Half of these words are used to mean three different things depending on who is selling. Here is what they mean, how they are measured, and what they get confused with.
The people who stopped coming without saying so.
In a subscription a customer cancels and it is recorded. In a neighbourhood shop nobody cancels: they simply stop turning up. So churn is defined by time since the last visit, and that window depends on your trade: forty days is normal at a barber and a leak at a coffee shop.
Not the same as a lost customer. Someone drifting can still be won back; that is why “drifting” and “lost” are worth separating.
Stamps the card already carries when you hand it over.
Giving the card with one or two stamps already on it. It is one of the few things in loyalty with repeated evidence behind it: a started card gets finished more often than a blank one, even when the real effort is identical.
It is not a discount. It costs no margin until the card is completed, and in the meantime it changes the feeling of progress.
The customer stamps themselves from a screen on the counter.
A screen shows a code that changes every few seconds. The customer scans it with their phone and the stamp lands without anyone on the team stepping in. It earns its place where there are queues and few staff.
Not the same as leaving the card open. The code expires and there is a daily cap, which is what stops it being shared as a photo.
Explicit permission to send offers.
Joining a card is not permission to advertise. They are two separate things, and the second is asked for separately with a box the customer ticks themselves. That is why your customer count and your campaign reach almost never match.
Not the same as having the email. Holding the address and being allowed to use it for offers are different permissions.
The reward actually handed over.
Filling the card and claiming the prize are two different things. Redemption is the second. If many fill and few claim, the prize is not worth enough or it is awkward to ask for.
Not the same as a reward earned. The gap between earned and redeemed is the cheapest signal that something is wrong with your offer.
How many of your customers came back at least once more.
Out of a hundred people who joined your card, how many came back a second time. It is the most honest number in a loyalty programme, because anyone can buy a first visit with a discount; the second one has to be earned.
Not the same as “active customers”: someone may have returned once a year ago and still count as a repeater.
What the prize costs you, not what it says on the menu.
A coffee you sell for five costs you one. The reward is worked out on cost, not on price: that is the number you are spreading across the visits it takes to earn it.
Not a 10% discount. One stamp in ten sounds like one, but it is paid once and only to someone who really came back ten times.
A group of customers defined by what they do, not by a tag.
A useful segment is computed from behaviour alone: when they last came, how often they have come, when they joined. A segment somebody has to maintain by hand stops being true within a fortnight.
Not a mailing list. A list is static; a segment changes daily because people change behaviour.
How many days pass between visits, as a median.
The median number of days from one visit to the next. A median rather than an average, because two very loyal customers drag an average down and make everything look fine.
Not the frequency you expect, but the one that actually happens. The gap between the two is the work to be done.
The card saved in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet.
A signed file the phone keeps next to the bank cards. It refreshes itself when something changes and can show a notice on the lock screen. It is the only channel that does not depend on the customer opening an email.
Not an app. The customer installs nothing: the pass lives inside the wallet the phone already has.
The numbers behind these words are in benchmarks.
