Raffles and Treats: Shopper, Employee Loyalty as a Game

Tradition dictates there are certain things money can’t buy. Love, life, happiness, loyalty, and many other things make grocery prices more bearable. Marketing - specifically, keeping customers around longer - seems to contradict this long-held belief. After all, if managers can’t bring in the money time and time again, what are they even for? With that in mind, just how well do potential customers - and employees -  respond to incentives for their attention?

Office 'Perks'

Things like loyalty cards and stamp cards for coffee aren’t new. Starbucks gives visitors ten ‘stars’ for each £10 spent, for example, which can then be traded in for food and drink. It’s not exactly fun, but the scheme has elements of gamification. The digital world has its own set of incentives, too. Casino games frequently include a chance to claim free games. The Big Bass Day at the Races slot trades quantities of special ‘scatter’ symbols for free spins, secreting prize multipliers in subsequent turns.

Photo by Henry & Co.

In the workplace, the concept runs deeper. Companies that provide office ‘perks’ aim to reduce staff turnover by rewarding employees just for turning up. The company Perkbox claims to have 3,500 company clients around the world, giving their employees free food and drink, discounts from major brands, and cinema tickets. Perkbox exists adjacent to more 'serious' worker benefits like private medical insurance. It’s also just as optional.

Again, it’s all in the name of loyalty. As the world changes with time, loyalty schemes can become more elaborate and complex, but gamification runs deep. A British company took all the previous to its logical extreme in March 2025 by introducing raffles for regular customers. MSN described the concept from the Newcastle-based Raffily as a “new era of customer engagement.” Its CEO noted that “traditional” loyalty programs could seem “stale.”

Customer Retention

We’ve still got a question to answer, i.e. do people respond to more tangible ways to keep their business? From a marketer’s perspective, Raffily claims that its incentivised raffles can return up to half the income lost to customer 'churn' or the natural loss of custom over time. Shoppers remain customers for up to 30% longer and are twice as likely to keep a subscription up for raffle tickets. Sourced from Raffily’s website, it’s potentially biased information. 

Photo by Brigitte Tohm

Customer retention is difficult to quantify. Shopify claims that the average rate varies by industry from 30% in e-commerce to 84% in media. Data firm McKinsey & Company claimed in 2021 that 79% of customers would become wanderers, "exploring their options" over future years, a sentence that suggests loyalty isn't what it was. The same report cited loyalty schemes as increasing revenue by up to a quarter, which aligns with the idea that people appreciate rewards for their custom. 

The struggle for marketers is that loyalty needs prodding with more than one stick. Personalisation, customer service, and all sorts of other tools help create the perfect customer. Making a game of it with raffles and collecting stars for coffee isn’t a bad place to start.