E-tailment retail • Ulrike Sanz Grossón • 11 May 2023
Bonus and discount cards are actually a really good thing, because who wouldn't want to be rewarded for repeated purchases? But at the decisive moment at the bakery, in the café or at the car wash, you often don't have the small cards at hand and come out empty. The Hamburg brothers Nicolas and Maximilian Assmann want to change this. They have developed the Loyal app, which makes the bonus card smart and brings it to the mobile phone.
The demand is huge. It is estimated that we Germans have an average of 3.7 bonus cards; eight out of ten respondents stated as part of a LOYAL study that they would use the practical app. And there is also great potential on the corporate side: According to conservative estimates by the start-up, hundreds of thousands of especially small and medium-sized companies in the catering, retail, service and hotel industries are involved in loyal predestined. They benefit from customer loyalty, always have an overview of the number of digital stamps they have issued, prevent misuse and can communicate further information and offers via the app.
Coffee and croissants now available as NFTs
As the latest highlight, the Assmann brothers are introducing NFT technology. With the digital tokens, they bring coupons, vouchers and vouchers to smartphones in a forgery-proof manner. The advantages are obvious to the Assmann brothers: the loyal NFTs belong to the customer, you associate value with them, they can give them away to others with just one click. Brands can team up for collaborations and editions with influencers are also planned. How future-oriented and promising this form of extended customer loyalty is underlined by Starbucks' Odyssey Experience, with which the company has just expanded into Web3 and has sparked hype among fans of the coffee chain.
And the figures for loyal also speak for themselves. Two million loyal points were awarded in the first year and a half since the company was founded and over 50,000 end customers were retained. Renowned companies such as Bijou Brigitte, Ciao Bella from Gustoso, Campus Suite from Coffee Fellows and evergrün as well as Hamburg local champions such as Mad about Juice or the Schanzenbäckerei with its 31 branches rely on the brothers' app. They have long been known beyond the Hanseatic city and have traveled nationwide to present their solution to new partners.
Café frustration as a trigger
The idea for the loyal app was born out of personal motivation. “When I forgot the ten-card in my favorite café, I asked myself why there wasn't a digital solution for that,” remembers Nicolas Assmann. He was looking for a provider, but didn't really find what he was looking for. That was the start of the loyal start-up, which the now 24-year-old founded with his brother Maximilian (25).
The ambitious brothers used every free minute to work hard on their idea. Both were still students back then, Nicolas completing his business studies, Maximilian in the middle of medical school, but waiting was out of the question for them. “We were surprised ourselves that no one had really addressed this issue before and wanted to use the time advantage for us,” said the two LOYAL makers.
In January 2021, they founded their start-up, were able to win over the Hamburg-based company Coffema, a leading provider of professional coffee machines and smart services, as an investor, and the LOYAL app was already available in summer. Since then, the Assmann brothers, with their small team and support from Coffema, at whose location in Groß Borstel they also have their offices, have rapidly expanded the functions of the app and their partner network.
Low-threshold access for users and companies
The app is free for customers; they simply download it from the store to their iPhone or Android device. Companies pay a fixed monthly fee of 6 euros. In return, they get 50 stamps for free, each additional one costs 4 cents. The offer is deliberately kept cheap in order to enable as many small and medium-sized businesses as possible to participate. “And we also kept the technical requirements as simple as possible,” explains Maximilian Assmann, responsible for LOYAL product development. “Many operators and their employees have no capacity to deal with technology.
Simple and intuitive handling is all the more important to us.” The companies that register for the digital service receive a starter set with chip cards that function as a digital stamp, so to speak. Customers only have to hold their smartphone with the app open to be credited with a digital bonus point. This works anonymously via an NFC chip or QR code, without the need to provide personal information. In addition, customers receive further information such as address, opening hours, the link to social media channels and any NFT-based coupon promotions.
In contrast to multi-level bonus programs such as Payback, points and discounts are collected individually for each company and not across brands. “Many companies and companies understandably do not want that; they want to retain customers to their own brand,” says Maximilian Assmann. In addition, there is no Web3 connection here and all benefits of the NFTs were omitted.
Internorga as a springboard into the international market
This year, the Assmann brothers are focusing on NFT technology and acquiring new partners. They also use Internorga as a springboard, where they will once again present themselves at the Coffema stand after the premiere last year. With glowing eyes, they remember the many good initial discussions with companies that are now part of their partner network. This spring, they want to reach out to international contacts and global players. The success story so far suggests that they will also be able to do this.