Are your customers one-and-done shoppers?
You’re pouring budget into acquisition, but your customer base isn’t growing because retention is low. It’s an incredibly frustrating cycle for any marketing director.
The real issue is that you lack a systematic way to reward loyal customers and give them a reason to choose you over and over again.
It’s a common challenge. In fact, Open Loyalty reports that 38% of companies prioritize reducing customer churn. This shows just how critical retaining customers has become for sustainable growth.
The right software can solve this by helping you build a rewarding customer experience that encourages repeat business and boosts brand loyalty.
In this guide, I’ll review the best customer loyalty program software. I’m going to help you find a tool to engage customers and elevate your retention metrics.
You’ll discover solutions that track behavior, personalize rewards, and integrate with your existing marketing stack to prove ROI and drive growth.
Let’s get started.
Quick Summary:
| # | Software | Rating | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yotpo → | Marketing directors | |
| 2 | Smile.io → | E-commerce & retail | |
| 3 | Talon.One → | Mid to enterprise e-commerce | |
| 4 | Open Loyalty → | Marketing directors | |
| 5 | Kangaroo Rewards → | Acquisition & retention |
1. Yotpo
Is your customer retention strategy falling short?
Yotpo offers a unified Retention Marketing Platform designed to boost your sales through connected experiences. This means you can centralize shared customer data and track retention seamlessly.
This platform helps you understand performance, identify opportunities for optimization, and make data-driven recommendations to bring customers back.
Drive more revenue, effortlessly.
Yotpo provides a comprehensive suite of solutions, including SMS Marketing, Email Marketing, and Reviews & UGC, all integrated into one platform. You can create custom-tailored loyalty and referral programs, motivating customers with rewards to transform them into brand advocates. This allows you to engage throughout the customer journey and drive repeat purchases. Additionally, Yotpo AI helps streamline your workflow and drive revenue growth, providing deep dives into every step of your customer timeline. You can automate personalization at scale by elevating your flow network, and build experiences that reward engaged customers at key moments.
This complete solution powers a holistic approach to retention, empowering your brand to iterate and act.
While we’re discussing retention, understanding customer journey mapping software can provide deeper insights into your customer lifecycle.
Key features:
- Unified Retention Platform: Access shared customer data and track retention metrics to create seamless post-purchase journeys tailored to each customer.
- Custom-Tailored Loyalty & Referrals: Design personalized loyalty programs and referral incentives that motivate repeat purchases and turn customers into brand advocates.
- AI-Powered Optimization: Leverage Yotpo AI to streamline workflows, enhance personalization, and generate data-driven recommendations for improved retention strategies.
Yotpo features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Yotpo stands out as the best customer loyalty program software for marketing directors, providing a unified platform for SMS, Email, Reviews, and Loyalty. Its ability to centralize customer data and use AI to drive personalized experiences, coupled with reported successes like a 171% higher repeat purchase rate for loyalty members, directly addresses the need for boosting retention and driving repeat purchases.
2. Smile.io
Are you struggling to boost customer retention and repeat purchases?
Smile.io helps you create tailored loyalty programs, driving repeat purchases and maximizing customer lifetime value. This means you can keep customers motivated and engaged.
With Smile.io, you can design unique programs, from VIP experiences to flexible earning rules, ensuring your loyalty strategy perfectly fits your business needs. Your customers will feel valued and keep coming back.
The result is loyalty that truly pays off.
Smile.io solves these issues by offering robust omnichannel capabilities, whether customers shop online or in-store. This allows for seamless engagement across all touchpoints.
You can implement various loyalty strategies, including points and rewards, membership and VIP programs, and even mobile wallet passes for Apple and Google Wallet users. This keeps loyalty benefits top-of-mind for your customers.
Additionally, Smile.io offers member-pricing and the ability to reward almost any customer action with limited-time bonuses, giving you flexibility to drive specific behaviors. You can also customize where and how loyalty elements appear, from discount banners to point balances, ensuring consistent brand experience.
Ultimately, you can drive higher profits and stronger loyalty.
While focusing on customer loyalty, expanding your reach through influencer marketing software can also greatly accelerate growth.
Key features:
- Omnichannel Loyalty: Offers seamless loyalty experiences for customers whether they shop online or in-store, including Shopify POS integration and mobile wallet passes.
- Customizable Rewards: Allows you to design unique loyalty programs with flexible earning rules, VIP tiers, member-pricing, and the ability to reward various customer actions.
- Advanced Reporting & Integrations: Provides loyalty benchmarks, program performance reports for your finance team, and best-in-class integrations with your favorite tools.
Smile.io features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: For Marketing Directors at e-commerce or retail companies, Smile.io stands out as the best customer loyalty program software. It addresses pain points by offering flexible, scalable loyalty programs, including omnichannel support and advanced reporting, proven to deliver 2x higher purchase frequency and a 48% increase in customer lifetime value.
3. Talon.One
Struggling to build engaging loyalty programs without coding?
Talon.One offers a flexible omnichannel promotion and loyalty engine that lets you create real-time, personalized incentives. This means you can easily implement loyalty tiers, points, and cards without developer dependence.
Their platform allows you to build any incentive using any data, helping your marketing team overcome limitations of rigid systems. Here’s how you can achieve your growth goals.
Talon.One simplifies creating sophisticated loyalty and promotion campaigns. You can automate flexible, cross-lifecycle loyalty programs, reducing manual effort and driving repeat business.
The platform’s core capabilities include gamification, enabling you to transform customer actions into rewarding challenges, track progress, and incentivize completion for your members. Additionally, it offers seamless integrations with your existing systems like Shopify and Braze, ensuring your customer and SKU data are connected. Plus, you can target customer segments based on location, profile attributes, and browsing behavior for tailored promotions.
The result is increased efficiency and revenue, as seen with brands like Eddie Bauer, who increased units per order by 135%.
While we’re discussing platform capabilities and integrations, a robust content foundation is also crucial. My article on best headless content management system delves into this.
Key features:
- Flexible Program Building: Build tailored loyalty tiers, points, cards, and gamified programs without needing to write code.
- Omnichannel Capabilities: Manage loyalty across various channels, including POS, and utilize digital wallets for seamless customer experiences.
- Advanced Analytics & Integrations: Gain loyalty insights and seamlessly connect with your existing tech stack to leverage all your customer data.
Talon.One features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: For Marketing Directors at mid-sized to enterprise-level e-commerce or retail companies, Talon.One stands out as a powerful candidate for the best customer loyalty program software. Its no-code flexibility, omnichannel capabilities, and integration power help drive loyalty program enrollment and significantly increase units per order, as demonstrated by the 135% increase for Eddie Bauer.
4. Open Loyalty
Struggling with loyalty program integration and ROI justification?
Open Loyalty addresses these pain points directly with its API-first approach and campaign builder, helping you launch effective programs faster.
This means you can drive results with a market-proven loyalty engine that attracts loyal customers and maximizes Customer Lifetime Value. Plus, it’s engineered to save thousands of hours compared to in-house development.
Ready to enhance your customer engagement?
Open Loyalty empowers you to deliver on key performance indicators and demonstrate the true impact of your loyalty projects. You can leverage a comprehensive suite of loyalty and gamification mechanics like points, tiers, rewards, and referrals, all designed to acquire, activate, and engage your customers.
Its robust analytics capabilities allow you to track performance, monitor costs, and optimize ROI by connecting with your existing BI and internal reporting systems. Additionally, enterprise-grade features ensure scalability, multi-language support, and GDPR compliance for global operations.
Achieve your customer retention goals faster.
While we’re discussing business operations software, understanding enterprise legal management software is equally important for compliance.
Key features:
- Campaign builder: Create and manage diverse loyalty campaigns with custom events and segmentation, enabling personalized customer engagement strategies.
- Loyalty analytics: Track key performance indicators like retention, engagement, and buyer frequency to optimize your program’s effectiveness and prove ROI.
- API-first engine: Integrate seamlessly with existing CRM, POS, and marketing automation stacks, reducing implementation disruptions and vendor lock-in concerns.
Open Loyalty features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: For Marketing Directors needing a scalable, integration-friendly solution, Open Loyalty stands out as a best customer loyalty program software. Its API-first architecture, coupled with advanced gamification and analytics, allows you to boost average order value by 41% and increase buyer frequency two-fold, as seen with limango and EQUIVA.
5. Kangaroo Rewards
Struggling to turn first-time buyers into loyal customers?
Kangaroo Rewards offers tools to acquire, retain, and engage customers, turning initial sales into lasting relationships.
This means you can easily drive repeat business and offer enticing rewards that keep customers returning more often, getting your customers hooked on sweet rewards.
Here’s how you cultivate lasting customer relationships.
Kangaroo Rewards provides all the necessary tools to grow your business through customer loyalty, allowing you to attract, retain, and engage customers seamlessly.
You can inspire and motivate your customers at every touchpoint, whether they’re on your website, in-store, or using your branded app, making it easy to configure your loyalty program.
Additionally, the platform connects with your customers across various channels, offers real-time insights through satisfaction surveys and product reviews, and automates marketing efforts to deliver the right offer at the right time on the right channel, allowing you to simply set and forget.
The result: you crush your customer goals.
While we’re discussing customer interactions across various channels, understanding the best conversational support software is equally important for modern businesses.
Key features:
- Customer acquisition & referrals: Attract new customers and accelerate growth using powerful referral tools and engaging rewards that help your business stand out.
- Loyalty & retention features: Drive repeat purchases and foster lasting customer relationships with appealing rewards that ensure customers keep coming back regularly.
- Marketing automation capabilities: Automate marketing efforts to connect with customers at the optimal moment, delivering personalized offers through the most effective channels.
Kangaroo Rewards features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Kangaroo Rewards offers robust solutions for acquisition, retention, and engagement, making it an excellent choice if you’re seeking the best customer loyalty program software. It helps transform first-time buyers into frequent customers through powerful marketing automations and personalized rewards at every touchpoint.
6. FiveStars
Is customer churn impacting your bottom line?
SumUp Connect turns one-time shoppers into loyal, returning customers with smart marketing automation.
This loyalty software provides an autopilot messaging system, constantly engaging customers to build relationships that keep them coming back.
You can genuinely transform transactions into lasting relationships.
SumUp Connect introduces robust features for fostering customer loyalty. You get an AI-enhanced messaging system to elevate your customer communication, alongside a comprehensive customer database that tracks activity with every transaction, transforming casual shoppers into devoted customers.
The platform also offers smart customer acquisition by promoting your business on neighboring touchscreens, and effortless connection via text-to-join. You can also leverage performance insights to track engagement and loyalty trends, plus a review boost feature to incentivize customer feedback.
Ready to attract devoted customers?
While we’re discussing optimizing your business, understanding workforce planning software is equally important for long-term success.
Key features:
- Autopilot Messaging: Automate customer communication to consistently build relationships and encourage repeat visits without manual effort, saving your marketing team valuable time.
- AI-Enhanced Messages & Customer Database: Leverage artificial intelligence to enhance customer communication and track detailed activity with every transaction, ensuring personalized engagement.
- Smart Customer Acquisition & Review Boost: Gain new customers through visibility on neighboring business touchscreens and incentivize online reviews to grow your brand’s presence effectively.
SumUp Connect features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: SumUp Connect stands out as an excellent customer loyalty program software, particularly for businesses aiming to convert one-time customers into loyal, repeat buyers. Its autopilot messaging, AI-enhanced communication, and robust customer database make it ideal for boosting retention and reducing churn. Ruth, Manager of A2 Comics, highlights how their promotions feature brought in new customers, demonstrating its effectiveness.
7. Comarch
Struggling with fragmented customer data and inconsistent engagement?
Comarch offers a Customer Loyalty Marketing Platform designed to centralize and enhance your loyalty initiatives. This means you can significantly improve your marketing operations.
It helps you discover new strategies to increase client loyalty and apply verified methods to appreciate their support. This platform empowers you to give your customers more reasons to feel valued.
Here’s how it works.
Comarch’s solution includes robust Loyalty Management features, ensuring you can tailor reward programs precisely. Additionally, its Marketing Automation capabilities simplify communication, allowing you to reach customers with personalized messages effortlessly.
The platform provides advanced Data Analytics to track performance and gain actionable insights, which means you can continuously optimize your strategies. Plus, Omnichannel Marketing Applications help you engage customers across all touchpoints, ensuring a consistent brand experience and boosting retention rates.
This comprehensive approach helps you boost retention, reduce churn, and drive repeat purchases by understanding and rewarding customer behavior effectively.
Beyond loyalty programs, effective communication systems are crucial for any business. My guide on best enterprise phone systems covers essential solutions for modern businesses.
Key features:
- Loyalty Management: Apply verified strategies to increase client loyalty and give your customers more reasons to feel appreciated for their support.
- Marketing Automation: Improve your marketing operations by automating personalized communications and reward campaigns across various customer segments.
- Data Analytics & Omnichannel Applications: Track performance with real-time data and engage customers consistently across all touchpoints for a unified experience.
Comarch features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: For marketing directors at e-commerce and retail companies, Comarch stands out as a strong candidate for the best Customer Loyalty Program Software. Its focus on AI-powered personalization, integrated loyalty management, and comprehensive data analytics offers powerful tools to boost retention and drive repeat purchases, as evidenced by clients like Auchan Retail and Heathrow Airport.
Conclusion
Ready to turn shoppers into advocates?
Choosing the right tool is tough amid evaluation overwhelm. You need a scalable platform that integrates with your tech stack without blowing your budget or causing headaches.
The effort is worth it. A study by Open Loyalty found that 70% of brands report increased customer engagement, and 58% see a boost in repeat purchases. That’s a massive impact on your retention goals and bottom line.
So which tool should you choose?
After my analysis, I recommend LoyaltyLion. It’s designed specifically for growing e-commerce brands that need to prove ROI and foster genuine brand love.
I’m impressed by its data-driven features that help you build a personalized experience customers love. Investing in the best customer loyalty program software like this drives real, sustainable growth.
I suggest you book a free demo of LoyaltyLion to see firsthand how its powerful features can fit your specific needs.
You’ll build loyalty that truly pays.
