Getting Started
The Point of Sale (POS) integration guide includes extensive and reference materials to aid POS system's developers for integrating any POS system with CRM.COM Rewards platform, using a set of recommended Web API methods provided by CRM.COM
CRM.COM Rewards & POS Ecosystem
What is CRM.COM Rewards?
CRM.COM Rewards application is designed to cover any business operations that aim to identify and award their loyal customers, via numerous reward offers. Such offers award loyal customers with conditional (or not) cashback that can be consumed on specific products, units (different merchant' stores), and specific days/hours or at the customer's discretion (with no conditions) without having any dedicated operations on the POS side (awards are agnostic to the POS software)
CRM.COM supports two reduction methods that define how the amount that is requested to be consumed (spend) by the customer will be reduced from the total amount that should be paid
- Front-End Reduction - The reduction is done by a front-end system (i.e. POS) by reducing the amount of money that the consumer should actually pay
- Back-End Reduction - The reduction is done is by a back-end system (i.e. PayPal) by letting the customer to pay for the full purchased amount and credit him through a payment gateway system or by generating a refund voucher
What is Point of Sale software?
Point of Sale (POS) software is the system that is used by an agent (cashier) to sell goods to a customer and collect the due amount in usually a face to face (over the counter) manner
Key Definitions
The following section lists a number of definitions that describe the key points in a POS & CRM.COM Rewards integration flow
| Identify Customer | The customer is identified on the POS system by providing an identification mean, such as email address, phone number or card number |
|---|---|
| Create Customer Basket | A customer's basket is created when a set of products that is intended to be bought by the customer are presented to the POS (i.e. cashier counter) for submission |
| Close Customer Basket | A customer's basket is closed when the last intended product to be purchased is submitted in the POS (i.e. cashier counter) and no other adjustments will be made |
| Complete Payment | Completing a payment is the process where the customer is prompted to pay for the purchased products via any form of payment, such as cash, credit cards, and awarded cashback |
| Award | Award is the amount that will be provided to the customer in the form of cashback (credit the customer's wallet) when closing a customer's basket (given that the purchased products are eligible for an award based on a valid reward offer) |
| Spend | Spend is the awarded amount (debited from the customer's wallet) that will be deducted from the basket's total amount that the customer should pay for |
| Default Product | During the process of awarding a customer's purchased products, some products may do not exist in CRM.COM yet (due to a time-frame gap with the product synchorisation runs) Such products can be handled entirely by CRM.COM using a default product without interrupting the POS flow, and once the related record is created in CRM.COM the merchant can retrieve the intended purchased products for further analysis |
How to integrate your POS system to CRM.COM
The customer is firstly identified at the POS agent by providing his identification details, such as phone number, card number. Once the customer is identifier, the agent is creating the customer's basket into the POS software by submitting all products to it. When the last intended product to be purchased is submitted in the POS and no other adjustments will be made, the customer's basket is closed, and the itemized POS sales transaction is submitted to CRM.COM in order to award the customer based on the purchased products. The payment is completed by collecting the due amount for the purchased products. The due amount can be settled via any form of payment, such as cash, credit cards, spending awarded amount, or even a combination of these
The following diagram illustrates the integration architecture and key points
CRM.COM & POS Product Synchronization
CRM.COM Product Synchronization allows a POS system to add or update a group of products that exist in the POS with the ones in CRM.COM usually through a background batch process, resulting into creating new products or update existing ones (e.g. name, description, category) in the CRM.COM
What is a CRM.COM Product?
Products are physical goods that can be used by any type of business transaction within CRM.COM software. Products are classified into services and physical goods. They can be sold rented or simply used by customers through multiple business events such as subscriptions, jobs, activities, direct sales and can also be awarded to reward participants through rewards
In addition, Products in CRM.COM have a set of attributes (type, brand, family, categories) that are used to determine their operational characteristics, define trademarks and group products based on common physical characteristics
Product Type
Product Type is used to determine the operational characteristics of products, and classify a product as a physical good or a service and what kind of a good or service is (i.e. termed, usage, traceable, non-traceable). For POS integration purposes, all products should have a product type that classifies products as non-traceable physical goods
Product Brand
Product Brand is used to define trademarks or distinctive names that serve to identify a specific Product
Product Family
Product Family is used to group products that derive from a common product platform and have similar physical characteristics
Product Categories
Product Categories are used to classify products into generic groups based on specified shared attributes
Putting it all together
Now that we have laid out all product attributes, let's put them together and present a couple examples of Products in CRM.COM
| No. | Product | Product Type | Product Brand | Product Family | Product Categories |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Galaxy Note 9 | Technology | Samsung | Smartphones | Smartphone, Android phone, Octa-core processor |
| 2 | Samsung MU6070 | Technology | Samsung | QLED TV | TV, QLED, 4K resolution |
| 3 | Brownie | Comestibles | Yummy Chocolates | Chocolates | Brownie, Chocolate, Diary |
| 4 | Croissant Double | Comestibles | 7 Days | Croissant | Croissant, Chocolate, Vanilla |
| 5 | Iced Caramel Latte | Coffee | Coffee Brewers | Coffee | Coffee, Milk, Latte, Syrup |
How Product Synchronization between POS and CRM.COM works
Product Synchronization can be achieved using CRM.COM Web API methods that a POS system can call periodically in order to synchronize product information between POS and CRM.COM