Overview

Rewards enable organizations to remunerate customers for their loyalty and provide them with an incentive to repeat their business.  Through rewards programs, organizations can acquire data on individual customer so as to better understand their behavior.  Using a structured and measurable approach enables a company to construct effective marketing campaigns and achieve  business growth by targeting new customers, increasing the spending of current customers, improving customer churn rate or shift customer spending to products with a higher profit margin.  

Rewards can be converted into cash and redeemed either at the customer's discretion or subject to conditions, such as on specific products and/or at a specific time and place).

Major features

• Operator board used to:
  
  • Create new reward schemes and offers
  • View information on current schemes and offers
  • View reward participant, award and spend statistics
  • View the customers participating in selected reward scheme 
  • View the reward partner agreements of a scheme.
• Reward schemes can group together reward offers applicable to their participants
  
• Business specific reward offers 
• Reward participant by crediting their wallets, either instantly, or subsequently through batch runs
  
• Reward participants on specific occasion, such as their birthday, name day or during a recurring period such as the Christmas or Easter season.
  
• Handling all reward transactions; awards, spends and expiration from one central location
  
• Provision of  instant discounts on purchases through instant spent
  
  
  

Setting Up Rewards

Rewards admin

Rewards admin is used to configure CRM.COM to meet the requirements of your rewards program.  Rewards admin can also be used to view:

• Registered rewards participants
• Rewards transactions (award, spend, award expiration transactions)
• Rewards participation agreements

Reward schemes

Reward schemes are used to group reward offers and keep track of eligible customers participating in each scheme.  Once setup, schemes are added to reward offers and participants.

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Reward offers

Reward offers determine the amount awarded for customer events or other actions, and specify the conditions for giving and spending rewards.

Offers can be created from scratch or by using templates.  Click on NEW in the Manage Reward Offers page and select either Reward Offer and Reward Offer From Template.  In either case, first select the classification, which determines the basic reward offer parameters. Continue by defining the actual awards and the conditions for earning and spending them.

To make a new offer available to reward participants it must be activated by setting its life cycle state to 'Effective'.  Use 'SAVE AS TEMPLATE' from the Actions menu, so that a similar offer can be easily created in the future. 

Reward offer fields

The table describes the fields and sections of the Reward Offers Data Entry page which are available for all classifications, and explains how the fields in the page are used. 

Additional fields available to specific reward offer classifications are documented in the (Additional fields)  table below.

 Mandatory   Configurable

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Additional fields 

Select a classification from the drop-down list to view additional classification-specific reward offer fields.

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Award and spend conditions

The table below describes the award and spend conditions available in reward offer classification tables above.

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Related configuration areas

The following modules are related to rewards and may be configured for the rewards module to operate at its full capacity.

Using Rewards

Rewards participants are customers registered with CRM.COM who   participate in a rewards program.

When participants are created in the system, they are assigned an accounts receivable associated with a wallet. The wallet is used as an account for financial transactions associated with rewards.

On signup, participants are added to reward schemes.  Each scheme includes a number of reward offers for which participants are eligible.

Reward offers can award events that take place outside CRM.COM (customer events), such as purchases and visits to a website.  Rewards can also be awarded for data supplied to CRM.COM (such as customer registration details), for participant birthdays and name days, and for the period a subscription is effective.

Events are evaluated against reward offers.  Evaluations takes place either directly at the point of sales (where the purchase is registered) or through subsequent processes that handle multiple events and award them in one flow.

Following a positive evaluation, the rewards engine proceeds with the creation of award transactions, which generate credit wallet transactions, that add funds to the wallet of the participant. 

Participants can redeem their rewards by spending their wallet funds, either at their own discretion or subject to conditions (for example, on a designated product at a specific shop and date/time).  To this end, a spend request (customer event) is logged in CRM.COM and if there are sufficient funds in the wallet of the participant, then a spend transaction is created which in turn generates a debit wallet transaction, that deduct funds from the wallet of the participant.

Awarded funds can be subject to an expiration date. If this is the case, the funds are expired through a background recurring process that expires funds in one flow. An award expiration transaction is created, as well as a debit wallet transaction, which deducts the funds from the wallet so that they can no longer be spent. 

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Using the Rewards Operator Board

The rewards operator board is a versatile page that brings together functionality and statistical information pertinent to reward schemes including reward offers, participants and partners. It can be used for setting up offers or to display reward scheme key performance indicators.  Use it to:

• Create new reward schemes
• Create new reward offers
• View information on current schemes and their offers
• View reward participant, award and spend statistics through charts
• View a list of customers participating in selected reward scheme
• View the reward partner agreements of a scheme.

Working with schemes

To create a new scheme, select the Create New Scheme action, provide the required information and save.

For more detail on a scheme, select the scheme from the drop-down list and click on View More Information.

Working with reward offers

To create a new reward offer, hover over its classification and select Create New or Create from Template. The available reward offer classifications are configured in the Reward Admin section.

To view a list the scheme's current reward offers scroll down to the reward offers section. Click on the offer number to view the offer's Data Entry page.

Working with dashboards

Dashboards provide insight on the performance of rewards programs by displaying key performance indicators in an integrated view.

The following charts are available: 

For rewards participants

• Total number of effective rewards participants
• Rewards participants termination per month 
• Rewards participants, scheme sign up per month

For awarding behavior

• Total awarded amount which was not spent
• Awarded amount per month during last 12 months 
• Top 5 offers based on the awarded amount during last month

For spending behavior

• Spend amount per month during last 12 months
• Spend amount per day during current week 

Viewing scheme participation

Once a scheme is selected, you can view all its current offers and participants, including any agreements made with participating partners.

Creating and Processing Reward Related Entities

Rewards participants

Rewards participants are customers who have signed up or have been automatically selected to participate in the rewards program. Only rewards participants are eligible to be awarded by reward offers.

Reward participant fields

The table describes the sections of Rewards Participant Data Entry page and explains how the fields in the page are used.

 Mandatory   Configurable

Contact Information
The contact details of the participant
Account Information	The account of the participant which is associated with the wallet that will be credited by awards and debited by spends.
Payment Preferences	The methods used by the participant to get refunded by merchants (usually through an online payment gateway), when the award is not in the form of a discount. For more information check back-end reductions in participating merchants. To be available for selection, a payment preference must be included in the active accounts receivable definition. The available fields depend on the type of the configured payment preference.
Phones Emails Addresses Demographics	The contact details of the participant.
Signup Details	Life Cycle State: Can be 'Effective' or' Terminated'. Signup Date Signup by Unit Participating Reward Schemes: A list of reward schemes that the rewards participant has joined including signup date and unit (merchant). If a reference code is required by the Reward Scheme this is available here. (i.e. a student id) Termination Information: Information for terminated participants. The reason for terminating participants is selected from a predefined list: Customer Request Fraud Duplication If the termination reason is set to 'Duplication', then the rewards participant which replaced this participant is available.
Wallet Information	Read-only information, including wallet balance and conditions on how wallet funds can be spent.
Authorisation & Authentication
Authorisation Settings & Preferred Language	Preferred Language: Used for communication purposes. If none is specified, the system uses the default language. Send Direct / Affiliate Marketing Material: Enable accordingly to determine whether the contact should be forwarded direct (in-house) and affiliate (partner) marketing material and customer care notifications.  The date on which the authorization was last updated and the user is displayed. Customers can opt in and out of mailing lists (i.e., update their authorisation settings) directly from their email. For information on setting up and using authorization settings, refer to contact notification preferences.
Access Tokens	Tokens which are linked with the participant and are used to identify the participant accessing CRM.COM from third-party systems such as a web portal or a mobile applications. An access token can be automatically generated if defined in the access token definition.
Automatic Spend Rules	Enable Allow Automatic Awards Spending to automatically redeem award amount available in the wallet of the participant. Allowed Amount to Spend Range: The amount that will be automatically spent when the participant makes a purchase. Minimum Required Wallet Balance (to automatically spend upon a purchase) Authorised Partner Unit Rewards Participation Agreements  Refer to Spending wallet amount upon purchase without request for more information on how automatic spend works
Spend Blocking Rules	Block participants from spending awards if Allow Rewards Participant to Submit Spend Requests is not enabled.

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Selecting and creating a rewards participants

To select an existing rewards participant navigate to Manage Rewards Participants and specify the criteria that match the participant you are interested in.  

To create a new participant, use NEW from the Actions menu,  provide values for all mandatory fields before you SAVE. 

Signing-off a participant from a reward scheme 

Rewards participants that are signed off from a reward scheme can no longer be awarded from its offers. Participants can still be awarded for any unprocessed events which were generated before they were signed off and spend any amounts which was awarded through the scheme after being signed off.

1. Navigate to Manage Rewards Participants and EDIT the participant you wish to sign off from a scheme.
2. Go to the Participating Rewards Schemes section.
3. Check the check-box next to the scheme that you would like to sign the participant off from.
4. Click on Remove and SAVE from the Actions menu.

Viewing the history of a rewards participant 

Information on reward participant transactions and communications is available from a dedicated screen accessible from the participant Data Entry screen. 

1. Navigate to Manage Rewards Participants and select a participant to go to their Data Entry page.
2. Click on VIEW PARTICIPANT HISTORY from the Actions Menu. 
   A modal window opens with the following information:

• • • Wallet Transactions
    • Award Transactions
    • Spend Transactions
    • Award Expiration Transactions
    • Customer Events
    • Signed off Reward Schemes
    • Communications

Blocking and unblocking reward participants from spending wallet funds

Participants can be stopped from spending wallet funds by blocking the creation of 'spend request customer event', either temporarily (e.g., if they are under investigation) or permanently (e.g., if they committed an act of fraud).

Navigate to Manage Rewards Participant, select a participant and Block or Unblock spending by clicking on the respective action from the Actions menu in the Data Entry page.

Terminating reward participants 

Rewards participants can drop out of a program participation at any time.  Terminated reward participants can no longer submit customer events, be awarded or spend awarded amounts.

If the participant is terminated due to duplication (i.e. 2 rewards participant registered for the same physical person) it is possible to define the original participant and transfer any access tokens or wallet balance from the alias to the actual participant. To terminate a duplicate participant, navigate to Manage Rewards Participants and click on Terminate Participant from the Actions menu. In the modal window, select 'Duplication' as the Termination Reason and enter the Replaced by Rewards Participant.  Optionally, check the boxes to transfer the wallet balance and access tokens, and SAVE.

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Importing reward participants

The fastest way to create reward participants is by importing an excel or csv file for this purpose.

1. Navigate to Utilities > Import Data > Import Rewards Participants and create a new definition.
2. Define the applicable settings applicable and Save.
3. Prepare an import file in either Excel or CSV format.  A template is provided during the import process. Files in either format contain one column for each field that can be imported and a first row including headers. 
4. Click on Submit from the Actions menu and proceed by selecting the file with the participants. 

The table describes the sections of Import Reward Participants Data Entry page and explains how the fields in the page are used.

 Mandatory   Configurable

Preparing the import file

1. Navigate to Import Reward Participants and click on DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE from Actions menu of the Import Reward Participant Definition Data Entry page. 

   Download the template AFTER you SAVE the definition and BEFORE you SUBMIT it.

2. Select the type of template you wish to download (Excel or CSV). 

The import file must be prepared according to the downloaded template.

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Award spend and award expiration transactions

Award 'spend' and 'expiration' transactions are used to credit and debit the wallet of the participant, respectively. All transactions are generated by the system and are available through the Rewards Admin screen.

Award transactions

Award transactions are used to award participants with an amount from a reward offer, by creating a credit wallet transaction.  They are generated by  executing a rewards evaluation run or by submitting a customer event which can be instantly processed.  Award transactions cannot be created or modified by users.

Spend transactions

Spend transactions remove money from the wallet of the participant. Wallet money may be the result of award transactions or other deposits made by the participant. Spend transactions are generated by executing a reward evaluation run or by submitting a spend request customer event and cannot be created by a user. 

Award expiration transactions

Award expiration transactions debit the wallet of participants, expiring previously awarded amounts.  Award validity settings of the offer define the period during which awards can be spent and their expiration date. 

Expired amounts can no longer be used.  Award expiration transactions are generated by wallet balance expiration run, a background process, if the wallet credit transaction that is expired is related to an award transaction. To view the results of the wallet balance expiration run go to Foundation > Platform > Manage Admin Settings > Batch Processes Admin Board.

Creating and processing award spend and award expiration transactions

Award spend and expiration transaction cannot be created or modified by users.

• Awards and spends are generated by executing a rewards evaluation run or by submitting a customer event, which can be processed immediately. 
• Award expiration transaction that expire awarded credit are generated by executing a wallet balance expiration run definition

Award transaction triggers

The table below displays the event or system information that reward offers of each classification are evaluated against to trigger a reward (create award transactions).

Creating instant award transactions

In order to directly create award transactions:

• The awarded customer event must have the 'Process immediately' field enabled.
• The evaluation method of the reward offer, which will award the participant for the event must be set to 'Batch process and interactively'.

Creating instant spend transactions

Refer to Providing an instant discount and Spending wallet amount on a purchase without a request to find out how spend transactions can be automatically created when an event takes place.

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Creating award and spend transactions through a reward evaluation run

Reward offers evaluation run definitions are a set of business rules, which generate runs to evaluate participants against offers provided by reward schemes.  

Runs result in award and spend transactions that debit or credit the wallet of the participant, respectively.

1. Navigate to Perform Reward Offers Evaluation Run and create a new definition. 
2. Define reward schemes and offer types that should be considered during the evaluation process.
3. SAVE the definition and click on Submit from the Actions menu to execute and generate award and spend transactions, either immediately or on a recurring basis.

Cancelling an award spend or award expiration transaction

• An award transaction can be cancelled in case the participant was rewarded by error. 
• A spend transaction can be cancelled if a good purchased by spending a reward is returned. 
• An award expiration transaction can be cancelled to avoid removing funds from the wallet.

In any case, the system reverts the reward transaction process accordingly, debiting the wallet in the case of cancelled award transactions and crediting it in case of spend or award expiration transactions.

To cancel any type of transaction navigate to the respective Data Entry page and select the respective action from the Actions menu:

• Cancel Award Transaction
• Cancel Spend Transaction
• Cancel Award Expiration Transaction

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Applying business flows on rewards

Seasonal rewards

Once a reward offer is created and set as effective, customers that participate in the scheme it belongs to are eligible to get awarded.

It is possible to define specific periods during which effective offers will be valid

• During a Recurring Period: Available during a specific period of the year, such as the Christmas season.
• During Birthday Period
• During Name Day Period
• For a Specific Period

• From Latest Effective Date Onward
  
  

To set the period Navigate to Manage Reward Offers.  In the Reward Offer Validity section define the validity relative to the last time the reward was offered and by which date the award expires. 

Time limited awards

Awards can either be spent conditionally (specific products, times, days of the week, or places) or unconditionally.

An expiration date can also be set on awards.  On the date, the wallet of the participant is debited and the awarded funds made unavailable, pressing customers to spend their award within a specific period.  
It is also possible to allow participants to redeem their awards only after a predetermined period has passed (defined by the Valid After a Period of Time Since the Award Was Offered  field)  

To set a validity date on an award, the Award Validity attribute must be set on the reward offer at the time of setup.  The expiration process is subsequently executed to identify expired awards.

1. Navigate to Manage Reward Offers > Main Information
   
   1. Award Validity section
      1. Award Expires Define how long after being given out or by which date the awards should expire.
      2. Valid After a Period of Time Since the Award Was Offered: Define when the award starts being valid
         

Instant discounts

Depending on the classification of the reward offer there are two models for redeeming awards the user can choose from.

• The award value can be automatically deducted from the invoice, when making a purchase related to an award, like an instant discount. 
• Awards can be added to the loyalty account and spent another time upon customer request.

Instant discount  is possible only for reward offers configured using the following classifications:

• Utilise Free Capacity
• Increase Revenue, Product Based
• Increase Revenue, Transaction Based

To set up the system for instant discount

1. Navigate to Manage Reward Offers > Main Information, and in the Award section select Spend Method 'Spend Instantly' when setting up the reward offer. 

Spending wallet amount upon purchase without request

Reward participants can pre-authorise the use of wallet funds for purchases.  In case a merchant does not allow this method, an explicit request is necessary (i.e., wallet funds are not automatically spent).

To set up the system to support instant spending:  

1. Navigate to Configuration > Rewards Application > Access Rewards Admin > Rewards Participation Agreements Information.

   Under Partner Unit Rewards Participation Agreement > Spend Rules section: Enable 'Allow Automatic Awards Spending'.
   
   

2. Navigate to Rewards > Manage Rewards Participants.
    Under Authorisation & Authentication > Automatic Spend Rules: Enable 'Allow Automatic Awards Spending'.

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Awarding participants with the best possible offer

Participants can be rewarded either for all rewarded events from multiple reward offers or from those that yield the highest reward.

 The selection of the most favorable reward takes place either directly when the participant is awarded  or during a process that evaluates all events in one flow.

If the setting 'Apply If Best Award is Provided' is enabled for all but one applicable reward offer, the participant will be awarded for the specific offer and for the one that yields the highest reward.

To set up the system to support the application of the best offer, navigate to Manage Reward Offers and in the Main information section, enable 'Apply If Best Award Is Provided'.

Awarding for each product or for the transaction total

Participants can be rewarded when they buy individual items or for the aggregate amount of their purchase. The amount or percentage to be awarded is set on the reward offer.   Once the transaction is completed, the reward is calculated based on the total, provided award conditions are met.

Set up the system to give out the defined award once for every item sold in a transaction (irrespective of whether the products are different or identical).

Navigate to Manage Reward Offers and in the Award section set the Award Scope to 'Apply Award per Transaction Item'.

Previewing awards on purchase customer events

Awards to be given out through a purchase customer event can be previewed through WEB API (exclusively) before they are executed.  The following information is available through the Preview function:

• Amount to be awarded
• Amount to be spent instantly
• Additional amount that can be spent on a purchase customer event (depending on availability in the loyalty account of the customer).

Setting up a multi merchant reward platform

Merchants that collaborate with the rewards platform can participate in reward schemes.

Events  that take place at the location/business of a merchant partner can be rewarded, by using the reward participating merchants module .  For example, merchants can set up a reward offer for goods purchased exclusively from their store. Merchants can also be required to pay the rewards platform a contribution (calculated on a percentage basis), for rewards provided through its offers.

Refer to Multi Merchant Reward Platform information on setting up CRM.COM to meet your business requirements.

Rewards Analytics

Segmenting rewards

Rewards participants with common business characteristics can be grouped together. Use the resulting lists in system business processes for the identification of reward participants or for simple statistical calculations. 

For more information on segmentation and creating lists refer to Segmentation.

Dashboards

Dashboards make information regarding the key performance indicators of the progress of rewards available from a single integrated view. Dashboards are made up of components such as charts and summary tables. Refer to Dashboards for information on their use and set-up.

Award expiration amount by month  

The component displays the sum of award expiration transactions which took place over the last 11 months and those which took place more than 12 months ago, in a horizontal bar chart grouped per period.

Award expiration transactions by month 

The component displays the number of award expiration transactions which took place over the last 11 months and those which took place more than 12 months ago, in a horizontal bar chart grouped per period.

Award transactions per offer by month 

The component displays the number of award transactions for each reward offer, which took place over the last 11 months and those which took place more than 12 months ago, in a stacked bar chart grouped per period.

Awarded amount by month

The component displays the total amount awarded over the last 12 months in each rewards scheme in a bar chart grouped by month. The results can be filtered by scheme and reward offer

Awarded amount not spent per scheme 

The component displays the total amount awarded to rewards participants which is not spent in a bar chart grouped per scheme. The results can be filtered by scheme.

Spend transactions by month  

The component displays the total number of award expiration transactions which took place over the last 11 months and those which took place more than 12 months ago, in a horizontal bar chart grouped per period. 

Spend amount by month 

The component displays the total amount spent over the last 12 months in a bar chart grouped by month. The results can be filtered by scheme.

Spend amount by day of the week

The component displays the total amount spent within the current week in a bar chart grouped by month. The results can be filtered by scheme.

Top 5 offers based on awarded amount during last month 

The component displays the top 5 offers during the last month in a bar chart.The results can be filtered by scheme.

Reward participant sign ups

The component displays the number of rewards participants that have signed up to schemes over the last 12 months and those that have signed up more than 12 months ago, in a bar chart grouped per month.

Rewards participant scheme signups per month

The component displays the number of rewards participants that have signed up to the selected reward scheme over the last 12 months, in a bar chart grouped per month.  The results can be filtered by scheme.

Rewards participants per signup unit 

The component displays the number of rewards participants that were signed up by a specific unit (merchant) during a user-defined period, in a pie chart.

Reward participants per scheme

The component displays the number of rewards participants per scheme, in a vertical bar chart grouped per effective scheme. The results can be filtered by scheme.

Rewards participant terminations by month

The component displays the number of terminated rewards participants over the last 12 months, separated into termination reasons, in a stacked bar chart grouped by month. The results can be filtered by scheme.

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Reports

Rewards information can be extracted in a structured format for analysis by using reports. The rewards included in the report are selected and grouped based on user-defined criteria.  Users can select the fields displayed in the report.  Refer to Reports for more information.

Reward participants balance report

The report displays reward participants and information associated with their scheme sign up and wallet balance. 

Reward participants report

The report displays a list of rewards participants along with their detailed information.

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Rewards Business Examples

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