The spirit of Lecy comes down to one exercise: put yourself in the customer's shoes. A loyal customer is not loyal to one shop, they are loyal to fifteen: the morning coffee shop, the baker, the butcher, the Friday fishmonger, the cheesemonger, the wine shop, the hairdresser, the gym, two or three restaurants. At each one, their basket is the same from one time to the next. And each one would like to build their loyalty with a card, an app, an account, a number to leave and messages to receive. Lecy starts from the other end: a single access key, created once, that works everywhere; points at each shop, in its colours; nothing to carry, nothing to download, nothing to receive except what the customer asked for. This article is the most important of the series, because it says why the other seven exist.
A loyal customer is loyal to fifteen shops
Take a customer from your neighbourhood. In the morning, a latte at the coffee shop, always the same one. A baguette on the way home. On Saturday, the butcher, the fishmonger, the cheesemonger, the wine shop for the dinner bottle. Every five weeks, the hairdresser. Three times a week, the gym. Two or three restaurants where they have their habits. Fifteen shops, and at each one a basket that hardly varies from one visit to the next: the cappuccino is the same, the haircut is the same, the Sunday roast too. This customer is exactly the one every shopkeeper wants to make loyal. They already are. The question is not how to make them loyal, it is how to recognise them without wearing them out.
What every programme asks of them
Do the count, from their side of the counter. Fifteen stamp cards in the wallet, half of them forgotten at home. Fifteen apps to download, with fifteen accounts, fifteen passwords, fifteen notification requests. Fifteen cards to add to the wallet, then to find in the wallet, at the till, while the queue waits. Fifteen phone numbers typed on fifteen tablets, and the texts and emails from fifteen brands that follow. A consumer belongs on average to 17.9 loyalty programmes and actively uses only about half of them (Bond Loyalty Report 2023); 75% of consumers say they will not buy from an organisation they do not trust with their data (Cisco, 2024). Loyalty, seen from the customer, is not a reward: it is a pile of obligations, and they end up saying no to all of them.
What they actually do
They do not install the sixteenth app. They do not take out the card because they do not have it. They do not type their number because they have seen what comes of it. They accept the stamp when it is offered, forget the card when it is full, and the programme will never have known they came three times a week. This is not a disloyal customer: it is a loyal customer who has been worn out. And the research says what should have been done: customers come back faster when they see their progress towards the reward (Kivetz, Urminsky and Zheng, 2006), provided they are asked nothing to see it.
Put yourself in their shoes
Here is the same day with Lecy. At the coffee shop, they pay with their phone, hold it to the tag next to the terminal, open the link: one point, in the coffee shop's colours, and the count of what is left before their free coffee. At the baker's, the same gesture: their points at the baker's, in the baker's colours. At the hairdresser's, the cheesemonger's, the restaurant: the same gesture, one second, and every time the shopkeeper's programme, not ours. They downloaded nothing, added nothing to the wallet, typed nothing, received nothing they had not asked for. Their Lecy access key, they created once, at the first equipped shop, with one Face ID or fingerprint gesture; it works at all the others, as a bank card works at every merchant without anyone being a "member" of anything. Fifteen programmes, one key, one gesture. Building this customer's loyalty means relieving them.
What the customer values, and what they give back
Consumers reward a simple journey: they come back where nothing is asked of them, and they entrust their details to those who did not demand them. That is the paradox Lecy exploits: by not asking for the number, you more often get the number of customers who really want your news or your promo code, and those are the ones who open the messages. A relieved customer comes back, and a customer who comes back pays off: retaining 5% more customers can nearly double the profits of a service business (Reichheld and Sasser, Harvard Business Review, 1990). What you gain by putting yourself in their shoes is their loyalty, measured, without having worn them out.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication
The phrase is attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, and Apple made a method of it. It says something precise: the simplicity offered to the customer costs work for whoever builds it. For the customer to have nothing to do, it took a tag that generates a unique, encrypted, short-lived link at every scan, an access key with no personal data, automatic recognition on the following visits, and a programme that asks nothing of the team either. All of that is invisible, and that is the point. Simple for the customer: hold up, open. Simple for you: place the tag. Simple for your team: nothing. The three go together, and that is what we call the simplest loyalty there is.
What it changes on your side of the counter
You are no longer competing with fourteen other programmes for a place in your customer's wallet or on their home screen. Your programme carries your colours, your threshold, your reward, and it is reached through the gesture the customer already makes to pay. You know how many customers come back and how often, without having asked anything of those who did not want to give anything. And the day a customer wants to receive your news, they tell you themselves, on the page they open at every visit.
Frequently asked questions
Does the customer have to create an access key at every shop?
No. Just one, created at the first tap at the first equipped shop, valid everywhere after that.
Are points shared across all shops?
No. Points belong to each shopkeeper, in their programme, in their colours. Only the access key is shared, like a bank card.
What does the customer see of the Lecy name?
Their access key, and nothing else. The page they open, the points, the reward carry your brand.
Sources: Bond Loyalty Report 2023 (via eMarketer); Cisco Consumer Privacy Survey 2024; Kivetz, Urminsky and Zheng, Journal of Marketing Research, 2006; Reichheld and Sasser, Harvard Business Review, 1990. To start the series from the beginning: deploying Lecy, place the tag at the till.