty program, Sweet Tooth has been pretty diligent to offer technical support to its clients.

Cons

Complicated - Sweet Tooth is so complex on Magento that there are some issues with features and integration. It's a lot to work through, and sometimes Sweet Tooth doesn't get it right the first time around.
Somewhat Expensive - For merchants who need the additional consultation services to get their program up and running, those costs can be a little high. For merchants who have a high level of transactions every month but are on the lower end of revenue caps, the upgrade to a higher plan might be a little costly.

2. Belly

A three-year-old startup, some time ago known as Bellyflop, with an all inclusive program.

Logan LaHive established Belly and was practically its exclusive representative until the point that the organization got over $1M in subsidizing from Lightbank. From that point forward, Belly has brought over $15M up in financing from speculators, got a Moxie grant in 2011 for Best UX (client encounter), and was granted two Moxie grants in 2013 for Startup of the Year and Best B2B (business to business) Startup.

What makes Belly extraordinary is its adaptable prizes program and its "all you require is in one box" setup. With Belly you get:

An iPad with the Belly software application, the iPad stand, and combination lock

Features

Data reports on customer visits - Every time one of your customers scans their rewards card or mobile phone on your Belly device, the visit is logged. This information can be accessed through your Merchant dashboard on the iPad.
Two targeted email blasts per month - Belly allows you to send customized emails to your customers twice a month.
Social Media integrations - Belly currently supports Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp. Customers checking in to Belly will have the option to share their activity on Twitter or Facebook, write a review on Yelp, or "like" your Facebook page.
A Belly Representative to help you on the way - Belly designates a specific person, called a Merchant Success Manager, to assist you with setup, email campaigns, and program data. They can be contacted directly through the Merchant Dashboard.
Mobile Page on Belly mobile app - Belly's app will list your business info and rewards on its mobile app so potential customers can find you.

Pros

Easy to Use:- Belly is completely free to use, can be used at any participating Belly location, and has great mobile features.
Popular with customers:- From a customer standpoint Belly is fun, it's new, and it's modern. It has been very popular among the customers.
Great features. Belly lists merchant testimonial videos on their site. One of the more informative ones is St. Elmo's Story, which gives a better description of the features Belly provides, particularly the data reports generated in the Merchant Dashboard.

Cons

Final Verdict:

Belly offers an all around composed prizes program with simple to utilize includes and has an exceptionally mainstream portable application with extraordinary audits. Paunch offers an advanced contrasting option to punch cards and additionally valuable shopper information.

3. Five stars

Fivestars Loyalty Inc. had truly humble beginnings. The Founders of Five stars were the two advisors at McKinsey before they chose to wander out alone. The Fivestars Loyalty program appeared amid the Y-Combinator Winter 2011 session. Most as of late, Fivestars has brought 26 million up in arrangement B financing from speculators, including Menlo Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, DCM and Rogers Communications.

Work numbers have extended too, with approximately 150 deals reps and 50 bolster staff accessible to benefit more than 5000 dynamic traders, a number they gauge will develop significantly in the following year. Five stars clients go in the millions, more than 9 million, which makes for an extraordinary information pool.

Features

Loyalty Programs - Your Fivestars rep will help you build a custom loyalty program that suits your business and your goals. You can go with their suggestions or choose something different altogether. Some of the options for these programs include:

Per visit point system (with or without minimum dollar values)
Per dollar point system
VIP member status
Multiple tiers

Dashboard - Your dashboard is set up to make accessing your program data easy, and can be accessed via the Fivestars website. You can also edit certain features, such as your business profile, monthly sign up goals, and additional campaigns.

- Fivestars integrates your Social Media Integrationssocial media information with your business profile on their mobile app and website.

Promotions - Fivestars offers the ability to send promotions to your customers via the channel of their choice: email, SMS text, or mobile app.

Mobile App - Fivestars has recently added Bluetooth beacon technology for some of their local merchants. This technology enables automatic check-ins when your customers enter your business.

Pros Cons

Fivestars Loyalty has a C- rating with the BBB and four complaints in the last three years. Most of the complaints are billing or sales related, and the most recent complaint hasn't been answered.
Decreased support outside of local area:- Fivestars has increased its outside sales force, but they still can't reach everyone.
App Functionality - On the customer side of things, Fivestars ratings have improved, but there are still some bugs to fix.

Fivestars is an extraordinary choice for dealers, especially those working in their neighborhood. In case you're in the Bay range, or close to a Fivestars HQ, you can amplify on their client administration and pick their brains for thoughts to enhance your reliability program (You'll additionally get the chance to experiment with the new elements first!).

The cost for the program is higher than others, yet not irrational, particularly for what they offer. The no chance to get out contracts are a touch of scaring, and they don't appear to squirm, so ensure you're satisfied with that and look at your different alternatives before making an agreement.

Fivestars keeps on enhancing both on the structure of their administration and the elements they offer. They ought to be extending some of their portable components to incorporate nonlocal vendors soon. Their BBB rating went down since my last audit, however, so client relations have plentiful space to develop.

4. Loyalty gator

Founded in 2011 by David Douglas Dzick and Jennifer Lynn Dzick, Loyalty Gator is an international company known for its cloud based loyalty platform. It's located in Canada and provides a software interface in 12 different languages.

Highlights for the software include:

An easy to use software interface
Data ownership
White Label Options
eCommerce and brick and mortar solutions
Metrics and reports

Features

Loyalty Programs - Loyalty Gator has several campaigns to choose from to create your loyalty program. They include:
- Point Collection
- Buy X Get One Free
- Event based Loyalty Program
- Prepaid reloadable card program
- Gift Card Program
- Action Based/Referral Rewards
Web/mobile access - Your program can be accessed by you (and designated users) through a mobile phone or computer. There isn't an actual mobile app, but the web app is mobile user-friendly.
Customer Transactions & Reports - Loyalty Gator allows for the import of previous customer transactions via an Excel file. They also offer multiple reporting options that can be sorted by date, such as:
- Audit Reports - reports for campaigns and promotions
- Marketing reports - customer reports sorted or filtered by criteria
- Balance Reports - reports that list customers and point balances
Developer API - If you want to develop your integrations, Loyalty Gator's API is free to use.
Employee Access Control - this feature allows you to give access to some users and process customer transactions. You can give two kinds of access.
- Basic access - allows employees to process customer transactions
- Admin access - allows employees to modify plans and generate reports
Online Enrollment - Customers can enroll for the loyalty program online as well as check their balances. As an add-on, customers can also redeem rewards online.
Marketing Tools - In addition to marketing materials for your loyalty program, Loyalty Gator provides white label options and custom designs, as well as targeted marketing via email communication.

Pros Cons

Final Verdict:

While this product might not have all the announcing energy of more costly projects, at its center the framework is both sound and powerful. Loyalty Gator has genuinely aggressive evaluating choices, a month-long free trial, and a month to month membership choice.

The product itself is anything but difficult to utilize and easy to deal with; the steadfastness programs are adaptable, and client benefit is fast and dependable. There's no agreement or end charge, and you get the opportunity to keep all your client information.

5. Perka loyalty

Perka is a merchant relations company that use a mobile check-in process as the central part of their loyalty program. The program serves as an alternative to the traditional paper punch card system. The software began as an iPod enhanced app for buy one get ten free cards and has developed into a more customized rewards program for local merchants.

Features:

Customized Loyalty Program - You can choose between punches or points for your program and offer your customers multiple rewards of varying degrees.
Push Notifications and Specials - Perka offers the ability to send specials directly to your customers via Push notifications or email.
Welcome and VIP Bonuses - Perka allows you to offer welcome bonuses for customers who sign up for your program as well as VIP bonuses, which offer additional points or punches when customers reach a higher tier.
Web-accessible Dashboard - On the dashboard, you have the ability to
- Manage/edit profile info
- Download raw data
- View customer transactions
Validate customer purchases - With Perka, customer punches or points are validated at the Point of Sale, rather than awarded on the customer side.
Mobile Check-ins - Customers check-in via their mobile phone. You can use the Perka app if you have a smart phone or text a special code to your location.
Claim Code Receipts - Claim code receipts are a time-saving feature for merchants who use the Clover POS. These receipts can be used to enroll customers as well as award an incentive or welcome bonus when they sign up.

Pros

Good customer service. If you take a look at the Google Play Store, a good portion of the feedback there has a response from Perka attached.
Manageable costs. Perka is less expensive than other, more extensive loyalty programs, and starting with their free version is a great way to see if Perka works for you.
Uncomplicated. Perka software doesn't require any integration or complex codes to work. It operates independently from the register so the dysfunction of one system won't affect the other.
Potentially good product. The idea behind Perka is a good one. It keeps the simplicity of the punch card system and ditches the tedious, labor-intensive parts. The Perka app could make a difference for small businesses.

Cons

Final Verdict:

The application could be more natural, and the components aren't broad, yet Perka has made huge enhancements meriting a rating helps. The application is additionally engaging, the dashboard has been redone, a couple of new elements have been included, and the site has been extensively refreshed (however there are as yet a couple of non-starters on their help page).

Perka still has a couple of obstructions to overcome before turning into a first-class program, especially with clients who utilize the application, yet so far they appear to be making strides the correct way.

6. Perkville

Perkville Inc. is a SaaS (Software as a Service) company with a point-based loyalty platform.

Co-founders Sunil Saha (a former LinkedIn PM) and Eric Bollman (a former UX Director at Yahoo!) launched Perkville with a simple, but effective method. The software is free and requires no cards, no codes, and no apps. The only thing needed is the user's email address, which Perkville merchants have full access to, even if they cancel their service.

To date, Perkville has raised over 1.2 million dollars in funding from friends and investors, is used at over 2000 locations worldwide, and has over a million users. Since our last review, Perkville has tweaked a few of its features and improved integrations with companies like ABC Financial and Lightspeed to offer a more seamless experience.

Features

Loyalty program. The Perkville loyalty program is a point-based program that allows you to customize how customers earn points based on specific actions.
Earning Presets. In addition to these presets, you can add and edit your own earning perks and point values. The same applies for redeeming rewards. Presets include:
Location Specific Earning and Rewards. For merchants operating in multiple locations, earning perks and redeeming perks can be modified for each location.
Social Media. The Perkville program has the capability to reward your customers for Twitter follows tweets, and Facebook posts.
Referrals. The Perkville program also allows you to reward your customers for referrals.
Time and Frequency Bonuses. Perkville has added a new feature that allows you to automate rewards for specific times or a number of visits.
Point Notification Email. Your customers receive emails with point updates when they earn or redeem points at your location.
Data and Reports. With Perkville you can generate reports and export your customer email list at any time. Perkville will also send you daily reports on transactions and customer data.
Perkville Business Profile. Included in your subscription is a Perkville business profile which includes information about perks offered, your location and social media connections, your business website, and the fine print for your rewards program.

Pros

Positive ROI Data. The O2 Fitness Case Study reports an ROI of 2054% over a 12 month period in 12 locations.
Positive Customer Response. Perkville's ease of use extends to the customer side, which is important. There's no card to keep up with, and no random serial number to remember. Couple that with a well thought-out loyalty program, and you've got a winner.
Seamless Integration. Merchants using Perkville have experienced hassle-free integration with their POS systems and social media outlets.

Cons

Lacks Some Marketing Features. Perkville is big on social media interactions, but not so big on email marketing.
Industry-specific. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the software is designed for a very specific industry - fitness.
No Mobile App. The Perkville loyalty program can be found on the MindBody POS mobile apps, but Perkville does not offer its mobile app.

Final Verdict:

Perkville has cut out a specialty in the wellness business and made associations with POS frameworks adapted towards exercise centers and health focuses. This exceptional steadfastness program has additionally been fruitful with little retailers and chains, salons, and eateries.

That being stated, Perkville may not be a solid match for bigger retail organizations with more mind boggling POS frameworks or deals structures. So far, Perkville has been a consistent contender in the devotion circle, so I can certainly prescribe it to traders with wellness-related organizations.

7. S loyalty

Started in 2012 in Hong Kong, the team behind S Loyalty is all about meeting customers where they are. When first launched, S Loyalty was the only customer rewards program available for use with Shopify and BigCommerce, and those are the same two programs S Loyalty is designed to serve today.

To distinguish itself from the competition, S Loyalty has doubled down on the desire to give customers a highly customizable experience, both in how rewards are doled out and in the visual experience of using this software.

Features

Points: S Loyalty determines how many points your customers will get for every dollar they spend. You also get to choose when the points are awarded and when the order is marked a paid, fulfilled, or either. You can also add a calendar to your points system that causes some points to expire after a certain amount of time. Personally, though, I love that you can name your points whatever you want.
Rewards: S Loyalty allows you to create rewards that give customers a dollar amount off of purchase, offer a percentage discount, or provide free shipping. You can create all manner of different rewards, all for different amounts of points.
Personalization: S Loyalty provides you a way of giving a variety of one-off rewards for your customers, whether as a welcome bonus or a birthday gift. You also have personalization options for sending thank you notes and shopper notifications.
Campaigns: You can choose what kind of bonus you want to give and how long you want the promotion to last. Personally, I feel like it might be useful also to be able to choose a particular product for the campaign to focus on, but that is not currently possible.

Pros

The top-tier plan is fantastic: Customer services go above and beyond: one of the Sloyalty designers created a fully customized loyalty overlay for us without being asked, and implemented it seamlessly."
" Great loyalty app: Really easy to use, great design and very useful in preventing people from using both a discount code and loyalty points for the same transaction given that loyalty points must be redeemed for a discount code before checkout .

Cons

Does Not Integrate Well With POS

No Social Media Bonuses: In a worrying oversight, it seems that S Loyalty lacks what is a pretty standard feature in other rewards software programs: points for sharing on social media.

Final Verdict:

With a tidy UI and an intuitive structure, it is pretty easy to learn. It is also flexible in what it can do with rewards, points, and campaigns. It makes you strangely happy that you can label your points whatever you want-from cookies to airplanes to fist-bumps.

8. Flok

Flok offers marketing solutions to small-to-medium sized businesses via the Flok mobile app.

Ido Gaver and Eran Kirshenboim, both natives of Israel and graduates of Tel Aviv University, founded Flok (formerly called LoyalBlocks) in 2011. The software was originally designed to offer affordable marketing tools to small businesses but has now been adopted by larger chains such as Subway, Dominos and TGI Fridays. Currently, Flok provides service to over 70,000 businesses in the US, Israel, the UK, and Australia.

Managed through a merchant's dashboard and powered by unique patented technology, Flok offers a quality product at relatively competitive prices. Over the last two years, Flok has begun to emerge as a fully-featured, scalable customer management platform with some intriguing new features.

Features

Mobile Customer App. Flok allows you to customize your app with different color schemes and your company logo. The app is available for iPhone and Android users and has fairly decent functionality.
Business App. Flok has recently added a business app that allows you to access your program using an iPhone or Android smartphone. The app includes chat features and geo-targeting functions in addition to analytics and other program features.
Digital Punch card. The punch card feature within the mobile app tracks your customer visits and rewards. Punches are given in one of two ways: per visit using the check-in feature, or per purchase by scanning a QR code. You can print a QR code directly from your dashboard and give it to your staff to award punches to customers.
Auto Check-In. iBeacon technology automates the check-in process, letting you know when customers arrive and allowing you to send customized messages to them while in-store.
Mobile App Building. Flok can build an independent application for your company which users can download and access outside of the Flok app (such as the Dominos App).
Statistics and Analytics. Flok offers information about your loyalty program through easily understood graphs and charts. More in-depth data interpretation is offered depending on the plan you choose, but some of the tools offered include:
- Roi Wizard - The wizard calculates how the Flok program impacts your bottom line. Hypothetically speaking. It's a useful illustration that compares in-store recruitment to recruitment by Flok , but it's not a hard data analysis.
- CRM (Customer Relations Management) List - This list gives you information on members in your loyalty program including their last walk in, their current status, and additional notes.
- In Store Now - This list shows customers currently in your store. You can send direct messages to these customers for promotional offers.
- Mailing List emails - You can send mass email campaigns using the Flok Invite Contacts tab on your dashboard.

Pros Cons

Billing Complaints.

Flok still has a C rating with the Better Business Bureau, and I think a little humanity and better customer relations would go a long way here. I also think Flok's automatic renewal policy is a bit much. For month to month contracts, forgetting a subscription means you're out a few bucks. If you initially sign up for an annual subscription, however, forgetting to can cost you several hundred dollars. Here are a few complaints from customers who canceled their Flok subscription:

Program Limitations

Final Verdict:

Overall, the Flok product is a viable solution for brick and mortar stores, particularly those that rely on heavy foot traffic. If you're ready to upgrade to a digital loyalty program or looking for a replacement to your current program, Flok may be a good fit. Many of the technical gripes suffered by previous iterations of the program have been fixed or improved, and new features have been added without sacrificing usability.

9. Third shelf

Finding an affordable, digital loyalty solution is becoming increasingly feasible thanks to forward-thinking entrepreneurs who see the vast potential for these programs, and Thirdshelf founders Rami Karam, Antoine Azar, and Steve Valiquette are just such thinkers.

Final Verdict

Third shelf is an excellent choice for loyalty software. The company has a solid foundation built for ensuring your program isn't just a gimmick or a waste of time and resources. It is designed to help you find out who to target, what's working and what's not working, and how to make adjustments.

Summing up:

So these were some of the best and latest loyalty apps.I hope you enjoyed this long list of top loyalty software 2017, do give them a try and let me know how you liked it in the comment section below.