Cork, Ireland -- (ReleaseWire) -- 06/08/2015 --Cardboard loyalty cards have been the mainstay of small business for years. Now they're being upgraded to generate insights and actions that increase repeat sales.

A new service from Zapacard allows a small local business to use their existing loyalty card to generate regular insights into their business, including suggestions on how to grow their repeat sales.

Zapacard has been designed by a team of experienced consultants who saw a need for small local businesses to gather data that would allow them to better manage their customer relations. Knowing from experience that business owners are stretched for time they ensured that it works with the existing tools the business already uses.

"We spoke to a lot of small businesses and the feedback we received dictated all aspects of the service," says Zapacard CEO Brian O'Connell. "What we were constantly told is that the most precious commodity a small business owner has is time. Because they already have to deal with so much every day they don't have the time to implement complicated IT solutions. So we designed a solution that uses their existing tools. With Zapacard there is next to no training required and, most importantly, we analyse the resulting data for them."

Three Steps and Two Tools
Zapacard requires the business to have just an existing loyalty card and email. It operates in a three-step process;

1. When a customer returns a completed card the business simply asks for their email address.

2. At the end of the day the collected addresses are then themselves emailed to zapacard.

3. The business receives regular reports containing insights and actions that will help grow their repeat sales.

"Because we use only their existing loyalty card and email there is no disruption to the business and no training required," continues Brian O'Connell. "On average it takes about a minute a day to operate."

Insights and Actions
According to Brian O'Connell the analysis of the data and the production of reports is one of the most critical functions zapacard perform, "Small business owners just don't have the time to regularly analyse raw data. So we make sure that we remove that hassle and do it all for them."

Reports arrive direct to the business' email every week. They include suggestions such as who to email and why, which customers to give a special reward to, and promotional ideas. As time passes and the amount of data collected grows the level of insight also increases and can include comparisons to earlier periods and even identify customers who have stopped visiting. The recommended actions themselves are designed to be quick to implement and complimentary to any existing strategies the business might have.

Why Work With Punched Cards?
Punched or stamped cards (of the "8th cup free" variety) are the most widely used loyalty system in the world. This is because they have features that make them ideal for a small local business; they are easy to understand, cheap to operate, and are excellent advertising. Rather than replace these features Zapacard works *with* them. "We considered developing a phone app," explains Brian O'Connell. " but the businesses we spoke to were adamant that apps would exclude customers who could not or would not download them. The business owners rightly felt that if they could not be loyal to all their customers then they couldn't ask those customers to be loyal in return. "

4 Month Free Trial
Getting started with Zapacard is as simple as the rest of the service. All that is needed is an email address to avail of a free four month trial. After that it is just €4.87 per month.

Zapacard is available now worldwide and is free for the first four months. There is no credit card required and no commitment. All that a business need stop do is visit zapacard.com and enter their email address to start their trial.

About Zapacard
Zapacard, (zapacard.com), based in Cork, Ireland, is a leading provider of loyalty, analysis and consultancy services to small consumer companies around the world. Zapacard services are directly designed for the unique needs of small local businesses, enabling owners to use their scarce resources more effectively while increasing repeat sales.