In hospitality, loyalty has one job: bring customers back sooner and encourage them to spend more when they do. Vague points rarely achieve that. They don’t clearly express value, require mental math, and reward past spending without shaping what happens next.

Effective restaurant loyalty programs need three things: clarity, ease of use, and relevance.

Currency achieves that. A $5 balance feels like $5. It’s simple. Immediate. Easy to understand. Even a small balance creates a reason to return.

With Liven, you keep loyalty front and centre throughout the ordering journey, and gamify and program it to incentivise desirable behaviours. All while keeping it effortless. You can sell and reward Brandollars — your venue’s exclusive, programmable currency that feels like real money and compels diners to return and keep spending at your restaurant.

We have made restaurant loyalty visible, frictionless and easy to enrol and use.

This blog breaks down what effective restaurant loyalty looks like today and how visibility, effortless redemption, and targeted rewards drive repeat visits and higher spend.

Why Visibility Matters in Restaurant Loyalty Programs

Loyalty works better when customers can see value building as they spend. If progress is hidden or redemption is complicated, motivation disappears.

Brandollars make restaurant loyalty tangible.

Brandollars make loyalty tangible. They are a venue’s own currency, earned as a percentage of every order and stored in a customer’s digital wallet.

Traditional points work best in industries with high margins, high order values, and low purchase frequency. Airlines are the classic example. Hospitality is the opposite.

Restaurants operate on tight margins, lower order values, and frequent visits. Loyalty here needs to be simple, visible, and immediately valuable.

With Brandollars enabled, every dollar a diner spends at your restaurant, they get a percentage back in your venue’s currency that they can spend only at your venues.

Now that they have real dollars sitting in their wallet, they will want to come back and spend them. And when they do, they typically spend much more than traditional points-based programmes.

We’ve made the Brandollar wallet visible right on the home page of your Magic App.

As soon as someone logs in, they see their balance sitting in their wallet. With every transaction, they keep earning.

Loyalty tiers add direction to this spending. You can set up tiers for membership levels based on spend. Each tier has special benefits and reward rates. Customers can see their current tier, their earn rate, and how close they are to the next level.

You have added a layer to your loyalty program by gamifying it. We track and show progress inside your Magic App.

Why Loyalty Should Be Built Into the Ordering Flow

Visibility alone isn’t enough. Loyalty only works if customers can use it without effort. Otherwise, you are no different from businesses offering reward points that are hard to understand and always come as an afterthought.

We have introduced a native earn and burn flow of Brandollars directly into your restaurant ordering app.

The first touchpoint was the Brandollars visible on your home page.

Next, they continue placing the order as usual. At checkout, we have toggled on the usage of Brandollars by default. So the no-change flow will be for them to redeem existing Brandollars and pay any outstanding balance with their method of choice. But if they are not ready yet, they can simply toggle off the Brandollars and pay the full amount. That is native burning of Brandollars.

At checkout, diners also see the amount of Brandollar rewards they are earning from that transaction.

Once payment is made, the amount is automatically credited to their digital wallet, ready to be redeemed when they are back.

Frictionless. Easy. Delightful!

How Loyalty Can Shape Customer Behaviour

Blanket rewards are fine for discounts or as general incentives. But they do not affect behaviour.

Points-based programs rarely shape behaviour in hospitality because the value feels distant and abstract, not immediate.

If you want to direct customer behaviour in your restaurant, you must target coupons and rewards as incentives for specific actions.

These actions could be spending a certain amount, ordering a particular dish, returning after a long lapse, or getting promoted to a loyalty tier.

For example, you can reward customers for ordering delivery directly from you instead of a marketplace. That way, every loyalty-driven order protects your margin and keeps your customer data out of third-party platforms.

Targeted coupons allow venues to do exactly that. Instead of rewarding everyone, you reward intent.

Offers are triggered by real signals such as spend level, inactivity, loyalty tier, timing, or store location.

This changes how loyalty feels. A lapsed customer gets a timely nudge to return. A regular feels recognised, not discounted. A high-value diner sees benefits increase as their status grows.

For operators, this brings control back. You decide who gets rewarded and why.

When loyalty feels intentional, customers notice. Behaviour shifts. Loyalty stops being noise and starts driving action.

Frequently Asked Questions About Restaurant Loyalty

What makes a restaurant loyalty program effective?
An effective restaurant loyalty program makes rewards visible, easy to redeem, and relevant to customer behaviour. Diners should see value building as they spend, use rewards during ordering without friction, and feel motivated to return sooner.

Why don’t points-based loyalty programs work well in hospitality?
Points often feel abstract and require mental conversion. In hospitality, where visits are frequent and margins are tight, customers respond better to tangible, currency-based rewards that feel immediate and easy to use.

What is currency-based loyalty in restaurants?
Currency-based loyalty rewards customers with a dollar-value balance they can see and spend. Instead of collecting abstract points, diners earn venue-specific digital currency that feels like real money and encourages repeat visits.

How can loyalty programs increase repeat visits and spend?
Loyalty increases repeat visits and spend when rewards are visible during ordering, easy to redeem at checkout, and targeted to influence specific behaviours such as higher spend, return visits, or direct ordering.