If you take a look in your wallet or purse right now, chances are you will see multiple loyalty cards, some you may even have forgotten about. Loyalty programs are a great way for businesses to add value to the customer experience by rewarding them for patronizing their establishment. This value is given in the form of points, discounts, exclusive offers, gift cards, free shipping, exclusive events and more. Loyalty programs are a good initiative I think, but the systems could be a lot better bringing more value to consumers and less burden to businesses. Today we shall talk about such a solution but first lets do a little diving.

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• Loyalty programs aren't new, but the rate of participation by customers is increasing yearly and getting more complicated across the globe as people try to save money to combat inflation.

• It is easier for a brand to sell to an existing customer than to find a new one. ( New costumer acquisition cost money, existing customers spend money)

• According to a Nielsen Global Survey of Loyalty Sentiment 84% of respondents prefer shopping with retailers that offer loyalty programs.

The Nielsen Global Survey of Loyalty Sentiment polled more than 29,000 Internet respondents in 58 countries to evaluate consumer views on loyalty levels across 16 categories that range from a fast-moving consumer goods staple to technology products to retail establishments and found that, nearly 59% of all respondents claimed that loyalty programs were available for participation with the retailers where they had shopped. The demand for loyalty programs was exceedingly high for consumers, with about 84% of respondents stating that they were more likely to choose retailers that offered a loyalty program.

My experience with loyalty programs

Most used

Currently I live in Japan where the majority of consumers opt-in to multiple loyalty programs. I myself have multiple cards in my wallet from various establishments. The one I use the most is for a drugstore /supermarket called Aoki. The reason being is I go there often and they always remind me to use it. They even have a specified day that you will get double points ( Wednesdays).I think the reason they do this is to bring people into the store on a day that doesn't have much traffic. With my Aoki points card I can earn discounts and even use it to buy goods once redeemed. I'm actually satisfied with it but have no clue how many points I have and what they are worth until I happen to ask.

Rarely used

Then there are loyalty programs I use less frequently like the nanco card that is offered by 7 11 in Japan. With this card I have to transfer money to it ( up to 50,000 Yen/ around $500 usd) and use the card to purchase goods inside 7 11 or affiliated establishments. Now because I have to transfer money to it to gain the points, I use it sporadically. ( well, only when they are offering the 5th coffee free when using the nanaco card.) I have no clue how many points are on it until I actually use it. I also have a point card for Family Mart but I have stopped carrying it as I do not see it's value.
I also have flyer miles.

Never used

And finally there are loyalty programs I have joined and basically forgotten about like Gap, H&M and ZARA which I rarely go to. The cards all have points on them, one card even offered points that led to a 40% discount but it expired in January ( What a waste). I have no clue when I'll be back to these establishments. The cards will probably end up in the rubbish. Imagine if I could sell those points and actually gain value? What a wonderful world it would be.

Businesses perspective

I also own an E-commerce site that offers a loyalty program in the form of points which customers can redeem for discounts. The thing with points I realize, is that once a customer is off of my website, most of them forget about the points. It is also an endless effort to make customers know about the point system and reminding them to use it. Sometimes I even forgot that it is there as it is built into the cart system. Hmmm, I need to rethink my loyalty program strategy.

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The problem with loyalty programs for customers

The problem with loyalty programs from the customers' perspective is that it is hard for them to keep track of and utilize the rewards of all the programs they are enrolled in. Many customers end up missing out on the value for various reasons listed below:

• Not realizing expiry dates of rewards.
• Rewards that are hard to liquidate ( can only be used in limited places, sometimes only one establishment)
• Forgetting they entered a program
• Not shopping at an establishment frequent enough to gain the value of the rewards.
• Too many programs to choose from.
• A wallet/purse full of point cards that gets confusing.
• Internet points spread all over the web ( more confusion)
• Fed up with the effort to actually gain value ( This one is personal but I'm sure many can relate)

It is estimated that 100 Billion dollars worth of points were left un-redeemed by customers in 2017 according to Fruend (2017)

The problem with loyalty programs for businesses.

Businesses want customers to remain loyal and so many have adopted loyalty programs. The main problem they face is actually having customers participate and then orchestrate their behavior to get a desired result. The problems businesses face include.

• Loyalty programs are expensive to set up.
• It isn't easy to attract new customers and have them sign up.
• Customers may sign up and never follow through for the various reasons stated in the customer section above)
• Loyalty points become an outstanding liability and are accounted for as differed revenue.
• Operational risks such as personal information handling incur security cost and procedures in order to avoid breeches.
• Damned if they do damned of they don't.
  

The qiibee solution

Seeing all these problems above, through their years of experience in the field, interacting with individuals as well as brands and also building an off chain app to solve these problems, a project called qiibee has come up with an interesting and game changing solution.

What is qiibee?

qiibee is a blockchain based loyalty program ecosystem that strives to revolutionize how brands and consumers interact with each other within the sector. The plan is to make the process seamless, by taking a fragmented market, putting them all together in one ecosystem on the blockchain and tokenizing the process of rewards. The interchangeability and ease of liquidity of these Tokens that brands will issue to consumers in the qiibee ecosystem will create a new world of value and possibility in the loyalty program sector.

Tokenomics

The name of qiibee's Token is called QBX and it is built on the Ethereum blockchain. QBX can be seen as the mother currency as it is used to enter and exit the qiibee ecosystem. Brands will have their own tokens that will be issued by qiibee on a private blockchain. After tokens have been created, the companies will be able to set their own fixed exchange rate against QBX.

Main features

The main feature of qiibee is that thousands of brands’ loyalty programs and Tokens will be in one place therefore making it easier for consumers to keep up-to date with all their rewards, check the value, sell their rewards, trade their rewards, find out about new loyalty programs and more all from a wallet type app. It is an entirely different experience that will add value to consumers and brands as well.

A diagram of how the ecosystem works

How qiibee will benefit brands

For brands, qiibee provides everything they need to run their loyalty programs on the system. It provides the interface, infrastructure, developer kit and blockchain backbone so they can make their own customized application layer easily with the full support of qiibee developers and be up and running in no time. For brands that just want a plug and play solution
qiibee offers that too.

The first step requires brands to set their budget for the loyalty program and have qiibee get tokens made. Brands decide how rewards are issued, redeemed and how they engage with customers in the ecosystem. Brands can also tap into a large existing community of loyalty program users in the qiibee ecosystem and expand their reach.

With the qiibee ecosystem and tokens being used for rewards, they won't have to be accounted for as deferred revenue as they are actually being used. The qiibee ecosystem will also make it easier for brands to target their loyal customers with messages to help orchestrate their behavior. And most importantly in this era of personal data hysteria, customers will be in-charge of their wallets and personal information, so brands lower their risk of being blamed for data breaches.

How qiibee will enhance the customer experience

The main feature of the qiibee platform for customers is its Free Exchange which entails being able to exchange rewards ( which will be in the form of digital tokens) from one brand with another’s. So consumers will be able to trade their H&M points for Papa John's points and buy a pizza instead of a new T-shirt. This exchange of value allows consumers to leverage their rewards in a way that benefits them instead of letting points that they may never use, go to waste. Consumers will also be able to send points to other people on the platform they may want to gift or trade with. This is very convenient as I have always wished I could do this. qiibee also gives the consumers the option of exchanging reward tokens for fiat currency or crypto currencies which opens up more opportunities for liquidity and leveraging value.

The platform also allows consumers to check all their reward points ( well the ones from forward thinking brands) in one place on an easy to use app. This app will also show information about loyalty programs going on or those to come. It will also have a menu for consumers to keep track of the value of all their rewards as well as the expiration dates of any offers going on.

The qiibee app also being on the blockchain gives consumers more protection of their personal information as it will be encrypted on a blockchain and not on a brands vulnerable computer. They may not even have to give brands their personal information which will be a sign of digital relief for many.

These features will incentivize the users to take control of their rewards and because it’s an app with tokens that fluctuate in value, they will be motivated to check their rewards instead of forgetting about them. It will also lead to more people saving and planning their spending as they now have a bird’s eye view and leverage to pivot to the most valuable options that fits their needs at any given time.

qiibee is on a path to revolutionize how consumers interact with loyalty programs and will change the sector completely by bringing real value and much needed convinience to the space .

Experience the future ( Imagine with me, as I step into the future with the qiibee ecosystem.

Now imagine I have the qiibee app on my phone ( hmm iPhone XIS maybe). I open it up and I see all my rewards in one place, through one interface. I see Tokens from H&M, Zara, Starbucks, Burger King, 7 11, Pizza Hut, American Airlines, Japan Airlines, Rakuten Japan (Japan's Ebay), supermarkets and drug stores I may frequent, as well as other Tokens. I scroll up and down through my Tokens while on the "thrown". I scroll back up to the top and see my total value is 2,450 QBX ( $7,350 USD). Wow, I can finally see the value of all my rewards.

Suddenly I realize I need to take a trip to LA from Tokyo, I'm a bit short on cash so I check my qiibee app to see my flyer miles. My American Airlines tokens have more value than my Japan airlines Tokens, but I want to fly Japan Airlines as their service is a bit better ( cough). I go ahead and trade my American Airline's Tokens for Japan Airline's. I now have enough JAL Tokens to fly to LA free, I even bumped up to first class as the flight is long. As I arrive in LA its 8:00 pm, my friend picks me up from LAX and tells me we are heading straight to an event and they only accept crypto. But I didn't bring my Ledger nano s hardware wallet and I want to HODL my STEEM Tokens. Hmm, I open the qiibee app again and scroll through my 30+ loyalty program Tokens, I see have a number of tokens from Gap and Zara I know I won't use . I sell them for QBX ( qiibee's Token). But unfortunately qiibee hasn't really caught on in the LA as yet, so I trade my QBX for Bitcoin on the quibee App. I send them the BTC and I'm good to go, I didn't have to borrow any crypto from Laura. As I enter the venue a song starts to play, "50 Cent, In da club". Haven't heard that one in a minute. AAAH crap, I forgot my friends Birthday ......... and she is all the way in Florida. I open the quibee App and scroll through my Tokens, I remember my friend Rachel likes H&M. So I go to the H&M page on the qiibee app and to my surprise they have a campaign going on, " trade your H&M Tokens for gift cards". You see, I could send her the points directly but I'm not sure if she uses qiibee. I trade my H&M Tokens for a gift card and have the code e-mailed to Rachel. HA, qiibee saves me again.

My short trip to LA is over, I get an Uber to LAX as Laura is "busy". During the drive to LAX, qiibee comes up in the conversation. YES!! Dan the Uber driver uses qiibee, unfortunately I couldn't convince him to take Starbucks Tokens for the Uber ride but I did trade some Starbucks Tokens for his KFC Tokens.

As you can see from my example above, qiibee makes too much sense not to manifest. I am looking forward to this.

Image source Airlines BTC H&MGif

The team

Before talking about the team, I first want to talk about the strategic choice of advisers they chose to complement their project. They have economists, marketers, professors, legal advisers, PR adviser, strategic advisers, blockhain advisers, and token economics advisers. This is very assuring as they have a well rounded pool of experienced knowledge in all the fields necessary, to guide qiibee in the right direction while avoiding the many potholes in the crypto space.

One of the Co-Founders, Gabriele Giancola has had 6 years experience as a GE in the loyalty program sector. He has been building the qiibee platform off chain since 2015 and has gained valuable insight into the space. His brother Gianluca Giancola, is the other Co-Founder. He is in-charge of the user interface and has been by his brother's side building qiibee and soaking up the information on the sector as well. He has worked in design for many years and understands what the qiibee platform should look and feel like to users. qiibee has a very diverse and experienced team with clearly defined roles. The wonderful thing about the qiibee website is that under the team section, under each member, they state what they do exactly and a drop down scroll appears with their past experience. I advise you to check it out. Details like that show me they mean business and they are thinking about the end user.

Expert advisors and mentors

Final thoughts

I see nothing but success for qiibee

qiibee entered the loyalty market in 2015 and worked with over 900 brands including Burger King, Hello Fresh, Subway, Dunkin Donuts, Dominoes, Super Dry as well as the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) on their off chain version of the qiibee platform. They were able to acquire 100k active users and generate millions of activities on the platform which gave them valuable insight. Bringing the project to the blockchain was a strategic decision that will enable them to apply what they have learnt while building a lasting and valuable ecosystem with the benefits of blockchain technology. qiibee is also working with marketing agencies which will bring them more access to brands as loyalty programs are on the agencies' portfolios. Marketing agencies want to offer the latest in innovation to their clients and qiibee has value that an agency can easily get their clients to adopt. This will lead to scalability through solid partnerships.

The fact that qiibee is rolling out in Europe first is also perfect as they are seeing first hand the effects of GDPR ( General Data Protection Regulation) so they will be prepared for any other personal information regulation worldwide which most feel will be based on GDPR. Another very interesting strategy that I really must commend qiibee on is the fact that they are heading to Asia before the Americas. The reason this is important is that Asia has one of the largest pools of loyalty program participants in the world ( China, Japan and South Korea especially). Asia adopts new technology faster than the rest of the world. The west looks to the east for new tech to adopt.

Expansion strategy

Product road map

Where are they now

qiibee has been in the process of rolling out the ecosystem to three strategic partners in order to test and perfect the system. The first brand was Lattesso the second largest coffee producer in Switzerland. Lattesso created their Lattesso coin and interface, then re-designed coffee cups and cookie packages with codes that customers type in, on the lattesso coin website to store their points as lattesso coins.

The roll-out was initiated at the Blockchain Summit in Zug in April 2018 and the coffee cups have been available in stores since the 5th of May 2018.

Co-FOunder of qiibee, Gabriele Giancola being interviewed on "Future Tech Podcast"

Be sure to check out the qiibee Airdrop Challenge

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For more information see the links below

qiibee Website
qiibee WhitePaper
qiibee Telegram
qiibee Medium
qiibee Twitter
qiibee Facebook
qiibee Instagram
qiibee Linkedin
qiibee Google Plus

This is a submission for an @originalworks contest
qiibee2018