THE ESSENTIALS

Before getting into details about Reward Offers, it's a good idea to familiarise yourself with some basic terms when referring to Reward Offers. 

Business Events 

Business events are specific actions captured by CRM.COM to award a contact. Each event is processed differently by the software.

• Customer Events - Specific Contact actions submitted to CRM.COM via an external platform. 

  • Purchase Event - Records the purchase of goods or services by a Contact from an external POS system or through the CRM.COM back-end system to award the purchase and/or spending wallet funds to pay for the purchase

  • Referral Event - The event where a Contact introduces another person to sign up to the Business and become a new Contact

  • Achievement Event - Represents a Contact's accomplishment of a set target, e.g. a Facebook like, a visit to a shop, a wallet top-up etc. 

• Time Events - Marks the point in time when a Contact will be considered eligible for an award, either due to being part of a specific market group or being loyal (e.g. having a large number of purchases, uninterrupted subscriptions etc.)

• Contact Events - Contact events are specific actions performed by a Contact indicating the engagement between the Contact and a business, i.e. sign-up or profile completion actions.

States 

A Reward Offer can have either one of two states at any given time: 

• Active - The reward offer is in use, and Contacts can be awarded by it if the offer conditions are satisfied 

• Inactive - The reward offer is not in use, and Contacts will not be awarded by it 

Reward Tiers 

Reward tiers rank Contacts based on their purchases across all Reward Schemes of a business. The more a Contact purchases, the more value units (equivalent to an amount of money) they earn. When a Contact's accumulated value units are equal to the next reward tier's minimum value units, they will be upgraded to the next tier, where they can potentially benefit from more reward offers. 

Offer Goals 

Offers are categorised based on their goals (e.g. to increase spending). Offer goals reflect the expected outcome of Reward Offers, and there is also a separate offer goal for donations. Each offer goal includes various types of offers. 

Offer Types

Each Offer belongs to an offer type (e.g. product discount), with a set of predefined rules which can be configured to dictate when an award will be granted and spent. 

Award

An award is an amount of money returned to a Contact for achieving a set target defined by a Reward Offer in the form of a cashback. The Contact's commerce wallet balance is credited with the awarded amount, and commerce pool conditions may apply. 

Refer to the Wallet manual for further information about wallet open & commerce balances. 

Commerce Pool

A set of conditions based on which awarded cashback can be redeemed and spent on a purchase (e.g. the awarded cashback of €1.75 can be spent on any food item purchased during weekdays, between 3 pm and 6 pm). Each awarded cashback amount is accompanied by its own respective commerce pool conditions. Therefore, funds in the commerce wallet can be subject to different redeeming conditions. 

Commerce Pools can be created on-the-fly, or configured beforehand. 

Redeem

Redeem is the process whereby the contents of a purchase in hand are compared against all of the Contact's commerce wallet pool conditions. If the purchase satisfies any commerce pool conditions (purchased items, location and date/time are examined), then those funds are debited from the Commerce wallet balance and credited to the Contact's Open wallet balance. Funds in the Open wallet balance can be spent on a purchase or paid out (payout) to the Contact (subject to system settings).

Awards provided from instantly redeemable offers will be automatically redeemed and can be spent on the purchase at hand.

Refer to the Wallets manual for further information about wallet open & commerce balances. 

Spend

Spend is the action of using money from the Contact's wallet open balance to partially or fully pay for a purchase. Spending of wallet funds is only permitted if the Contact is not blocked from spending. 

Refer to the Wallets manual for further information about wallet open & commerce balances.

Payout

Payout applies only to automatically redeemable reward offers. This is the process whereby any wallet commerce funds redeemed to the wallet open balance are paid out to the Contact using the Contact's preferred payment method or to a specific payment gateway (provided that it supports payouts).

Reward Commercial Terms

In CRM.COM, Merchants can define their own Reward Offers and subsequently submit purchase events. Reward commercial terms for a merchant are created by the Business (in agreement with the merchant) and define their collaboration rules which include:

• The reward schemes that the merchant can participate in 

• The method by which B2B settlements between the two will be applied (settle on the award, redeem or spend)

• The contribution fee that the merchant will be debited for upon an award being provided (calculated based on a percentage of the awarded amount, defaults to 100%)

Blocking a merchant's rewards commercial terms stops the merchant from awarding Contacts, and Contacts cannot spend awards at the merchant.

Managing Reward Offers

Navigate to Reward Offers using Rewards > Offers from the main menu on the left-hand side of the screen.

Open

Upon registration of a business, a Reward Scheme is automatically created along with four Reward Offers with an Inactive state for the same scheme:

• €5 Registration Offer - Awarded upon successful registration of a contact, this is a cashback offer

• 20% Birthday Offer - Valid only on the day of the Contact's birthday; this is an instant discount offer and applies only to the Contact's first purchase on their birthday

• 5% Cashback on all Purchases - Awarded when purchasing any product at any location; this is a cashback offer

• €1 Referral Cashback - cashback is awarded to the Contact if the referred person registers using the Contact's referral code and makes an initial purchase

Reward Offer Goals

When creating a new Reward Offer, you will be prompted to choose a reward offer goal describing the type of Offer you want to create. Reward Offers are categorized into four different goals (groups).

Open

Reward offer goals

Select a Reward Offer goal and then select one of the Reward Offers to configure.

Setting Up Reward Offers

Offer Details

Define the Offer's details; remember that this information will be visible on front-end apps (i.e. online portal, mobile app.), so ensure that good quality, attractive images and clear descriptions are used to entice your contacts.

• Name - The name of the offer. This will be visible on the front-end (app/portal), so make sure that it’s clear and concise.

• Add Image - Add an attractive image for your offer. Again, this will appear on front-end apps.

• Scheme - Select the scheme to which the offer belongs. Only contacts who have joined this scheme will be able to see and benefit from the offer.

• Offer Availability - Define the duration of the Offer (i.e. can be awarded); an open-ended offer denotes a non-expiring offer.

• Descriptions - Provide short and long descriptions to explain the reward offer, these will be visible on the front-end.

• Terms & Conditions - Provide the T&Cs for the offer, this is also visible on the front-end.

• Featured Offers - Set this toggle 'on' to feature selected Offers at the top of the eligible Offers list on front-end applications.

Target Conditions

Target Conditions allow the user to define a number of conditions which must be met for the Contact to be awarded; the type of conditions vary depending on the offer type.

Such conditions include:

• Segments - Use Segments to identify the Contacts targeted by the Offer. Segments are a great way of grouping your Contacts based on specific characteristics and can be used throughout the software. Configure Segments via Contacts > Segmentation.

• Location - Use Locations to make an Offer applicable only for purchases from a specific merchant/service provider, venue/service point, country etc.

• Time - Set the time that the purchase should take place to benefit from the offer.

• Products - Add product conditions for the offer by specifying the family, brand, SKU, and type of products required for the offer to apply.

• Purchase Classification - Purchase classifications can be configured via Settings > Contacts & CRM > Customer Event Classifications. When communicated via a third-party system, they can be used for awarding purchases based on what a purchase is classified as. E.G. purchase classifications can be created to differentiate between delivery, take away and dine-in purchases. A Reward Offer can then target a specific purchase classification, e.g. a Reward Offer to award only delivery-type purchases.

• Lottery Entries - Specify the conditions that must be met for a contact to qualify for a lottery entry in a draw. Applicable only to lottery offers.

Award

• Award - Specify the award that the contact will receive, typically a fixed amount or a percentage of their purchase amount.

• Redeem - Set the conditions for award spending, including automatic redemption and commerce pool conditions.

• Commerce Pool Rules - The use of commerce pool rules enables a business to apply restrictions on how the amount awarded from the offer can be redeemed. Restrictions can be applied on:

  • Time - Can be redeemed on specific days and/or times

  • Location - Can be redeemed when purchasing from selected venues/service points, merchants/service providers etc.

  • Products - Can be redeemed when purchasing selected products based on family, type, brand, SKU

  • Validity/Expiration Period - The award can be redeemed from and up to a specific date

To create a new commerce pool rule, select Create New Commerce Pool (from Award Information, Redeem tab), or click here to find out more about Commerce Pools.

Setting Up Donations

To set up a donation for contacts to contribute to, configure a reward offer in a manner similar to regular reward offers. Choose the Donations reward offer goal, then select and configure one of the four donation types: One-Off Donation, Recurring Donation, Purchase Donation, or Product Donation.

Donation Details

The donation details are the same as those listed above for reward offer details but with the donation information instead of the reward offer information.

For the image, upload a familiar logo/image associated with the charity or cause that is easily recognisable.

In the description, state clearly how the donation will be made, e.g. a fixed monthly amount paid on a specific day of the month, or a percentage of the total purchase amount, and also state if the business will be donating a pecentage amount too. Remember that the contact will see this information on the front-end apps.

Conditions

Set the donation conditions.

• One-Off Donation - No conditions apply, since no purchase is required.

• Recurring Donation - Indicate the specific date and time when the fixed amount donation will be made.

• Purchase Donation - Optionally, specify the purchase conditions such as location, time, transaction amount, and type of purchase (classification) that must be met for the donation to be made.

• Product Donation - Optionally, specify the purchase conditions such as location, time, products, type of purchase (classification) that must be met for the donation to be made.

Donation

Specify the donation details.

• One-Off Donation & Recurring Donation - Set the type of donation, fixed amount indicates a specific amount to be donated, whereas, variable amount allows the contact to set the amount to be donated. Indicate if the business will contribute towards the charity too, (%) based on the total of the contact’s contribution, and finally, the B2B Merchant (i.e. charity) who will receive the donation.

• Purchase Donation & Product Donation - Specify if this is a fixed amount or a spare change donation. Spare change involves rounding up the change of a transaction (between €0.01 and €0.99 or the equivalent in the currency of the transaction) to the nearest whole number and donating it to the charity. Set the percentage that the business will contribute (if any) based on the total of the contact’s contribution, and finally, the B2B Merchant (i.e. charity) who will receive the donation.

Activating an Offer

When a reward offer has been successfully created, it will appear in the Reward Offers summary screen in an Inactive state. To Activate a Reward Offer, click on the options button (…) of the respective Offer and select Activate.

It's best practice to create and activate all Offers for a Reward Scheme before activating it.

Rewards Events

CRM.COM logs any events originating from or resulting in an award transaction for all Contacts.

To view such events navigate to Rewards > Reward Events from the main menu on the left-hand side of the screen. Use the filter to narrow down your search, and click on an event to get a drill down of associated actions.

Reward Offer Settings

You can configure all Reward settings (subject to user permissions) by selecting Settings from the sidebar menu options, then Rewards.

Tiering

Contacts can be classified into different tiers (e.g. Bronze, Silver, Gold) based on the revenue they have generated for the Business within a given time frame. Tiers are measured in value units with an exchange rate against the base currency.

If reward tiering is enabled, it can be set up to:

• Advance contacts (automatically) to the next tier based on the period value units earned at a configurable interval; monthly cycle based (e.g. every 12 months) or based on each Contact's sign-up date

  • Optionally, the Business can enable the advance of a contact to the next tier as soon as the Contact reaches the next tier's period value units

• Downgrade contacts to a lower tier based on the period value units earned during the set interval (monthly cycle based or sign up date based)

The achieved tier level for a Contact remains unchanged until the next interval evaluation. If the Contact advances to the next tier earlier than the next evaluation date (e.g. a Contact advances to Gold tier 1 month before the normal interval evaluation), then from that instance, the Contact will be eligible for any Gold benefits and will remain in the Gold tier until the next interval evaluation. 

At the end of each interval, the period value units will be reset to zero, but the Contact will retain the set tier for the duration of the next interval.

The set tier colours will be reflected in front-end apps depending on the signed-in Contact's current tier.

Resolution

Reward resolution setup will determine when/how awards will be provided when a Contact who places an order is eligible for awards.

Contacts will get an award from…

• All matched offers - Contact will be awarded from all valid reward offers from all eligible reward schemes

• The Best Offer - Contact will be awarded the single highest Offer across all eligible reward schemes

• The Best Offer from each scheme - Contact will be awarded the highest Offer from every eligible reward scheme

The following is an example of how a contact who participates in two different reward schemes will be awarded in each case.

Provide only the best award from all instant discount reward offers?

If set to 'yes' and the Contact is eligible for more than one instant discount, then only the discount with the highest value will be awarded.

Enforce purchase submission to other B2B Peers by prioritising Organisations

This setting is related to B2B Networks.

Reward Redeem & Payout on Redeem

Set how contacts can redeem their awards and whether an automatic payout will occur upon redeeming. Enabling automatic payouts implies that the Contact pays for the full purchase amount and is refunded with the redeemed amount in retrospect, typically by a payment gateway system. Additional payout restrictions may be applied, where a payout will be posted only if the stated conditions are met.

Choose from two payout method options:

Credit Card used on purchase - The refunded amount will be credited to the credit card used for purchasing

Payment Gateway - The refunded amount will be returned via a payment gateway that supports payouts (e.g. Settle mobile app using Contact's registered mobile phone number)

Reward Offer Restrictions

Enable this setting to restrict the types of reward offers and redeem methods (e.g., instant discount, deferred awards) that merchants/service providers can create.

Commerce Pool Rules

The commerce pools can be defined by selecting Commerce from the sidebar menu, then Commerce Pools.

Reference Material

You may also find it useful to refer to the following manuals for further reading about Rewards.

Reward Schemes

Rewards Core

Segmentation

Segmentation

Communication Plans

Communications

Contacts

Contacts

Accounts

Financials

Financials | [inlineExtension]Financial Events

Business Network

Business Network

Commerce Pools

Commerce Pools

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