How Blockchain Can Revolutionize Loyalty Programs

Loyalty points have become an important part of business. Organizations have determined that repeat business is one of the most important things to pursue. Often, a business finds themselves surrounded by competitors and they need a way to differentiate themselves. Loyalty/reward programs are a fantastic way to do this. Even within the same market, you may find different types of loyalty programs that target different niches within those markets. In other cases, a more generic program is used where points are assigned based on a percentage of dollars spent and those points can be used to redeem for items/credit in the store, similar to a cash back credit card but exclusive to their store. They may also offer deals exclusively to those who are part of their loyalty program or who pay with loyalty points.

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The Problem

As more and more businesses offer their own loyalty programs, it gets harder and harder to keep track of who has what points and where they're usable. Ask yourself, how many loyalty points do you currently own across all organizations? Do you have any idea? I sure don't, and judging by the $100 billion of unspent loyalty points I would imagine that most people don't! Do you think those enrolled in loyalty programs that have never used their loyalty points are likely to feel as connected with that company as someone who does use the points? Do you think that having $100 billion outstanding is a positive thing for businesses? That's quite a liability, an organization with a large outstanding balance of loyalty points that has a particularly rough month where many points are utilized could quickly run into some budgetary issues.

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What is qiibee

This is where qiibee is looking to make some changes. They recognized the organizational and personal need for a better way to manage loyalty points. For an organization, it is imperative to be able to manage and project upcoming expenses such as loyalty point redemption. Using traditional methods, this is a difficult task to perform. This is due to the compounding factors of inadequate systems that may be in place to track outstanding balances as well as the built in tendency for those points to get stashed away for long periods of time without use. For end users of those points, there's a huge need for organization of available points as well as the ability to cash out on unwanted points. Easy access and use of such points works on both sides, as it becomes easier for the end user to get value from the points they earn, and as such the shorter turnaround for point usage improves an organizations ability to more accurately project future point redemption rates. The need is clearly there, but until recently, a viable technology was not.

You can probably imagine some of the issues in creating a product to manage loyalty points across several organizations. In the time of centralization, this is a hard task to manage and a harder task to manage securely. Operating a multi-organizational software with a single point of failure is not an easy task, and with blockchain technology it's frankly not a task that should be pursued using a centralized model anymore. This is why qiibee is utilizing two versions of the Ethereum blockchain to make this need a reality. They are using the public Ethereum blockchain to house their qiibee token (QBX) and a separate, private blockchain based on Ethereum to track and use all kinds of loyalty points for the many partners they plan to have.

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qiibee's path to success

Partners are important when it comes to adoption, and this is one of the greatest strengths of the qiibee team. Almost anybody can spin up a blockchain token on Ethereum, there are many tutorials available online for this task. What most people don't have are the connections and industry knowledge to get adoption. qiibee is not new in the loyalty space, they entered that market in 2015. In less than 12 months they scaled their original product to more than 100,000 users and 900 brands. This means they've already had their foot in the door with loyalty program giants like Subway, Burger King, and Dunkin' Donuts among many others. They also have an experienced team, 70% of whom have entrepreneurial experience already and many knowledgeable advisers to call upon.

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From their vast pipeline of prospects in this space, they've already identified their first 3 organizations to roll-out to. The first two organizations are described in the whitepaper, Lattesso out of Switzerland and Sausalitos out of Germany. This is one of the many indicators that this company has a well laid out plan and the ability to execute on it. As they roll-out to these first few organizations, they will be able to collect valuable feedback and data to make sure their product is seamless for further integration into the space. They plan to expand further into Europe and then into Asia as they roll their product out further. The first 2 brands of their roll-out should have tokens issued within the current quarter (Q2) of 2018. Q3 is slated for 6 more brands on the platform and is when the open crowd sale will take place. As you can see, things are already underway and moving quickly!

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For those interested in this project, check out their website today, and also check out their airdrop page if you're interested in getting some QBX tokens early on! Here are some additional resources for information on this project:

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

This article is part of the @originalworks writing contest

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