About the business
I run a neighborhood game room. Weekends take care of themselves. Friday night and Saturday, the floor is full and the counter has a line.
Tuesday is a different place.
The problem: no way to reach the people who already liked us
On weeknights the floor was half empty, sometimes worse. I tried what everyone tries. Flyers. A discount night. A post on social media that got twelve likes, mostly from staff.
The real problem took me a while to see. I had regulars, people who came in every weekend, and I had no way to talk to them. No list, no number, nothing. They'd walk out on Saturday and I'd have no way to say "come in Tuesday, here's why" until they happened to walk back in.
I was trying to fill quiet nights with strangers when the people most likely to come were already my customers.
What we changed: a list, a pass, and a reason to come back
Once players started checking in at the Match System, we had something we'd never had: a list of who actually comes in, and how often.
From there we built three simple things.
- A wallet pass. Regulars add it to Apple or Google Wallet. It's their check-in and it keeps us on their phone.
- Spin promos on quiet nights. We set the budget, the odds and who's eligible, so a Tuesday promo can't quietly eat a week's margin.
- Raffles. A weekly draw gives regulars a reason to show up on a specific night.
Between players, the Match System screen can run our own slides: tonight's promo, last week's raffle winner, a new location opening. That's optional and off by default. We turned it on because it's free advertising to the exact people standing in the room.
The team at Charviam also helped write and send the first few email and text campaigns. I didn't have to learn a marketing tool to get started.
An honest note on cost: promos are real money. The budget cap is the most important setting on the page, and we set it before anything else.
The result: Tuesday has a pulse
Tuesday still isn't Saturday, and it won't be. But it has regulars now, people who come in for the promo and stay to play. Because every visit is a check-in, I can see which promos brought people in and which didn't, and drop the ones that don't work.
If you want the full picture of how loyalty programs come together, here's how we approach them. And if you're weighing hardware first, read why we skipped a card reader on every machine.
If your weekends are full and your weeknights aren't, tell us what a quiet night looks like for you. We'll show you what a first promo could look like, and the free one-week test lets you start building your regulars list on your own floor.
Free one-week test
We put a Match System on your counter for one week, on your real machines. If it doesn't show you something you didn't know, you walk away. Buy it and your first month of Premium is free.
- Free for one week
- Your real machines
- First month free when you buy