The team-up will enable students and staff at Glasgow’s Caledonian University to collect points each time they visit one of the four catering outlets on campus.
Frank McCabe, head of Glasgow Caledonian University catering (GCU), said: “We are always looking for new ideas to engage our customers at GCU. Our outlets serve high quality food to hundreds of customers every day and the loyalty program will help to give something back.”
The Swipii loyalty scheme, which allows users to claim prizes such as free coffees, cinema tickets and a three-course lunch, was founded by Chitresh Sharma and Louis Schena and the scheme has since been backed by 5pm founder, Ronnie Somerville.
Schena said: “We’re really excited to have Glasgow Caledonian University join our growing list of Swipii locations in the city.
“They have some cool rewards lined up and we know from experience that the students are really going to like having more of a choice in the things they can get, it’s not just your usual ‘buy-10-get-one-free paper card.”
Staff and students at GCU will be given a Swipii card, key fob and access to the firm’s app to collect and track their points, which can be used to redeem a variety of rewards.
Five points are awarded per visit regardless of spend and customers can cash them in for anything from a high-five from a member of staff to a two-hour cooking lesson with one of Encore’s top chefs at the university.
McCabe added: As soon as we met with Chitresh and Louis from Swipii, we knew it was something that would interest our students and staff, and expect it will be popular with diners.”
Encore, part of Glasgow City Council Arms-Length External Organisation (ALEO) Cordia, has managed both the staff and student catering services at GCU for more than a decade.
An Encore catering app has recently been introduced to provide students and staff with instant access to daily menus, news and information.
The organisation also installed Vend-Sense in all 26 vending machines and retail refrigerators on campus, allowing the machines to auto-shut off when left unused for a long period of time. This made savings of £14,000 and reduced Co2 emissions by 75,000kg a year.
As well as the Swipii loyalty programme, Encore currently operates a reverse vending scheme where cups, cans and bottles can be deposited in special machines and staff and students are given discount vouchers as an incentive to recycle waste materials.
These projects played an important role GCU’s catering facilities being named the best in Scotland in an influential survey of students. The poll, carried out by the International Student Barometer (ISB), is regarded as the leading benchmarking tool used to track the experience of students.