The Kanz loyalty card is a digital card your customer adds to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, alongside their tickets and their bank cards. They install nothing. You scan their code at the counter, and the stamp appears on their phone within the second.
This article walks through exactly what happens, step by step, from the first scan to the reward. If you are still weighing up whether to run a loyalty card at all, it is also a fair way to see what one actually asks of you.
What the Kanz card is, exactly
It is a digital pass in the standard format of both mobile wallets: a storeCard at
Apple, a
loyalty card at Google. These
are the formats both systems built for stamp cards in the first place, so the card behaves
like every other card in the wallet: it comes up with a swipe from the lock screen, it
updates itself, and it never asks for a password.
The card carries your name, your colours, your logo, the reward you chose, and the stamp count for the current cycle. The word Kanz is not on the front. It is your card, not ours.
How a customer gets one
They scan a QR code, they give their number, they add the card. Three gestures, one page.
The QR code you print points at your sign-up page. That page asks for a phone number and nothing else. First name, email and birthday are optional, and the birthday is day and month only: the year of birth is never asked for and never stored.
Once the number is confirmed, the customer gets their card. On iPhone it goes into Apple Wallet, on Android into Google Wallet. There is nothing to download, nothing to create, no account, no password.
What happens when the customer comes back
You scan the barcode on their card, and the stamp is recorded. That is the only gesture loyalty asks of your counter.
The barcode printed on the card is signed. In plain terms, it holds the identifier of your business and that of the customer, plus a signature only your server can produce. It looks like this, the last part being the signature:
KANZ1.<your business>.<the customer>.<signature>
The point of that is very concrete. The scanner checks the signature without going off to query a database, which means the stamp records fast even when the connection on the phone at the counter is poor. A queue should never be waiting on something to load.
Why the card updates on its own
Because both wallets know how to go and fetch a card that has changed. You add a stamp, the counter changes on the customer's phone, and they have nothing to install and nothing to refresh.
The exact moment they see it depends on their phone, and it is worth being precise about. On Android, the card is updated on Google's side and the new count is there. On iPhone, the card refreshes when the customer opens their wallet: there is no red badge, it is simply up to date at the moment they look at it, which is at the counter, when they hold it out to you. The technical detail behind that difference deserves an article of its own; what matters here is that no stamp is ever lost.
It is also the least intrusive channel you have, and that is why it is free with Kanz. A credit goes out only when Kanz sends a real message on your behalf:
| What Kanz does | Cost |
|---|---|
| Update the card in the Wallet | 0 credits |
| Send an email | 0.2 credits |
| Send a WhatsApp | 1 credit |
| Send a Telegram | 1 credit |
The thinking is never billed: the agent that picks who to follow up with, when, and in what words consumes nothing. Only the send counts. All three plans are set out on the pricing page.
What a verified return is
A verified return is a visit somebody scanned at your counter. Not an email opened, not a link clicked, not an estimate.
The distinction matters when you look at your numbers. Plenty of loyalty tools count a message being opened as a success. A scan is a fact: the person stood in front of you, showed their card, bought something. It is the only measure that tells you whether a follow-up did any good, and it is the one Kanz leans on.
A scan at the counter is a fact. An email open is a guess. Both can be counted, but only one of them pays your rent.
Other questions of the same kind are gathered on the frequently asked questions page.
What if the customer has neither Apple Wallet nor Google Wallet
They get a plain link that opens in their browser. Their card lives there, their stamps are counted there, and they can bookmark it or put it on their home screen.
This covers older phones and some Android builds without Google Wallet. It stays a minority, but a customer without a mobile wallet is a customer all the same, and they should not meet a closed door while the person behind them in the queue adds a card in two seconds.
How a customer stops receiving messages
They tap a link. One gesture, no confirmation page, no account to track down, and Kanz never contacts them again, including if you ask it to.
That link sits on the back of their card and in every message Kanz sends for you. It is signed and it does not expire, because a card added today still has to be able to opt out two years from now. There is deliberately nothing between the customer's finger and the exit: no "are you sure", no leaving questionnaire, no cancel button dressed up as a question.
Two further rules apply without you configuring anything. Messages go out only inside a daytime window, worked out on the local time of your business and not on the server's. And the card itself keeps working: opting out of messages does not wipe stamps already earned.
What the card does not do
It does not follow your customer elsewhere. It knows nothing about what they buy from anyone else. It does not ask for access to their location, their contacts or their photos, and that is not a promise on our part: a wallet pass has no code to run, so it has nothing to ask for. A promise holds for as long as nobody changes their mind; a property of the format holds because there is no other way of doing it.
On the business side, though, one useful point: your customers are yours. The full CSV export of your customers, their visits and your consent records sits in Settings, on every plan, once a day. There is no plan to buy to be allowed it and nobody to ask for it.
That is not generosity, it is who stands where. On your customers' data you are the controller and Kanz is only the processor: we hold it for you, it does not become ours, and nothing you pay or do not pay changes that.
In short
- The customer scans a QR, gives their number, adds the card. No app.
- The card lives in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, or in the browser failing that.
- You scan their code at the counter: the barcode is signed, so the stamp is fast.
- Card updates are free. Only messages sent cost a credit.
- A verified return is a scan, not an email open.
- A link on the back of the card ends messages for good, and the stamps stay earned.
Setting all of it up takes you about four minutes: create the account, choose the reward, print the QR. The first customer can scan straight after.