The reward that costs you nothing and is worth double
A free coffee at the barber’s next door rewards your customer, brings the barber a new customer and costs you not even the coffee. Partnerships turn your neighbours into your rewards catalogue.
The sum that explains it all
A reward from your own menu costs you product. A reward from your neighbour costs you a conversation.
Put it in numbers. You give away a dessert that costs you €1.10 in product and hand out 30 rewards a month: that’s €33 of margin leaving your till every month, for as long as the programme runs.
Swap that same reward for “a coffee at the café across the road”. It costs you nothing. It costs the café €0.40 per coffee, and only when someone actually walks in. If 15 of those 30 vouchers are redeemed, it has paid €6 for 15 people who didn’t know it and now know where the door is: forty cents per new customer.
That’s all there is to it. Each side gives what’s cheap for them and gets what’s expensive for them. You hand out someone else’s margin; they hand out their own product in exchange for footfall they didn’t have. And the deal is closed standing up, on the pavement, in two minutes.
The two ways to set it up
There are two routes, and they’re not the same thing under different names. Allies means putting your neighbour’s benefit in as a reward in your club. Alliances —the screen with the Redeem a voucher button, not Company codes for a company’s employees— is for when the deal is serious and you want numbers.
| Allies | Alliances | |
|---|---|---|
| What it’s for | Putting your neighbour’s benefit in as a reward in your club | A two-sided deal, with limits and with figures |
| What your customer sees | The ally’s profile on the back of their card: benefit, address, hours, phone | Their profile (address and phone) and, above everything, the voucher code to read out loud |
| How it’s checked there | By looking at the customer’s card | By typing in the code and marking it as handed over |
| Does the partner need an account? | No, they don’t even notice the system | No: if they don’t use etlas, they get a link for their phone |
| What you measure | Linked rewards and how many are waiting to be redeemed | Handed out, redeemed and the percentage between the two |
Start with Allies: it’s the short route and it works for any local deal, because your neighbour doesn’t have to install anything or remember anything.
Setting it up, step by step
- Open Allies and press New ally.
- Fill in Business and Benefit it offers. Then How to redeem, Address, Hours and Phone, and upload their logo. That’s what your customer will read on their phone, standing in front of a door they don’t know.
- Go to Set up → The rewards and press New reward. Under Where is it redeemed? choose your ally’s name instead of At my business. That selector only appears if an ally already exists: that’s why the order matters.
- Drag the reward to the stamp where you want it to land.
- Done. When someone earns it, the ally’s profile appears on the back of their card by itself, and your team sees it when they scan. Before it’s earned it isn’t shown: there’s no point sending anyone somewhere they can’t go yet.
The Alliances screen —the one with the Redeem a voucher button— is for when the deal is serious and you want numbers. There you record what you’re giving, the conditions, a Maximum number of vouchers and an Until date. If the partner also uses etlas, it reaches them as a proposal, and nothing is given away until they press Accept: a deal that only one side switches on isn’t a deal. If they don’t use it, when you save you get a link to pass on to them: it’s their counter, with no account or password, to save to their phone’s home screen. They type in the code, see who’s coming and what they’re taking, and confirm. The same code twice is rejected, showing the date and time of the first redemption.
Who to ask
There’s one rule: they share customers with you and don’t compete with you. Same street, opening hours that complement each other, similar people.
- Low spend, high frequency (café, bakery): you already give cheap things away every day. Use the partner for the big reward at the end of the stamp card, the one you can’t afford yourself.
- High spend, low frequency (hairdresser, optician, garage): you can’t give away a haircut every month; the café next door can give away a coffee. That’s your natural partner.
- Dinner restaurant: the partner lets you give something on the in-between visits without touching your margin.
- Several branches: one ally profile per area. Sending someone across town for a coffee is worse than giving them nothing.
And always ask them for something low-cost and high-margin for them: a drink, an extra, the first class. Never their star product. A deal that hurts them falls apart in three weeks and leaves you on bad terms with your neighbour to boot.
The usual mistakes
- Agreeing it with the owner and not with whoever’s behind the counter on Saturday. That’s why the profile has the How to redeem field: the customer shows the screen and the wording is the same for everyone.
- Choosing the partner because you like them, not because of their customers. You get on well with the garage owner, but your people come on foot and the garage is three kilometres away.
- A deal with no end. In an alliance you set Maximum and Until for a reason: you test it with a hundred vouchers and three months, not with “let’s see how it goes”.
- Not looking at the number. Forty vouchers handed out and two redeemed isn’t a weak alliance: it’s a reward nobody fancies. Change it.
Frequently asked questions
What is a partner business in a loyalty programme?
Another business where a reward from your club is redeemed: you give it, they hand it over. It costs you no product, and they get new people through the door with a specific reason to come in. It works because each side gives what’s cheap for them.
Does the partner business have to use etlas?
No. On the Allies screen you just create their profile: your neighbour doesn’t install anything. And if you also want them to check a code, an alliance with a business that isn’t on etlas gives them their own link for their phone, with no account or password.
How does the partner know the reward is genuine?
The customer shows them the card on their phone: it shows the reward, “Redeem at” with the partner’s name and details. In an alliance it also carries an eight-character code, with no letters or numbers that get mixed up when read out, which the partner types in at their counter and marks as handed over. A second attempt with the same code is rejected.
What should I ask a partner business for?
Something that costs them little and sounds like a lot to your customer: a drink, an extra, the first class, a percentage off a high-margin service. Not their star product, even if they offer it. And make it clear from the start that the deal goes both ways: you’ll be giving away something of yours in their club too.