New Service Helps Small Businesses Around The World Increase Repeat Revenue

CORK, Ireland - April 22, 2015 - PRLog -- Cardboard loyalty cards have been the mainstay of small businesses for years. Now a Cork based company is upgrading them for businesses around the world. Using zapacard small businesses can, without introducing any new technology, use their existing loyalty card to generate regular reports containing insights into their business and actions to increase repeat sales.

<a href='https://zapacard.com'>Zapacard</a> has been designed for, and with input from, small businesses. "We spoke to a lot of small businesses and the feedback we received dictated all aspects of the service", says Zapacard CEO Brian O'Connell. "And what we heard is that small businesses most precious commodity is time. They want a service that is fast, simple to operate and does not require them to interpret data. Based on this we designed a solution that uses tools the business already has. There is next to no training required and, most importantly, we analyse the resulting data for them. In essence we become a business advisor."

Punched or stamped cards (of the "8th cup free" variety) are the most widely used loyalty system in the world. This is because they don't require any staff training or explanation to customers, they're cheap to operate and they are excellent advertising. Rather than replace these  features zapacard works with them. When a customer returns a completed card the business simply asks for their email address. At the end of the day the collected addresses are then themselves emailed to zapacard. "Because we use their existing tools there is no disruption to the business and no training required,"  continues Brian O'Connell. "On average it takes  about a minute a day to operate."

Phone based apps have become popular loyalty platforms recently, so why did zapacard go a different route? "Because this is what the businesses told us to do," explains Brian O'Connell.  "Apart from the disruption of new technology in the business itself they were also worried that requiring apps would exclude customers who could not or would not download them. They rightly felt that if they could not be loyal to all their customers then they couldn't ask those customers to be loyal in return."

Once the data has been emailed to zapacard they start analysing it using a mix of custom algorithms and human input. According to Brian O'Connell this is one of the most critical functions they perform, "Small business owners just don't have the time to regularly  analyse raw data and then go on to  decide what actions to take as a result. So we made sure that we removed all that hassle and did it for them.The business receives weekly emails containing insights and actions that they can take to grow their repeat sales."

Reports arrive direct to the business' email every week. They include suggestions such as who to email and why, which customers to give a special reward to, and promotional ideas. As time passes and the amount of data collected grows the level of insight also increases and can include comparisons to earlier periods and even identifying customers who have stopped visiting. The recommended actions themselves are designed to be quick to implement and complimentary to any existing plans.

Zapacard is available now and is free for the first four months after a business signs up. There is no credit card required and no commitment. All that a business need stop do is visit https://zapacard.com and enter their email address to start their trial.