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Overview
Customer Events are financial and marketing events performed by customers outside CRM.COM and registered within CRM.COM to be rewarded or additionally processed by other functions. For example, every time a customer 'likes' a facebook page, visits a website or makes a purchase from a shops (all handled as customer events), they can be awarded accordingly. Customer events can be created manually through the Web API or User Interface, or automatically by the system.
Customer Events Features
- The reward engine evaluates reward offers against customer events and decides whether they should be awarded or respectively have points deducted from their accounts for redeeming
- There are multiple customer event types and each one of them is associated with one or more reward offer classifications to either award or redeem money.
- Purchase: Capture a purchase taking place in an external system
- Referral: Capture the referral of one customer referring another one
- Achievement : Captures an achievement earned by a customer:
- Financial Achievement: Captures a financial achievement earned by a customer such as spending an 'x amount of money using a specific card
- Financial Statement: Captures events are compared against key business objectives
- Social Media: Captures a Facebook 'like'
- Web: Captures a visit to a website
- Spend Request: Captures a spend done from earned awards
Setting Up Customer Events
Classifications
Customer Event Classifications are used to put customer events into categories, enabling various business processes to apply different business rules to each classification. The classification of customer events is only mandatory for achievement and financial achievement type events.
Classification fields
The table describes the sections of customer events classifications Data Entry page, and explains how the fields in the page are used.
Mandatory
Configurable
| Main Information | |
|---|---|
| |
Key performance indicators (KPI)
Key performance indicators are used to measure the performance of key business objectives in order to evaluate if they are achieved or not. They are used for creating 'Financial Statement' customer events and can also be used as conditions on awarding participants through Financial Statement Reward Offers.
Key Performance Indicators fields
The table describes the sections of Customer Events Key Performance Indicators Data Entry page, and explains how the fields in the page are used.
Mandatory
Configurable
A list of Products taken into consideration while calculating the aggregated value that is measured by the Key Performance Indicator
Even if specific products are defined, any product available in the system can be selected and added when adding the KPI to a 'Financial Statement' customer event |
Business definitions
Customer Events definitions are business rules which are used to control behaviour of customer events throughout their life cycle, such as types of events that can be processed automatically, or maximum amount that participants are allowed to redeem every time.
There can only be one active definition at a time.
Definition fields
The table describes the sections of Customer EventsDefinitions Data Entry page, and explains how the fields in the page are used.
Mandatory
Configurable
| Main Information | |
|---|---|
Processing Automation Defines business processes that are automatically applied on Customer Events | |
| Purchase Customer Events Automation | Defines a list of invoice types that will automatically create 'purchase' customer events when posted. |
| Event Types Processed Immediately | Enables specific customer event types which can be automatically set for immediate processing. Types which are set to be selected immediately cannot be disabled when creating a customer event. If you would like to have the option to set an event to be processed immediately upon creation then do not enable them from the definition.
|
| Payment Medium Brand Automation | Defines the rules used to automatically set the payment medium brand on purchase or financial achievement customer events, based on the format of the specified payment medium identifier. Rule Name Automatically Set to Payment Medium Brand: The payment medium brand that will automatically be set on the customer event if the conditions are fulfilled Conditions: The criteria that must be met in order to automatically set the specified payment medium brand on the customer event that triggered the rule.
|
| Payment Medium Type Automation | Defines the rules used to automatically set the payment medium type on purchase or financial achievement customer events, based on the format of the specified payment medium identifier. These rules apply only if the customer event is submitted with a specified payment medium identifier but without a payment medium type. Rule Name Automatically Set to Payment Medium Type: The payment medium type that will automatically be set on the customer event if the conditions are fulfilled Conditions: The criteria that must be met in order to automatically set the specified payment medium type on the customer event that triggered the rule.
|
| Payment Medium Identifier Automation | Defines the rules used to automatically adjust the payment medium identifier specified on purchase or financial achievement customer events, before saving the events. For example, if the identifier is used to represent a card number, you can select to only keep the first or last 4 characters of the card number. Adjustment Method: The method that will be used to adjust the Payment Medium identifier. The available options are:
Number of Characters: The number of characters (Last or First) that should be kept after adjusting the Payment Medium identifier. This is applicable and mandatory unless the 'No Adjustment' option is selected. |
Processing Rules Defines business rules that are automatically applied while creating and processing Customer Events | |
| General Rules | Allowed Days for Submitting Spend Requests on Purchase Customer Events: Defines the maximum period allowed to create a spend request for a purchase event. It is measured in days and allowed values are bettwen 1 and 180. |
Spend Request Customer Events Rules
| Defines business rules that are automatically applied when creating and processing spend request customer events. Rule Name Allow Creating Spend Requests for Specific Amount: Determines whether a specific amount to be spent can be specified on a spend request customer event. If enabled, then the amount will become mandatory on the event. Minimum Spend Request Amount: Defines the minimum amount that can be requested through a spend request. This information is optional and applicable only if the "Allow Creating Spend Requests for Specific Amount" is checked. Maximum Spend Request Amount: Defines the maximum amount that can be requested through a spend request customer event. This information is optional and is applicable only if the "Allow creating Spend Requests for specific amount" is checked. Reject Spend Requests If the Requested Spend Amount is Not Covered: If enabled, then spend requests will be rejected (and not created in CRM.COM) if the requested amount for that combination of products, date / time, unit is more than the wallet balance. The requested spend amount is either the amount of the related purchase customer event or the amount specified on the spend request customer event. Applicable Classifications: Defines a list of spend request customer event classifications which should be associated with spend request customer event types in order for the rule to be applicable. |
Related configuration areas
The following modules are related to Customer Events and may be configured for the Customer Events module to operate at its full capacity.
| Module Link | Area | Description | Configuration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reward Offers | Configure the reward offers that the cutomer events will be evaluated against | Optional | |
| Accounts Receivable | Payment Medium Brands | Configure the payment medium brands that can be used when creating purhcase and financial achievement customer events | Optional |
| Accounts Receivable | Payment Medium Types | Configure the payment medium types that can be used when creating purhcase and financial achievement customer events | Optional |
| Financial Transactions | Invoice Types | Configure the invoice type which will trigger the creation of purcahse customer events | Optional |
Using Customer Events
CRM > Customer Events > Access Customer Events
Customer events vary in type and according to what information you would like to log the respective type must be selected. Click on New > 'Customer Event Type' from the Summary page of Customer Events.
- Purchase: Capture a purchase taking place in an external system
- Referral: Capture the referral of one customer referring another one
- Achievement : Captures an achievement earned by a customer.
- Financial Achievement: Captures a financial achievement earned by a customer such as spending an 'x amount of money using a specific card
- Financial Statement: Captures events are compared against key business objectives
- Social Media: Captures a Facebook 'like'
- Web: Captures a visit to a website
- Spend Request: Captures a spend done from earned awards
Customer Events fields
The table below describe the sections of each Customer Event's type Data Entry page, and explains how the fields in the page are used. Some fields are available to all types and some are specific to the type. Check the last table column to see the type the defined fields are available for.
Mandatory
Configurable
| Main Information | Used by Customer Event Type | |
|---|---|---|
Life Cycle State: Can be 'Posted' or 'Cancelled'. External system: Defines the third-party system that generated the customer event. It can only be set by the WEB APIs. For example, a POS or a portal. External system Reference Number: A reference number of the event that uniquely identifies it in the external system and in CRM.COM. | All | |
Amount: The amount of the financial achievement customer event Payment Medium: The medium used for the purchase (e.g. debit or credit card). Specifying any of the settings/fields is optional. The following can be specified:
| Financial Achievement | |
Process Immediately: Determines whether the customer event should be processed immediately by various business processes, or not. Not processed immediately is the default. Period: The period which is measured and evaluated through the financial statement customer event. The period is represented by month and year. | Financial Statement | |
Process Immediately: Determines whether the customer event should be processed immediately by various business processes, or not. Not processed immediately is the default. Payment Medium: The medium used for the purchase (e.g. debit or credit card). Specifying any of the settings/fields is optional. The following can be specified:
Financial Transaction: The CRM.COM Financial Transaction related to the purchase. | Purchase | |
| Referral | |
Process Immediately: Determines whether the customer event should be processed immediately by various business processes, or not. Not processed immediately is the default.
| Social Media | |
Process Immediately: Determines whether the customer event should be processed immediately by various business processes, or not. Not processed immediately is the default. | Web | |
Process Immediately: Determines whether the customer event should be processed immediately by various business processes, or not. Not processed immediately is the default. Purchase Customer Event: The purchase customer event which the specified spend request is used to settle. Requested Spend Amount: The amount that should be spent by the requested customer Event. This information is applicable and mandatory if it is enabled through the spend request rules of the 'active' customer events definition. In this case, the 'spend amount' defaults to the total purchase customer event amount but can be edited by users. Actual Spend Amount : The actual amount redeemed Instant Spend: Informs whether the spend request customer event was created instantly as a result of an instant spend Reward Offer. Instant Spend is a read-only field set by the system. Automatic Spend: Defines if the spend request customer event was created as part of the automatic awards spending process. This is applicable only for the automatic awards spending process and not for the instant spend process Reduction Method: A read-only field that defines how the amount that was requested to be spent will be reduced. One of thefollowing methods will be set:
The decision on which reduction method should be applied, is taken based on the 'Performed by Unit' field. If that unit is mapped to a rewards participating merchant then the reduction method defined on the merchant is adopted. | Spend | |
| Purhcase | ||
| These are the purchased products. Total Amount: The total amount of the purchase. The total amount per product is automatically calculated based on the Net and VAT Amount for each product. The three amounts below the individual product entries (Net Amount, Total Amount and VAT Amount) are product totals automatically updated by the additions and removals of products. | ||
| Spend Request | Purchase | |
Spend request customer event(S) submitted against the purchase customer event | ||
| Financial Statement | |
| The Key Performance Indicators which are measured through the financial statement Multiple KPIs can be specified on each financial statement but the combination of the KPI and related product must be unique.
Even if Specific Products are defined in the configured KPI, any product available in the system can be selected and added here.
| Financial Statement | |
| Award Transaction | All apart from spend | |
An award transaction made available as a result of a reward offer related to the event under evaluation which can result to a wallet transaction to credit the wallet of the participant. | All apart from spend | |
| Spend Transaction | Spend | |
A spend transaction made available as a result of spending of awards which can result to a wallet transaction to debit the wallet of the participant. Rules that may apply to the creation of the reward spend transactions are configured in the customer event definition, 'spend request customer event rules' | Spend | |
Creating and processing customer events
Actions are subject to validations which take place before an action is initiated (prerequisite) or after it is submitted (postcondition).
Selecting and creating a customer event
Navigate to 'Access Customer Events' and specify the criteria that match the customer events you are interested in, or click on NEW > 'Customer Event Type' from the Actions Menu to create a new customer event. Proceed by providing the mandatory information as defined in the table above, depending on the customer event type before you SAVE.
Automatic creation
All customer events can be created manually either through the user interfce or through an external system and imported in CRM.COM via a WEB API. Customer events of type purchase can also be automatically created when an invoice is registered in CRM.COM.
I.e., When CRM.COM integrates with a 3rd party system such as a POS (Point of Sale) and the later updates CRM.COM with a new sale (i.e. the POS triggers the creation of a new invoice), CRM.COM can at the same time create a Purchase Customer Event to be used by the rewards platform.
This option should be defined in the 'Active' Customer Event Definition to be applicable. Once the Financial Transaction Types that trigger the Purchase Customer Event are defined, a Purchase Customer Event will be created whenever an Invoice of that Type is Posted.
Modifying a customer event
Customer events cannot be modified once created.
Cancelling a customer event
Customer events can be cancelled. For example, if a customer returns the goods orchased, then the related customer event should be cancelled. Click on Actions > Cancel from the Actions Menu of the Data Entry page of the even you wish to cancel.
If the event triggered an award or sped transaction and a credit wallet or debit wallet transaction respectively, then all transactions are cancelled so that awards will be removed from the wallet or put back. If the customer event is of type 'Purchase' then any spend request customer events referring to that purchase are also 'Cancelled'.
Preconditions | The action is not available if the Customer Event is already 'Cancelled' |
|---|
Previewing awards on purchase customer events
Many CRM.COM Reward Offers are directly related to Purchase Customer Events. Awards are granted for purchase customer event, as long as the offer conditions are met. It is possible to preview the awarded amount information before the event is submitted (ONLY VIA WEB API). By using the Preview function, the following information is available:
- Amount that will be awarded
- Amount that will be spent instantly
- Additional amount that can be spent on a Purchase Customer Event (based on what is available in the customer's loyalty account)
Automatic setting of payment brand and type on events
Purchase and financial achievement customer events hold information related to the payment brand or type which can be related to a type of credit or debit card e.t.c
In case no Payment Type or Brand is specified, there is the option to set their values automatically by setting up rules triggered when saving the Purchase and Financial Achievement Customer Event Types, based on the provided payment identifier and the rules that are configured in the 'active' customer event definition.
Blocking spending for rewards participants
It is possible to block participants from spending their awards (i.e. from creating spend request customer events) in case of a dispute or a suspicion of fraud. In such a case the spend request creation will be denied by the system.
View Rewards for more information.
Applying business flows on customer events
Immediate versus batch processing of customer events
Customer events can be directly evaluated by rewards engine so that awards will be given or at a later stage through a batch process. In order for immediate processing to occur there exist two requirements
- 'Process Immediately' field is enabled on the customer events
- The 'Evaluation Method' field of the reward offer which will evaluate the event is set to 'Batch Process and Interactively'
Only speccific customer event types and reward offer classifications allow immediate processing and these are:
| Customer Event Types |
|
|---|---|
| Reward Offer Classifications |
|
Reward Offer - Customer Events relation
As aforementioned, once a customer event is executed a reward offer will be eveluated either immediately or later through a batch run to decide whether the rewards participant will be awarded for the event that took place on their behalf.
All but one customer event types are used for awarding rewards participants, 'Spend Request Customer Event'. When participants wish to redeem their awards, a spend request customer event must be registered in CRM.COM with the information for the redemption. Once successfully processed by the system, the participant's wallet will be debited accordingly by the redeemed amount. Spend request customer events can only be created for specific purchase customer events. For example, awards are redeemed by making new purchases. Purchases are registered on the spend request, and participants pay the difference, in cases where the cost of the purchase is greater than the sum of their awards.
The following table displays the reward offer classifications that each customer event type is associated with and therefore will be evaluated against, given that a reward offer of the classification is set up in CRM.COM.
Customer Event Type | Reward Offer Classification |
|---|---|
Purchase |
|
Referral | Referrals Reward |
Achievement | Reward Achievements |
Financial Achievement | Reward Financial Achievement |
Social Media | Reward Behaviour |
Web | Reward Behaviour |
Spend Request | Spend Requests are triggered by Customer Requests rather than specific Reward Offers, for redeeming their Awards. |
Customer Events Business Examples
Cancelling customer events
Scenario 1
Company ZX will be importing purchase customer events (to be awarded) into CRM.COM from a 3rd party system using WEB APIs. If customers regret their purchase, then the update process in CRM.COM is performed manually. A user must trace the events and accounts related to the returned goods and cancel those events before rewards are calculated. There are cases where the customer returns the goods AFTER he has been awarded the points for the purchase.
Company ZX needs a rollback process that will handle such cases:
Purchase has not been awarded points yet
Purchase has already been awarded points
Solution
User Process
The Cancel Action will be used to cover both requirements.
The system will decide, according to each case, whether the event will simply be cancelled, or whether there are associated points awarded that should be deducted from the Reward Participant's account.
Award participants using event classification
Scenario 2
Company ZX would like to award a €5 bonus reward to sales persons each time that they are honoured with "5 Stars Service" feedback. The sales persons are selected based on the result of ad-hoc customer surveys.
Solution
Configuration
Create a Customer Event Classification of Type "5 Star Service."
Create a Reward Offer of Type: Reward Achievement Type, with offerings €5 per Event and Conditions "5 Star Service" Customer Event Classification
For each sales person that was honoured with a "5 Star Service":
- Create a new Customer Event of Type Achievement and Customer Event Classification: 5 Star Service
- Define the Accounts Receivable of the sales person
Once the Reward Process is executed then, the Award points will be added to the sales person's account
Award top-up of a specific amount to a card within a specific period
Scenario 3
Company ZX would like to award a €10 bonus to participants that top up their Electron Card with a minimum amount of €100. The bonus is awarded once every year; i.e. even if more top ups are done within a year that the first bonus was awarded, no more bonus are given.
Solution
Configuration
- Customer Event Classification
Create a Customer Event Classification "Top up" which will be applicable for Financial Achievement Customer Event Types Payment Medium Brand
Create a new Payment Medium Brand: Electron CardReward Offer Type
Create a Reward Offer Type of Classification Reward Financial AchievementReward Offer
Create a Reward Offer with the following attributesReward Offer Type Award Award Conditions Financial Achievement Conditions Financial Achievement Amount Conditions Payment Medium Conditions Type with the Reward Financial Achievement Classification Amount: €10 Number of Awards By This Offer: Only one Per Period (Period = 1 year) Financial Achievement Classification: Top up Financial Achievement Amount Range: €100 - (leave empty) Payment Medium Brand: Electron Card - Reward Offer Evaluation Run Definition
Configure a Reward Offer Evaluation Run Definition scheduled to be executed on a daily basis
User Action
- For every participant that makes a top up
Create a new Customer Event with the following information
Type Payment Medium Brand Amount Classification Financial Achievement Electron Card 150 Top Up
Once the Reward Offers Evaluation Run is executed, participants with Customer Events as described above will be awarded.
Even if more top ups are registered that meet the conditions, they won't be awarded till 1 year passes since their last award.
Notes
- If you are using a previous release, view CRM.COM Release Changes.
- Use the Customer Events WEB API to create and manage Customer Events from an external system, such as a customer portal. View the Customer Events WEB API for a complete list of actions available through the WEB API.
Glossary
| CRM.COM Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Accounts Receivable | A ledger of the financial transactions carried out between a company and its customers, such as invoices and payments. The accounts receivable keeps a running balance of debits and credits and displays the amount a company is owed in exchange for goods supplied and services rendered |
| Financial Transactions | An agreement between a buyer and seller to exchange services or physical goods for payment. |
| Wallet | A customer account whose credit balance is used to fund transactions within CRM.COM. |
| Wallet Transaction | A transaction used to debit or credit a wallet |
| Reward Offers | Offers with award and spend conditions which award rewards participants. |
| Rewards Participant | A customer who has signed up for rewards or has been automatically selected to participate |
| Rewards Participating Merhant | A merchant that has a partnership with the company that owns the reward platform and can participate in the provided reward schemes following specific award, spend and sign up rules. |