Many systems are set up to only offer money back. While that is nice, most people do not respond well to just getting money back. In one test of sales people (some of the people most highly motivated by money), offering a specific reward got 50% more effort than offering a money reward.

The Mary Kay organization found that their sales people are most motivated by the specific items they offer as motivational rewards. Those "pink Cadillacs" do far more to motivate people than the same amount of cash.

It is best to put together a set of rewards - items or services that your best customers want. For example, the specific rewards might be a special purchase available only to loyalty card holders. By doing so, you are able to purchase rewards at wholesale that the customer will value "at retail".

You may want to have specific rewards where you only have so many of them. For example, you might offer a special set of golf clubs, but only the first 3 customers who amass enough points can get them.

Certain rewards can be offered on a set number of visits. For example, at a restaurant, you might offer a free desert after 5 visits. Rewards that are offered after so many visits need to be automatically awarded. (Such rewards may do well with an expiration date.)

Rewards may be offered that never expire, or expire after so many days. This is so that an award has to be claimed within 60 days of being awarded. When you award a free desert or shower, you would like the customer to use that within a certain amount of time.

Specific rewards might be offered at certain times of the year. The best known are the turkeys that grocery stores offer to their reward card customers at Thanksgiving.

In short, the rewards system can offer many opportunities to manage the rewards that people get. By marketing the rewards well, customers can be motivated to work towards the rewards they want.