Reward programs can help maintain customer loyalty by offering prizes or privileges based on parameters you specify. The module is built on the basis of Tiers, which are reward levels, such as "Standard" or "VIP." Customers move up the tiers as they reach certain qualifications and can receive passes, discounts, or redemption points in return. You can also configure multiple other settings to customize your reward program and customers can be enrolled automatically upon creation or later, from within their customer record, or they can enter the program when it is associated with a Membership they purchase. A customer can only ever be in one reward program at a time.

Configure Reward Program General Options

Before you create a reward program, you should configure some settings that will affect how the software behaves in relation to these programs overall.

1. From Manager Console, click Customers.
2. Double-click Customer Options.
   
   
3. Open the Reward tab.
4. Configure the fields described below as necessary.
   
   
   
   
   • Point Expiration Days: This is how many days after acquiring reward points they will expire.
   • Sale Points Per Dollar: This field lets you specify how many points equal one actual dollar. This is used to determine how many points to subtract when items are marked Allow Rewards Purchase in Inventory Item Maintenance and customers want to use their point balance to purchase an item.
   • Reward Points Name: This lets you customize what your reward points are called, such as "Swag Bucks." Reward points for all programs will show up under whatever name you give them here.
   • Use Default Reward Program: Select this if you want all new customers to be automatically enrolled in a reward program, and select which one is the Default Reward Program. Currently, the only way to automatically apply a sign up bonus is by enrolling customers automatically in a default program. Other methods of enrolling customers require you to manually add any sign up bonuses.
   • Use EMail Reward Program: Select this to have any customers with an email address on file automatically enrolled in a reward program and select which from the Reward Program For Customers Having Email Address field.
   • Allow New Members at POS: This field has no function in later versions of the software.
   • Show Points Remaining on Tender Screen: This field has no function in later versions of the software, as both the point balance required for purchase and a selected customer's current point balance always display upon checkout.
   • Use Customer Key For Barcode Scans: Selecting this means when you scan a barcode, the software will search for a customer by their Customer Key rather than for an item.
   • Rewards effective from Customer join date: Leaving this deselected means only transactions after a customer has joined a program apply. If this is selected, transactions from their entire customer history will count towards achieving new reward tiers.
   • Use Rewards in Groups: Selecting this means purchases made in Groups count towards the customer's reward program.

Create and Configure a Reward Program

1. From Manager Console, click Customers.
2. Double-click Reward Programs.
   
   
3. Click Add.
4. Enter a Description, such as "Loyalty Rewards."
5. From the Tier Control options, select which factors to measure when determining when to move customers to a new tier.
   
   • You can select multiple options. What you select here will be what you track to place customers in a tier. This can be by quantity of Sales, Visits, and Winnings, or the Reward Balance a customer needs to advance to the next tier.
     
     
6. Below these options, select either the Or or And radio button.
   • Or means a customer can advance to the next tier if they have accrued the specified amount for any of the Tier Control categories.
   • And means a customer can only advance if they have accrued the specified amount for all selected categories.
7. Select a Tier Period, which sets how long a person's tier is valid and when tiers are reset.
   • Unlimited means customers will maintain or continue to advance their tier no matter how much time has passed.
   • Yearly, Quarterly, and Monthly means a customer's tier and accruals will reset after a year, quarter, or month respectively.
   • Rolling Days recalculates a customer's tier by using the customer's accrual history from a certain number of days relative to the current day. Setting the Turnover Days to 5 would mean a customer has to have accrued enough value within the last 5 days to be at a given tier. This means a customer's tier could change very frequently.
     
     
8. Click Tiers.
   • The Reward Tier Maintenance window is where you will define each tier level a customer can achieve, one at a time.
9. Click Add to create a new tier.
10. Enter a Description, such as "Standard" to name the level.
11. Enter a Tier Order to help you keep track of where in the hierarchy of tiers this tier is.
    • This doesn't affect the order in which tier levels advance, which is solely based on the parameters you specify for each. This is for your own organizational purposes and affects in what order the tiers appear on the list in Reward Tier Maintenance. Each tier is required to have a unique value.
12. Enter the amount of Sales, Visits, Winnings, and/or the Rewards Balance a customer must have to qualify for this tier.
    • Keep in mind, a customer will always be inserted into the tier with the highest value controls they qualify for. If you're using multiple tier controls, make sure all values of higher tiers are higher than those of lower tiers.
    • In the above image, the tier has $5 in the Sales field and 1 in the Visits field. If Or was selected in Reward Program Maintenance, a customer who had spent $5 or visited 1 time would qualify for this tier. If And was selected, a customer would only qualify if they had both spent $5 and visited 1 time.
13. Configure the other fields, described below, as necessary.
    • Redeem Discount: This field specifies the percentage discount a customer in this tier will receive on redemption transactions. The value can be anywhere from 0-100%. Disc Min Amount indicates the minimum number of tickets required before a customer can use the discount.
    • Apply Discount: Selecting this enables a Sales Discount to be applied to transactions for a customer in this tier. You can select any discount you have configured and it will apply to any transactions the discount type is valid for.
    • Earn Pass: Select this to give a Pass to a customer at this tier level once they have earned a certain number of reward points. Select the Pass Type to give and set At Rewards Points to the number a customer must have earned to get this pass. Once a pass is awarded, the amount of points required to get the pass will be removed from the customer's point balance and, if they are in the same tier and later reach the amount of points necessary to receive a pass again, they will get another.

    • Sign Up Bonus: This field sets how many Rewards and/or Redemption points a customer receives upon signing up for the program.

      Currently, the only way these points get applied automatically is if a customer is enrolled in a Default Reward Program upon creation. All other methods require you to manually modify the customer's reward points.

    • Visit Bonus: This field sets how many Rewards and/or Redemption points a customer receives for each visit to your location at this tier. A visit is recorded when there is a sale at your facility, but there can only be one visit per day.
    • Points Per $ Spent: This field lets you specify how many Rewards and/or Redemption points a customer receives for each dollar spent at this tier. This does not have to be a whole number. For example, setting Rewards to 0.50 would give the customer 1 reward point for every $2 spent.
      
      
    • Apply VIP Pricing: This box currently has no function.
14. When you are finished configuring the tier, click OK.
15. Add as many tiers as you want to associate with the program.

Manually Enroll a Customer in a Reward Program

Individual customer reward program information is tracked in their customer record. In order to enroll a customer, they must have a record on file, which you can modify to add them to a program.

1. Access Customer Setup.
   • In POS, click Cust Maint. You can also access this from Manager Console.
     
     

1.  
2. Search for or Add the customer you want to enroll in the rewards program.
3. If you are enrolling an existing customer, click Edit on their record.
4. Open the Info tab.
   
   
5. Click the pencil icon under Reward Program.
   
   
6. Select the Reward Program in which you want to enroll the customer.
7. Select a Start Date, which indicates when the customer's enrollment was activated.
   • This can be before the current date.
     
     
8. Click OK.
9. Click OK again to save the record.
   • The customer's current reward tier (N/A if they haven't qualified for any yet) displays next to the reward program name. From this screen you can also see information relevant to rewards, such as the Date of Last Visit, Reward Points, Number of Visits, Redemption Points, Total Spent, and Winnings.

Benefits associated with a reward tier are automatically applied as soon as the customer qualifies for a tier. For example, if there is a Sales Discount at the VIP tier, it will be applied automatically to any valid transactions associated with the customer without any further action required by the cashier.

Remove a Customer from or Change a Reward Program

1. Access Customer Setup.
   • In POS, click Cust Maint. You can also access this from Manager Console.
     
     
2. Search for the customer whose reward program you want to remove or change.
3. Click Edit.
4. Open the Info tab.
5. Click the pencil icon under Reward Program.
6. Select a new Reward Program, or select None to remove the customer from rewards.
7. Modify the Start Date if necessary.
8. Click OK.
   • The customer will retain any Reward Points earned if they are switched back to their original program, but they will not apply to the new program unless Rewards effective from Customer join date is selected in Customer Options. If this is selected, points will carry over to a new reward program if they switch.� If a customer is in a new reward program, they will be immediately placed in the highest tier they qualify for in the current program. If you want to alter the number of Reward Points they have manually, click Modify next to that field.
     
     
9. When you are finished making changes, click OK.

Associate Past Purchases With a Customer's Reward Account

If a purchase was made by a customer in a reward program, but, for some reason, didn't get applied to their account, you can still give the customer credit if you have the receipt number.

In order to associate past purchases with a customer in a reward account, you first have to configure a button for this purpose.

1. From POS, click Setup.
   
   
2. Click Start Pos Screen Design.
3. Verify you are editing the correct Division.
4. Click an empty Transaction Button or click one you can replace.
   
   
5. Select Reward Points as the Button Type.
   
   
6. Verify Enable is selected.
7. Change the Button Text, or design the button as necessary.
8. Click Save.
9. Click Exit Design.
10. Click Exit Admin.

1. From POS, click Reward Points.
   
   • If the Reward Points button you configured above isn't visible, click More Options.
2. Enter the Receipt Number for the purchase you want to associate with a customer.
3. Press Enter.
   • If there is a receipt that matches, which is not already associated with a customer, the Search For Customer button will become active. If the purchase is already associated with a customer, you will get an error. A transaction can only be associated with one person's reward account.
4. Click Search For Customer to find the customer whose account you want to add the purchase to.
   
   
5. Search for and select a customer or create a new one to associate the purchase with.
6. Click OK.
7. A prompt displays with the number of points that were added to the account and the current balance.
   
   

Allow a Customer to Purchase an Item with Reward Points

There are two preliminary steps you need to take before you can allow a customer to purchase an item with their reward points. You need to set up the Reward Points Tender button in POS and also enable the individual item to be purchased with points in Inventory Item Maintenance.

The Reward Points Tender button and the Reward Points Transaction button are not the same thing.

1. From POS, click Setup.
2. Click Start Pos Screen Design.
3. Click Setup Tenders.
   
   
4. Click an empty tender button.
   
   
5. Select Reward Points as the Tender Type.
   
   
6. Change the Button Text, or design the button as necessary.
7. Click Complete the Order.
8. Click Exit Design.
9. Click Exit Admin.
   • Any item you want to be available for purchase with reward points must be individually configured to be valid.
10. From Manager Console, click Inventory.
11. Double-click Item Maintenance.
12. Locate and select the item you want to be able to purchase with reward points.
13. Locate and select the item you want to be able to purchase with reward points.
14. Click Edit.
15. Open the Detail tab.
16. Select Allow Reward Purchase.
17. Click OK.
18. From POS, click the Sale Button associated with the item you want to sell using reward points.
19. Add any other items necessary to the transaction.
20. Click End Order.
21. Click the Reward Points tender button you created above.
22. Find and select the customer whose rewards points you want to use.
    • You can view the customer's point balance from this screen.

      

    • If the customer doesn't have any points, a prompt will display informing you. If they don't have enough to cover the entire purchase, you will have the option to apply as much as they can cover with the points they have.
      
    • Points will only be applied to valid items.
23. Complete the transaction as usual.
    • Any points spent will be removed from the customer's balance.