Reward Loyalty · Industry guide · Illustrative settings
https://rewardloyalty.co/use-cases/water-refill-station-loyalty-program
Industry guide · Water refill stores
A water refill station loyalty program that runs on a printed card, not a phone
Record the twice-a-week jug run on a card that lives in a wallet, and keep every incentive on the water, never on the returnable deposit.
Recommended starting program
Start with one mechanism customers can remember.
Give one stamp per jug refill with no minimum purchase, capped at three stamps per day. Ten stamps earn one free five-gallon refill. Offer a 20-refill prepaid pass at an illustrative $36 against $40 of single refills, with no expiry window.
Card
10 stamps, no minimum purchase
Pace control
Maximum 3 stamps per day
Reward
One free 5-gallon refill
Pass
20 refills $36, no expiry window
Why this fits
The trade decides the mechanism.
This guide covers staffed walk-in water stores and refill counters selling purified or reverse-osmosis water into one- to five-gallon jugs, with ice where the store sells it. It excludes unstaffed vending kiosks, which have nobody at the counter to record a visit, and home or office delivery routes, which settle outside the till. Jug deposits and new-bottle sales sit outside the program.
A refill is a 90-second, two-dollar cash visit that happens once to three times a week, all year. A ticket that small sits below any sensible minimum purchase, so the stamp card sets none; the jug is the qualifying event. The three-stamp daily cap paces the card, not the calendar: a three-jug Saturday haul earns its stamps and completes the card sooner, while the day itself stays one loyalty day, because loyalty days count dates, not jugs.
This is a printed-card trade. Customers pay cash with wet hands, and plenty of them will never install anything. A batch of printed cards sits by the register; a customer takes one home and claims it once by scanning its code, and any phone in the household can do that step. From then on the card alone identifies them at the till: staff scan, swipe, or type the printed number. The batch report shows how many cards from the stack came alive, which no paper punch card ever told an owner.
The rhythm is the strongest in this catalog. A two-jug-a-week household records around a hundred distinct dates in a year, so the deep milestones that stay decorative in most trades pay their way here.
Customer journey
From the first QR to a reason to return.
The program should follow the transaction or appointment that already exists. It should not create a second queue.
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01
See it
A card stack and one sign by the till: ten refills, one free jug.
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02
Take a card
The customer takes a printed card home and claims it once by scanning its code.
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03
Fill
Staff fill the jugs while the card waits at the till.
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04
Stamp
One stamp per jug, up to three a day, with no minimum purchase.
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05
Redeem
The tenth stamp becomes a free five-gallon refill.
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06
Graduate
The steady household moves to a 20-refill pass that never expires.
Exact program setup
Configure the base program before the campaign.
Complete the steps in order. Each documentation link opens the current 5.x setup guide for that task.
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1
Create the jug stamp card
Set ten required stamps, leave the minimum purchase empty, and cap earning at three stamps per day. The empty minimum is the point: a two-dollar refill must count.
Create the stamp card -
2
Point the reward at water
One free five-gallon refill on the completed card. No deposit credit, no merchandise, nothing that leaves the water line.
Configure the free refill -
3
Print the member-card batch
Design one card, print a batch, and stock the register. Each card is claimed once by the customer scanning its code; staff never claim a card for anyone. The batch page reports blank against linked counts on its own.
Print the card batch -
4
Rehearse the counter read
Staff scan, swipe, or type the printed card number, confirm the account, and add one stamp per jug. No customer phone is involved at the till.
Read the card at the counter -
5
Add the 20-refill pass
Twenty refills at $36 with the validity field left empty, so the pass never expires. Passes are personal, so the household picks its errand-runner; staff can tick two or three uses in one scan for a multi-jug haul.
Create the refill pass
Achievement strategy
Use milestones as a supporting layer.
Reward Loyalty provides a curated catalog of predefined, one-time milestones. The business chooses which achievements to activate and whether to attach an optional reward. Names, thresholds, measured events, and formulas stay fixed.
A loyalty day records qualifying loyalty activity on a distinct business-local date. It is not a configurable product, service, branch, booking-source, or purchase-count rule. See the fixed achievement catalog and progress rules.
Exact Reward Loyalty name
First step
- Fixed milestone
- Earn your first loyalty day.
- Why it matters here
- The first stamped refill proves a card from the stack became a live member, which is the whole battle in a cash trade.
- Reward approach
- Use recognition. The card explains itself from here.
- Guardrail
- It records one loyalty day, and only for a claimed, registered card.
- 30-day check
- Cards claimed against first stamps, and days from claim to first stamp.
Exact Reward Loyalty name
12-week regular
- Fixed milestone
- Earn a loyalty day in 12 weeks in a row.
- Why it matters here
- Water has no season and no holiday, so twelve straight weeks is a fair ask here where it would be brutal in most trades.
- Reward approach
- A voucher for one free five-gallon refill works; it costs the store one jug of water for three months of habit.
- Guardrail
- A run needs one loyalty day per week, and a loyalty day is one date however many jugs it carries, so a single big haul cannot bank extra weeks.
- 30-day check
- Runs started and completed, and the day of week each household settles on.
Exact Reward Loyalty name
First pass used
- Fixed milestone
- Use a prepaid pass for the first time.
- Why it matters here
- The first pass redemption marks a stamp-card household that graduated to paying for a month of water up front.
- Reward approach
- No extra reward. The pass discount is the benefit.
- Guardrail
- One scan can tick several uses for a multi-jug visit; the pass still belongs to one member.
- 30-day check
- Passes sold against first uses, and how many buyers came off a completed stamp card.
Exact Reward Loyalty name
100 loyalty days
- Fixed milestone
- Earn loyalty days on 100 different dates.
- Why it matters here
- A two-jug-a-week household reaches one hundred distinct dates inside a year. Almost no other trade can run this ladder to the top; here it names the customer the store is built on.
- Reward approach
- A free-refill voucher and a word of thanks at the till.
- Guardrail
- It counts dates, not jugs. Three jugs on Saturday remain one loyalty day.
- 30-day check
- Members reaching 100 days and their pass or stamp activity after it.
Before attaching value, review achievement reward availability, expiry, and grant caps.
Reward economics
Show the arithmetic before approving the reward.
Illustrative calculation
Illustrative example: ten $2 refills put $20 through the till before a free refill worth $2.50, a 12.5% face-value rate. The 20-refill pass at $36 prepays $40 of water, a 10% saving, and records $1.80 of revenue per refill.
A 12.5% face rate on a $2 ticket is one free jug per card cycle, which is the rate the trade's paper punch cards already run. The pass trades a smaller discount for a month of visits paid in advance.
Cost the free refill at water, filtration, and a minute of counter time, not at the $2.50 shelf price. The printed cards are the real marketing spend; the batch report tells you which stack of cards earned its printing bill.
Margin protections
- Jug deposits never stamp. The deposit is returnable money, not product, and stamping it doubles the giveback on day one.
- Delivery-route orders settle outside the counter card.
- Three stamps per day, so a big Saturday haul is one errand, not a shortcut through the card.
- New-bottle sales and merchandise stay outside the stamp card; the program is about the refill habit.
- Name the jug size the pass covers. Twenty $1.80 ticks against $2.50 five-gallon refills is a 28% discount, so run one pass per size instead.
Where to promote it
Put the invitation inside the existing visit.
- Register: the card stack and one line, ten refills, one free jug.
- Jug collar: the stamp card's join QR on a tag for the customer who grabs and goes.
- Window: the pass price beside the single-refill price.
- Receipt: the join QR for anyone who left without a printed card.
Staff script and operating routine
One line, at the right moment.
“Take a card. Ten refills gets you a free five-gallon jug, and the card stays in your wallet, not on your phone.”
- Best moment
- At the till, while the jugs are filling.
- Operating habit
- Read the card first, stamp one per jug up to the daily cap, and keep the register stack topped up.
- Common staff mistake
- Stamping the jug deposit, which is returnable money, not water.
- If a scan or lookup fails
- If the customer forgot their printed card, search by name or email at the till and confirm the account before you add the jug stamps.
First campaign
Wait until the base program works.
A campaign should address one observed behaviour. It should not compensate for missed awards, unclear terms, or an untrained team.
- Audience
- All Members, the week after a new card batch goes out.
- Offer
- No discount. One reminder: the card in your wallet is ten refills from a free five-gallon jug, and the 20-refill pass never expires.
- Timing
- Send once the first batch shows a steady claim rate, then use the supported Stamps In Progress audience for a mid-card nudge later.
- Intended behaviour
- Turn claimed cards into stamped cards, and steady stampers into pass buyers.
- Measure
- Delivered emails against later stamps and pass sales, read beside the batch claim rate. Reward Loyalty does not track email opens or clicks.
30-day review
Use the first month to fix operation and economics.
Thirty days can reveal adoption, workflow, progress, and reward-cost problems. It is too early to claim proven lifetime value or long-term retention.
Batch claim rate
The share of printed cards that came alive. A cold stack means the till line or the claim step needs work, not the reward.
Stamps per member per week
This should match the household jug rhythm. A flat line after claiming means staff are filling jugs without reading cards.
Daily-cap collisions
Frequent three-stamp days are normal for big families; frequent complaints about the cap mean the reward pace, not the cap, needs review.
Free-refill redemptions
Low redemption on a completed card points at staff not offering it at the till; the reward is too small to hoard.
Stamp-card to pass graduation
If nobody graduates, the pass saving is invisible at the register, not wrong.
Common mistakes
What to stop before launch.
- Stamping deposits, new bottles, or delivery orders.
- Setting a minimum purchase on a two-dollar ticket, which kills the card on day one.
- Handing out printed cards without explaining the one-time claim step.
- Claiming a card for the customer at the till instead of letting them claim it once themselves.
- Reading a strong first month as proof of long-term retention.
Printable launch checklist
Water refill stores launch plan
- Write the deposit rule where staff ring up returns.
- Create the 10-stamp card with no minimum and a 3-per-day cap.
- Set the free five-gallon refill as the completed-card reward.
- Design and print the first member-card batch.
- Stock the register stack and brief every shift on the claim step.
- Test a card read, a stamp, and a redemption at the till.
- Activate First step, 12-week regular, First pass used, and 100 loyalty days.
- Add the 20-refill pass with the validity field empty.
- Book the 30-day review on the batch claim rate.
Owner: __________________
Launch: ________________
30-day review: __________
Implementation guides
Open only the setup pages this program needs.
These links point to the current Reward Loyalty 5.x documentation.