THE ESSENTIALS

A Reward Scheme is a marketing container - a theme built around a set of related Reward Offers and targeted at a specific audience (for example consumers, corporate clients, or students). Contacts sign up to a scheme, and once enrolled they become eligible for the offers created under it. Every reward offer belongs to one scheme, so schemes are how a business organises its loyalty programme into distinct, independently governed audiences.

This manual is organised around three roles:

• 🔧 Configurator - creates and configures schemes, sets the sign-up model, imports and manages closed-loop codes, and activates schemes. Works mainly in Rewards > Schemes.

• 🖥️ Operator - signs contacts in and out of schemes day-to-day and monitors enrolment and code usage.

• 🔗 Integrator - lists, reads and creates schemes, and drives sign-up / sign-out from external systems (apps, portals, e-commerce) through the CRM.COM Web API.

🔗 Integrator - All back-office scheme operations live under /backoffice/v2/reward_schemes. See the List Reward Schemes API reference.

Key Concepts

Reward Scheme

A framework that groups related Reward Offers and defines how contacts can join. A business can create as many Reward Schemes as needed - for example, a general loyalty programme for all contacts, alongside targeted schemes such as a student programme, an employee benefits programme, or a VIP programme. Each Reward Scheme has its own name, description, sign-up model, and terms and conditions.

Sign-Up Models

Every scheme uses one of three sign-up models, which decide how contacts become members:

For a Closed Loop scheme, a validation method determines how eligibility is checked:

The sign-up model (and, for closed-loop schemes, the validation method) is fixed when the scheme is created and cannot be changed afterwards. If a different scheme is needed, a new one should be created.

States

A scheme is either Active or Inactive. New schemes are created Inactive.

Enrolment & Participation

The set of schemes a contact currently belongs to is their list of participating schemes. A contact can:

• be enrolled automatically (auto schemes) when they register,

• join a self sign-up or closed-loop scheme from the app/portal, and

• sign out (leave) a self sign-up or closed-loop scheme at any time.

Front-end apps show each scheme a contact has already joined, and also which active schemes they are eligible to join.

Reward Offers

Schemes are the grouping layer for Reward Offers - every offer must reference a scheme. When a scheme is deactivated, all of its offers stop awarding, likewise, when it is reactivated, they resume (within their own availability windows). Sign-up itself can trigger an award - a Sign Up reward offer under the scheme awards the contact when they join. See the Reward Offers manual. Find out more about Reward Offers here.

Managing Reward Schemes

🔧 Primarily: Configurator · 🖥️ Also: Operator (enrolment & monitoring) · Works in Rewards > Schemes

Reward schemes are listed under Rewards > Schemes. From the list you can filter by name, sign-up option and state.

Creating a Scheme

A scheme controls three things:

• Who can join - through its sign-up model (automatic, self-service, or controlled/closed-loop).

• Whether it is live - through its state (Active or Inactive). Only active schemes are visible in front-end apps and only active schemes award their offers.

• How it presents to contacts - its name, description and terms & conditions, optionally translated per language.

A default Auto Sign-Up scheme, named after your business, is provisioned automatically when the business is created. It starts Inactive - activate it and your contacts are enrolled automatically as they register.

Editing a Scheme

You can update a scheme's name, description, terms & conditions, its email domains or codes (for closed-loop schemes), and its state. You cannot change the sign-up option or sign-up method after creation.

Activating & Deactivating

New schemes start Inactive. Activate a scheme from its options menu (or by setting its state to ACTIVE) to make it visible in front-end apps and to let its offers award contacts. Deactivating a scheme hides it and pauses all of its offers.

Multi-Language

A scheme's name, description and terms & conditions can be translated per language. Front-end apps show the translation matching the contact's preferred language, falling back to the default. Set the translations by selecting the options button (…) for the respective reward scheme on the summary page.

Closed-Loop Sign-Up

🔧 Primarily: Configurator

Closed-loop schemes restrict membership. There are two validation methods.

By Email Domain

Choose Email Domain and list the allowed domains (e.g. crm.com). A contact requests to join by entering their email address in the app, CRM.COM sends a verification link, the contact is enrolled only once the link is verified. This confirms both that the contact controls the address and that its domain is on the allowed list.

By Unique Code

Choose Unique Code, then load the codes and distribute them to eligible contacts. Each code can be used once.

Importing codes - Codes are loaded in bulk through the Import Data utility (import type Reward Scheme Codes). Each row carries the scheme name and the code. After an import you can review a summary of how many codes were added / updated / ignored / failed, with the line number and reason for any failures. Duplicate codes within the same scheme are rejected.

Monitoring & maintaining codes - Use View Codes to see the scheme's codes, filter by used / not used, search by code value, and see who used each code and when. You can delete a code that has not yet been used, but a code already used to enrol a contact cannot be deleted.

Signing Contacts In & Out

🖥️ Primarily: Operator · 🔗 Also: Integrator

How a contact becomes a member depends on the scheme's sign-up model:

A contact can leave (sign out of) a self-sign-up or closed-loop scheme at any time. Both sign-up and sign-out require the contact's account to be Active, and the scheme itself must be Active. When a contact joins a scheme, any Sign Up reward offer under that scheme is evaluated and can award them.

Good to Know

Analytics

Scheme membership and the offers under each scheme feed the broader rewards analytics:

Reference Material

Reward Offers · Bulk Data Operations

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