"Rewards" or similar programs in theaters

[Scott Jentsch]

Much depends on how easy your POS system makes it and if there is a cost for doing so. The more seamless it is, the easier it will be to sustain over the long term, and if there are little/no ongoing costs associated with it, there is only an upside if the program is managed well (leading back to the sustainability element).

Ideally, your POS will be able to do the loyalty program in an integrated fashion. If it is tied to a phone number, there's no ID number to keep track of, and no cards that inevitably get lost or aren't on the person. The punch card idea is definitely old-school and might have some retro charm, but it can act as a disincentive if the potential customer impulsively decides to attend a movie at your theater, but the punch card is at home on the refrigerator door or family bulletin board, so they decide that they'll pass on the movie and go some other time.

There can be value in collecting contact information for your customers. You already have a newsletter subscription prompt on your website, so it would be good if your loyalty program was integrated with that, so that you could have a customer list, and they would be able to choose to receive communications from you. Those communications might be the newsletter via E-Mail, but it could also be announcements of special events and/or promotions at the theater that are delivered by E-Mail and/or text message.

These communications can be powerful drivers for your business, but they are something that you should be deliberate about. A half-baked, inconsistent, and non-strategic approach will likely result in disappointing results.

If you don't need more business or increase your per-customer revenue through concessions and merchandise (like specialty popcorn buckets and drink containers), then doing a loyalty program would be a waste of your time and money. I'm not sure that any theater could say that, though, so then it comes down to what you want to do, how much it would cost in time and money to do it, and making a business decision.

Without any solid numbers to support my position, my feeling is that a well-done loyalty program would be successful, and you may not know for sure until you try it out in your market, with your customers, and see what you think. What's the worst that can happen? Is that worse than any other business-building ideas out there?

[Mike Blakesley]

Good points here.

RTS does have loyalty components built in, but a weak point of it is, it IS tied to a number (not the person's phone number) and is designed to be used with gift cards. You CAN set up an account without a physical card -- but then the customer still has to keep track of their number to access their account. (We can look it up by name, email, etc. so in reality it IS tied to their information, I guess.)

It's a very versatile system in that you can give per-purchase points, percentages, dollars-spent, etc... just about any configuration possible. You can add temporary rewards for buying certain items, etc. And you can make the points spendable either for tickets, or concessions, or both, and they can be restricted to certain days or times.

The bottom line question for me is, would it bring in more business? I'm not sure it would, or at least, maybe not enough to make it worth the effort. We used to do a Monday discount night years ago, and eventually we noticed that almost every customer was expressing surprise that the price was cheaper -- they were coming to the movie anyway, not because it was discounted. So we stopped the discounts, and we got zero complaints.

We're the only theatre in our county, so when we lose business, we lose it more because we're not playing a movie they want to see. If we're showing the big hot movie, everyone shows up.

Of course we need more business, I'm just not sure if a loyalty program is the way to get it. If somebody really, really wants to see "Wicked For Good" but we aren't plaing it till after Christmas due to the wacky studio schedule this season, they're likely to go see it out of town when they want to see it, rather than wait five or six weeks because they have our loyalty card.

The other question is, will the time it takes be worth it? Every ticket sale and every conession sale, someone is going to have to ask, "Do you have our rewards card?" followed by either swiping their card, OR signing them up for a card, or telling them how they can sign up for a card, etc. and it will slow down our through-put. So I don't know if that's worth it either.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Yeah I feel the ones that need a card or a customer ID/lookup are pretty antiquated compared to what I have seen in the wild on more modern systems, pretty effortless from the customer perspective anyway.

[Frank Cox]

If you need a customer number, why not use their phone number for that?

The hardware store here tracks your purchases that way. Then when you phone and say, "I need another three gallons of the paint I bought two years ago" (or box of bolts, or whatever) they just look it up and have it ready when you arrive to pick it up.

[Marcel Birgelen]

If you need a customer number, why not use their phone number for that?

People rotate through phone numbers all the time, so I wouldn't use that as the primary key. Ideally, you'd probably want some kind of app that allows you to scan a QR code or do some kind of NFC handshake. Still, having the traditional loyalty cards as backup might not be such a bad idea. There's plenty of folks, many of them on the older side, that doesn't know how to handle loyalty apps. Also, a loyalty card is still a physical thing. Credit card companies are still issuing cards, even though their usefulness for performing a transaction is becoming increasingly limited. A physical thing still commands some kind of presence.

The bottom line question for me is, would it bring in more business? I'm not sure it would, or at least, maybe not enough to make it worth the effort. We used to do a Monday discount night years ago, and eventually we noticed that almost every customer was expressing surprise that the price was cheaper -- they were coming to the movie anyway, not because it was discounted. So we stopped the discounts, and we got zero complaints.

In general, customer loyalty programs have shown to be effective, especially if those programs are well executed. And in there also lies the biggest conflict for small businesses: Executing a loyalty program the right way takes some efforts. The key is to make the people in those loyalty programs feel special. That means, you also have to give them some real perks they wouldn't otherwise get and you also need to remind them that they do have those perks. Some extreme examples are Frequent Flyer programs, hotel loyalty programs, credit card loyalty programs, etc.

Your situation is somewhat special, as you're in a pretty non-competitive market. So, it's really hard to say how those efforts would translate into increased repeat patronage. I guess it will at least remind people that you're still there. Also, if you have time-limited perks, it might entice people to use those before they do expire, resulting in some sales that would've otherwise not have happened. Still, it's hard to quantify this, without actually doing it.

Maybe, setting up a loyalty plan for a local theater could be a nice project for an intern studying something like marketing... just thinking out loud...

[Frank Cox]

People rotate through phone numbers all the time, so I wouldn't use that as the primary key.

They do?

I've had the same phone number for over three decades, and thinking about it now I don't remember anyone I know saying "I've changed my phone number" for.... gosh, I don't know if anyone ever has. If so, it's awfully rare.

Email addresses, yes. Phone numbers, not often if at all.

Maybe it's a regional thing.

[Harold Hallikainen]

Your phone number indicates where you lived in the year 2000.

[Marcel Birgelen]

They do?

I've had the same phone number for over three decades, and thinking about it now I don't remember anyone I know saying "I've changed my phone number" for.... gosh, I don't know if anyone ever has. If so, it's awfully rare.

Email addresses, yes. Phone numbers, not often if at all.

Maybe it's a regional thing.

I guess it's more of a generational thing. Land lines used to be pretty consistent, as long as people didn't move. Also, land lines aren't really tied to a person, they're mostly tied to a family, so those numbers would've made a bad unique ID.

But I guess that for the newer generations, land lines are like dinosaurs.

As for phone numbers tied to mobile accounts: I've seen plenty of people switching numbers for all kinds of reasons. Even I've switched between numbers from time to time, especially when it wasn't yet possible to keep your number between providers. But I often see people switching from a personal mobile phone to a company provided one or back. Moving abroad (over here, it's nothing special to live in country A and work in country B) or simply swapping providers and apparently not bothering to transfer your number.

[Randy Stankey]

In the US, Federal Communication Commission regulations require that telephone numbers be portable, between providers, if the customer requests it.

https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides...ange-providers

If you're switching service providers and remaining in the same geographic area, you can keep your existing phone number. This process – often referred to as phone number porting – can be done between wireline, IP and wireless providers.

My parents have had the same phone number for decades, since I was a kid. They moved to a different house but didn't get landline phone service so they just had the old phone number ported to my mother's cell phone.

That's probably why you don't see very many people change phone numbers when they change providers. They just have their phone number switched to the new phone.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Over here in Europe, most countries have ensured "number portability" between providers in some form or another. There are quite a few limitations though:

- For quite a while, providers weren't allowed to route land-line numbers directly to mobile numbers, also because those numbers usually were billed differently.
- Not all countries permit you to keep regional land-line numbers if you transfer between regions. In the US, you can request to keep the same subscriber number, that's not guaranteed to be a standard service.
- Different countries, different numbering schemes, different portability rules. In essence, you can't transfer your number between countries. I live, work and shop in three different countries. Countries tend to be smaller here. I guess there are just a few spots in the U.S. where you can visit three countries within a day without taking a plane. Maybe if you're on the tip of Florida with a fast boat.

My parents had the same landline number for 40 years or so, but they moved from the Netherlands to Germany, that's when their number had to change. I personally haven't had a land line number for more than 15 years.

Still, a land line is quite often shared with more than one person, so it's not really a usable "unique ID" to identify a person.

[Lyle Romer]

Not to get too far off track but is it even possible to keep the same number if you move to a different location and have a circuit switched landline? For cell phones or VoIP, the "phone number" is just an identifier so it can be portable. On a traditional landline I always thought that the area code and the first 3 digits (in the USA) are actually addresses to physical switch hardware. I would think that the architecture would prevent somebody with a PSTN landline in NYC with a 212 area code from moving to Miami and keeping the same 212 area code.

To Mike's original question, I don't think any program will bring in more business unless it is tied to frequency of visits. Maybe a concession based reward program could increase your per cap if you do something like make a rewards program for your largest sizes. If you set the right formula you might be able to get people to purchase the large size instead of the small size if they will get 1 free after x number. The key is to set it up so that, including the free one, the average cost to the customer is more than if they just bough the small every time.

If you just do a points accrual for every ticket purchase and then give a reward after a certain number of points, I don't think it will increase your business at all. If you had nearby competition it would be a different story. If somebody is going to drive to Billings the gas and time cost that they are accepting isn't going to be offset by your rewards program.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Imagine, you get 50 points for every ticket and 50 points for every $10 you spend on concessions.

I've just collected 1000 points:

- 1000 points, good enough for one free adult ticket.
- 1000 points, good enough for one free maxi bucket of popcorn.

Let's say both are worth about $10 to the guest. Which one would entice you more for a repeat visit?

I'd say the first one would get me more into such a visit than the second one.

Not to get too far off track but is it even possible to keep the same number if you move to a different location and have a circuit switched landline? For cell phones or VoIP, the "phone number" is just an identifier so it can be portable. On a traditional landline I always thought that the area code and the first 3 digits (in the USA) are actually addresses to physical switch hardware. I would think that the architecture would prevent somebody with a PSTN landline in NYC with a 212 area code from moving to Miami and keeping the same 212 area code.

In the "olden days" of telco monopolies that certainly was the case. Area numbers were used to route calls to local exchanges. The concept of local number exchanges is slowly vanishing all over the world. Nowadays, where most public phone systems are hybrids between "old school" SS7 PSTN networks and VoIP systems and there are multiple providers operating in the same areas, call routing has become more complicated and less area-dependent. Technically, there's probably no reason anymore, why a 212 area code number couldn't also be active in Miami. Ever since the advent of VoIP, a number in the 212 area code could be active on the other side of the planet... I remember operating a Vonage VoIP ATA with a US "land line" terminated to it over here in Europe, as far back as 2003...

Whether or not a provider lets you use a local number "out-of-area" may depend on local regulations and their own policies. I guess ever since the large land-line exodus happened and VoIP made the entire thing technically unenforceable, over here, there are no hard regulations anymore for local area numbers. I guess that those numbers will also start to loose their significance over time, as the remaining land lines silently vanish and businesses will most likely move to more generic "business numbers" that aren't bound to a local area.

[Lyle Romer]

There's probably no reason that phone numbers even need to be numbers anymore. They could just be alphanumeric characters like a domain name. If I want to call Mike, i would just "dial" roxyforsythe or something like that.

[Marcel Birgelen]

There's probably no reason that phone numbers even need to be numbers anymore. They could just be alphanumeric characters like a domain name. If I want to call Mike, i would just "dial" roxyforsythe or something like that.

It's complicated... The routing of international phone numbers is still dependent on SS7, which uses the E.164 numbering format, which, afaik, doesn't support letters. Even a more modern "resource mapping" system like ENUM, which uses well-known DNS to look up addresses, uses E.164 as the backbone. While DNS supports letters, it requires hacks like IDN, to support all kinds of international characters...

I guess that phone numbers, while probably becoming less and less relevant, will be around for a while...

Still, I'm by far not an expert in this field... And while I've worked for ISPs/telcos in the past, I've always tried to stay clear of the convoluted mess that's colloquially called "Voice".

[Randy Stankey]

Imagine, you get 50 points for every ticket and 50 points for every $10 you spend on concessions.

I would just do it as a "Popcorn Club" promotion:

Every popcorn purchase earns a stamp... Small = 1 stamp. Medium = 2 stamps. Large = 3 stamps.
Every filled Popcorn Club card earns an "Upgrade" on your next purchase.
If you buy a small popcorn, 1 card gets you a medium. 2 cards bump you up to large.
If you buy a medium popcorn, it only takes one card to earn a large.
If you want a large popcorn three cards gets it for free.
If you BUY a large popcorn, presenting cards gets you a small, medium or large popcorn for free.
With a top-out limit of one free large for every large purchased. (Or three smalls or a medium and a small.)

Basically this... Every filled Popcorn Club card bumps you up one level.

One caveat: Cashed-in cards can't earn more stamps. If you present three cards to get a large popcorn for free, you don't get three more stamps. Stamps are only for things you buy. That way you can't use free popcorn to get more free popcorn.

(If you find a genie in a bottle and get three wishes, you can't use a wish to wish for more wishes.)