A restaurant loyalty platform to benefit diners and restaurants, MyPointsCloud

The increase of special offers, discounts and deals have attracted more attendees to the casual dining space, which has also witnessed changes owing to the advent of technology. Startups have not only been providing special deals for customers but they have also innovated to bring a variety of tools for restaurant owners to tap into more customers. One such similar platform is Shranick Sethia’s portal MyPointsCloud, an initiative by Magicway Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

What is MyPointsCloud?

MyPointsCloud is a new multi restaurant and pub customer loyalty program. Launched on 17 May 2013, the portal aims to provide customers an added advantage of visiting these restaurants/pubs, through reservations done on the site. MyPointscloud.com might very well become a reason for repeated visits to your favourite restaurant. Started in NCR region of the country, it has tied up with restaurants and pubs in the region like Vapour (Gurgaon) and Fusion Lounge (Greater Kailash) among others.

MyPointsCloud is operating under Magicway, which is a leading provider of offshore/near shore mobile development and web development services, they also offer other IT solutions.  Shranick Sethia the founder is an entrepreneur by heart and he has been running Magicway since last nine years. Before that he had corporate stints with Nestle, Butler University, Cru Group and Fat Fish among others. Through MyPointsCloud his main objective is to redefining the customer relationship management system for restaurant industry, and also offering best discounts and rewards for the customers.

Shranick is a commerce graduate and has done his post graduate diploma in software engineering from Rajasthan.

Benefits of MyPointsCloud

Most customer loyalty programs are a good source to increase the customer base in restaurants/pubs. However the sign up process has to be very short and hassle-free to increase usage by customers. MyPointsCloud.com tries to provide that comfort to the customers. The site also allows customers to register at any of the partner restaurants. Post registration customers get a welcome kit which includes a membership card and dining vouchers. These dining vouches are worth of Rs 2,000, which can be used at any of the partner restaurants and for every Rs 100 spent, the customers earns two points.

In our conversation with Shranick, he explains the process: “every point that the customer earns with respect to billing amount can be redeemed the same at any of our partner restaurants. However the points earned will not include taxes imposed on the bill.” Every point earned is equivalent to a rupee and there is also no lower limit to redeem the points earned via this membership. There is also certain discount on subsequent visits to restaurants, which is decided by the restaurant owner. An added feature granted to the customers is the review options present on MyPointsCloud.com. However to add a certain review about any restaurant/pub the customer must have visited that place before.

As far the restaurant owners are concerned, MyPointsCloud not only helps them increase their customer footfall but also manages their entire database. This database can be mined for valuable insights which in turn can be harnessed by them to increase their customer base or add extra features in their restaurants.

Future for the venture

Since launch the portal has earned decent traction as far as restaurants are concerned, and as of last week they have 20 restaurants/pubs on their list. The response from the restaurants has also been quite encouraging says Shranick. The number of customers engaged with this cloud platform has reached 6,800, however only 900 of these have been processed at present. Shranick admits, “processing loyalty cards for a large customer base has become a challenge for us. The reason for this delay is the cash flow, since we do not charge anything from the customer (for the membership), the whole cost for the loyalty card and other subsidies comes upon us. This delays the shipping to some extent. However we looking to solve the problem soon.”

The startup is also working hard to get more and more restaurants on their lists. On being asked about the criteria of their selection he mentions “we generally focus on a niche restaurant and places where on an average there is traction of around Rs 1000.”

MyPointsCloud currently relies on online marketing platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to spread the word, they are also promoted through their restaurants/pubs partners.

Website : MyPointsCloud