Vita, one of the major Russian pharmacy chains, started a new bonus programme for its customers in cooperation with Zolotaya Seredina and Sovcombank. Starting from 15 April 2014, the customers of Vita and Dobroye Serdtse pharmacies can enjoy all the benefits of this programme.
According to Svetlana Popova, the Head of the Advertising and PR Department at the Vita pharmacy chain, this discount and bonus programme will enable Vita to effectively manage customer loyalty and sales. Here is what she told us in her interview: «Our network is one of the largest in the Volga Region and in the Russian Federation. We have a great number of pharmacies and a lot of customers. So it is natural that customer loyalty and sales management is our top priority at the moment.
In 2013, the Vita pharmacy chain started searching for a contractor able to properly develop and implement a bonus programme in the shortest time possible. According to Svetlana: «…we needed to develop a fully complete solution for launching a bonus programme, where we could combine both accrual of bonuses and provision of discounts to our customers. […] To this end, we searched for a contractor…a professional one, with experience in the market. We have found such a contractor. It is Zolotaya Seredina, which has provided us with a turnkey solution and has developed the programme concept together with us and…starting from 15 April 2014, this programme has been launched in the Vita and Dobroye Serdtse pharmacies in Samara.
Zolotaya Seredina’s new loyalty programme offers the customer’s team a great number of options for managing a customer base.
Firstly, it enables the company to achieve a clear segmentation of customers. Secondly, it enables to analyse customer spending. Thirdly, the company can work with each customer separately and make offers based on a customer’s preferences. Vita’s old discount programme did not offer any such options. «…And most importantly, we could not communicate with our customers directly. We did not see the purchases of a particular customer and could not contact him with any specific offers. So our way of working was, let’s say, of a rather general character. But now we want to work with each of our customers, to make specific offers, interesting for a particular customer segment, to communicate with customers and to wish them a happy birthday.» Additionally, special pensioner cards were introduced in the Vita pharmacies as part of the new bonus programme. They would enable the card holders to receive discounts to which they are entitled without the need to show a pensioner ID cards.
It took a record-low amount of time to develop a bonus programme for the Vita pharmacies: everything was done in three months, which is very fast, considering that Zolotaya Seredina’s task was rather challenging. Here are the words of Anton Semennikov, the CEO of Zolotaya Seredina: «The Vita project is a very interesting one. At first we thought: what have we gotten ourselves into? Will we be able to satisfy the needs of every party involved, namely the pharmacy chain, the investor’s bank, ourselves, and most importantly, customers, and to execute Vita’s plans? …Achieving this task brought us genuine pleasure. Firstly, we launched the loyalty programme in just three months. …Secondly, there were only necessary coordination activities, even though the network’s owners were highly involved in the loyalty programme development, which included their monitoring of the design process for a customer card.
During the launch process, there were certain problems which were timely resolved without much difficulty due to the effective cooperative work of Vita’s and Zolotaya Seredina’s employees. «We faced some difficulties during the launch of the bonus programme. First of all, we had to train personnel more effectively. The pharmacy network is very large, there a lot of employees (about 1,000 people) …We were instructing them, explaining how to work with customers and offer discount cards in a proper way…We still train the employees in order for them to fully understand the work involved.»
Thanks to hard work, the first results of a new bonus programme are already present. According to Svetlana: «Sure, we have already seen the first results. We were able to see specific customers who make purchases in specific pharmacies on specific days and during specific hours. It will enable us to develop our sales policy in a more effective way as we go forward.»
Also, from 1 May till 31 August 2014, every customer who shows a Vita card when receiving a loan in Sovcombank also receives a present from the bank—a gift card for 500 roubles that can be used in any Vita pharmacy.
A bonus discount programme for the Russian pharmacy chain Vita has proven to be another successful project by Zolotaya Seredina. Anton Semennikov, the CEO of Zolotaya Seredina, shared the secret of the company’s productivity: «There are many companies, of course, but you need a combination of certain qualities. Certainly, the first one is…enthusiasm about the product. You also need experience: it is as relevant as always. Zolotaya Seredina has more than 10 years of experience. Most of our employees have been working here for more than 5 years—working exclusively on loyalty programmes…Finally, it would be impossible to achieve anything without state-of-the-art technical tools. We have these too. We’ve put a lot of time, money, and effort into these tools, but now we do have them!»
Sovcombank ICB LLC was founded in 1990. General License No. 963 issued by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.
As of 1 October 2012, Sovcombank was ranked 65th in net assets among the largest Russian banks, according to RBC Rating. The bank’s sales network includes over 1,500 offices in more than 30 regions of Russia.
SPK Zolotaya Seredina LLC has been operating on the loyalty programme market since October 2000. Today, it is one of the few Russian companies that develop and implement loyalty programmes for mercantile businesses in all market sectors. Zolotaya Seredina has 21 representative offices; the company’s footprint surpasses 90 cities. More than 3,000 companies use the services of Zolotaya Seredina. More than 30 coalition loyalty programmes were created. Over 1,000,000 Zolotaya Seredina cards are presently in circulation. Every day, people make about 70,000 purchases using Zolotaya Seredina cards.
SPK Zolotaya Seredina LLC www.seredina.ru
The Vita pharmacy chain was founded on 17 February 1993 in Samara. Through many years of constant development, the company has built a reputation as a reliable partner. Today, it is among the top 10 largest Russian pharmacy chains.
Vita’s primary activity is selling medicinal, healthcare, and parapharmaceutical products through pharmacies.