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 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).

Rewards at a glance

Set up your loyalty program

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.

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.

Create your participants

Reward participants are customers registered with CRM.COM who participate in a rewards program / scheme which includes a number of reward offers for which participants are eligible.

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.

Gather and consume awards

Awarded events can be events that take place outside CRM.COM (customer events), such as purchases or friend's referrals or can be associated to data supplied to CRM.COM (such as customer registration details), for participant birthdays and name days, and for the period a subscription is effective. 

All type of events are evaluated against reward offers.  Evaluation 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 events) 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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Setting Up Rewards and Core Processes

Reward Categories and Templates

Categories, such as 'marketing' or 'loyalty', which are user defined, are used to group reward offers and can be used by the business for reward analysis purposes.

Templates can be used to facilitate the transfer of configured information when creating new reward offers (particularly helpful when setting up multiple reward offers of the same type with common characteristics). Reward offer templates can also be easily created using an existing offer, by using 'SAVE AS TEMPLATE' from the Actions' menu in the reward offer Data Entry page.

Reward Scheme

A reward scheme is a marketing arrangement made between you and your customers that allows customers to get awards based on events performed by them. Those awards are provided to customers through the reward offers which are part of the reward scheme, considering that the customers are participating in that scheme.

Through schemes, you can provide default settings which will be applied to reward offers that belong to the scheme, such as award validity and expiration, reward offer validity etc.

In the Marketing information section you can provide the settings that are used to display scheme information on the mobile app and portal.

Auto sign up

Schemes can be designated as auto sign up where every new participant registered in the system will be automatically signed up to that scheme.

Self sign up

Additionally, it is possible to either hide or show a scheme to participants to give them the option to sign up at will. In case that self sign up is enabled a reference code may be required. The reference code can be generated either through a third party system or from CRM.COM. If through CRM.COM, it is possible to define an email domain, to allow the self sign up for participants' whose email address has the defined domain. (Self sign up is applicable through mobile app or web portal)

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Reward Offers

Reward offers determine the amount awarded for an event, on multiple historical events or based on the status and behavior of rewards participants. The classification of each reward offer determines the basic reward offer parameters. Once a reward offer is created to make available to reward participants it must be activated by setting its life cycle state to 'Effective'. For each reward offer you can determine its specific characteristics, awards earned, conditions for being awarded as well as conditions on how the awards can be spent. Read on to find out how Reward Offers can be set up.

Select the reward offer applicable to your needs

Multiple reward offers can be created in the system. Each reward offer belongs to a reward scheme and can be owned by a specific partner or be shared between all groups and partners. Reward offers are applied if they are valid and if their criteria are fulfilled. Depending on your line of business or the marketing campaign you would like to launch there are various types of offers that can be used. In general there are three umbrellas under which various reward offers classifications reward offers classifications belong.

• Awards based on purchases
• Awards based on achieved targets
• Free awards

Awarding based on purchase

Award any purchase based on various conditions - Utilize Free Capacity

Award customers for purchases made on specific dates/hours. The purchases might be associated with any product or with specific products.

Award based on customer's transactions - Increase Revenue, Transaction Based

Award participants based on the value of their purchase transactions. E.g., award customers for spending $200

Award based on purchased products - Increase Revenue, Product Based

Award participants based on the value of purchased products. E.g., set up an offer where Londoners are awarded for purchases of a specific product that add up to £200.

Award customers based on the value of the purchases that they have performed within a specific period. E.g., set up an offer where a customer is rewarded for spending $1000 or more at a specific restaurant in the same week.

Award participants based on the number of purchase transactions over a specific period. E.g., reward customers with over 10 American Express transactions in the same month.

Award based on number of purchased products - Reward Loyalty, Transaction Item Quantity Based

Award participants based the number of purchased products over a specific period. E.g., for every 9 coffees bought the 10th is free.

Awarding based on achieved targets

Award for specific achievements - Reward Achievements

Award participants for a specific accomplishment. Encourage your staff to increase their sales and communication skills, by awarding '5 star rating' customer reviews. Or award participants for accomplishments of a financial nature. E.g., award participants with a €10 bonus for topping up their Electron Card with a minimum of €100.

Award for specific financial statement - Financial Statement

Award participants for reaching specific  business objectives, measured through financial statement customer events and their related key performance indicators (KPI). E.g., award customers who deposit €10000 or more within a year.

Award new participants - Reward Sign Ups

Reward new participants. Attract customers by rewarding them once they join the program and complete their first transaction.

Reward existing participants for referring new participants. Motivate current participants to refer their friends to the program by rewarding them for each successful referral.

Award for completing personal data - Reward Data Completeness

 Reward participants the provide a complete set of personal data information, such as an address or date of birth. Encourage customers to provide their email address by rewarding them with a free coffee.

Award for being a loyal subscriber - Reward Subscription Maturity

Award participants whose subscriptions were effective and uninterrupted for a specific period.

Encourage subscribers to remain active during their contract by awarding the ones that pay on time and remain connected.

Giving away free awards

Send a thank you award - Just Money

Award customers based on common business characteristics determined by one or multiple segments. Improve ailing sales in a specific area within your vicinity by awarding local participants with a free meal redeemable during weekdays.

Create a participating draw - Lottery

Award a specific number of participants, that are selected randomly by the system given that they meet other specified criteria.

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Setting up seasonal reward offers

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 look for Offer Validity and define the validity according to your needs.

Time limited awards  

In addition to the offer validity, validity can also be set to the award granted. Validity in awards can be set in 2 ways.

• Make an award valid after a predetermined period has passed (defined by the Award Validity )   
• Set an expiration date.  Upon expiration, the wallet of the participant is debited and the awarded funds made unavailable, pressing customers to spend their award within a specific period.  To expire an award the expiration dates must be set on the reward offer at the time of setup.  The expiration process is subsequently executed to identify expired awards. Define the expiration through Award will expire

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).

In the Award section of Reward Offers set the Award Scope to 'Apply once per each purchase customer event Item'. 

Awarding participants with multiple offers

Participants can be awarded for all rewarded events either from multiple reward offers or from the one that yields the highest reward. By default, the system will only apply the one that yields the highest reward. To set up the system to award a customer by more than one offers for the same event, then the Provide award on top of any other applicable offers in the Reward Offer restrictions must be enabled.

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Conditional awarding

Reward offers provide a plethora of conditions that can be set up and which must be met for the award to be granted. Conditions are either based on the Rewards Participant such as age, location, accounts receivable classification, sign up period etc. or based on the event or behaviour being awarded. For example, if you are awarding loyal subscribers then you can provide conditions related to the period that they must be active in order to get awarded, whereas if you are awarding a participant for a high transaction total you can provide conditions associated to the amount that should be spent and on which products, in order to get awarded.

Apart from reward participant conditions which are common to all the rest of the conditions will vary depending on the reward offer classification. Award conditions can include:

• Product Conditions: A list of products, product types or product families that should be provided on the customer event.
• Payment Medium Conditions: A list of payment medium brands or payment medium types that should be associated with the customer event.
• Location Conditions: A list of areas, cities or districts, of which at least one should be included in the active address of the rewards participants.
• Period Conditions: The longest period that the Customer Event can remain unprocessed before becoming invalid.
• Segment Conditions:
  • Include Rewards Participants Included in Segments: Segments that can be rewarded.
  • Exclude Rewards Participants Included in Segments: Segments that should not be rewarded.
    Segments for the following entities can be selected:
    • Accounts Receivable
    • Rewards Participant
    • Contact Information
    • Award Reward Transaction
    • Spend Reward Transaction
• Promotion Campaigns: The promotional campaign from which promo codes must be used on customer events, to award the offer
• Organisational Conditions: A list of groups or units that submitted the customer event and are allowed to award the offer.
• Time Conditions: The day of the week and time during which the event should take place for it to be eligible for a reward.

Applying restrictions on awards

You can control the awarded amount per event in case that the award is a percentage you can limit the amount being awarded in case of a very high transaction amount; (Maximum awarded amount per awarded event). or the number of times a participant gets awarded by a specific order (Maximum number of awards per participant). Additionally, if the purchase customer event which is under evaluation is associated to a spend request (i.e. redemption of a previous award) then it will not be awarded.(Apply only if no spend requests were submitted)

Additional restrictions may be applicable depending on the classification of the reward offer.

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Defining award to be granted per offer (points or currency)

Awarding can be done either as a cashback or as points. In case that you would like to work with points then you can set up the exchange rate between points and the default currency you use in currencies.

Regardless of whether award is cashback or points you can choose whether the award will be a fixed amount, a percentage on a purchase or a percentage on awarded amount over a period.

Giving 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. (Spend Instantly)
• Awards can be added to the loyalty account and spent another time upon customer request. (Spend on Request)

Check for the Spend Method field to select the way awards will be spent

Awarding participants with e-vouchers

Conditional award spending

In every offer you can define how awards can be spent. . Depending on the offer you set up different options may be applicable

Conditions

Spend conditions apply restrictions on how the award can be spent which can include time, place as well as product restrictions.

• Time Conditions such as the days and/or at time on which the awarded offer can be spent.

• Organisational Conditions which is a list of groups or units that the reward can be spent on. For rewards participants to meet the criteria and redeem awards, the unit of the spend request customer event must be included in the organisational conditions.

• Product Conditions such as a list of products, product types or product families that the awards can be spent on.

Customizing offers for third party systems

Every offer has its own marketing section. This section includes settings that are used to display offer information when integrating with a mobile app and portal. It includes, images, text, background colour etc.

Setting partner contributions to multi merchant offer

A contribution determines the percentage of the awarded amount that should be provided by the rewards partner (organisational unit). By default, the partner contribution is 100%. For more information on setting up contribution rules refer to Multi Merchant Reward Platform- Contribution Rules.

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Using Rewards

Once you setup schemes and reward offers you are ready to start rewarding your customers. A customer to be rewarded must be registered in CRM.COM as reward participant. Once registered any events associated to set up reward offers can be awarded through award transactions which will be generated by the system and which will in turn fund the participant's wallet. The participant can then choose to redeem wallet money (points or cash) in which case the system will generate spend transactions which will in turn remove the money from the wallet.

Manage your rewards program through Reward Board

It is possible to handle your rewards plan through the reward board and skip the use of configuration pages. The difference between the two (reward board and configuration pages) is that when creating various entries by using the reward board, those are specific to a selected scheme. In greater details the board can be used by a user that operates a specific scheme in order to perform the following 

• Create new schemes
• Monitor the performance of the scheme
• Create and manage reward offers belonging to that scheme
• Monitor reward participants that participate in that scheme
• Notify participants that participate to that scheme
• Segment participants that participate to that scheme
• View any participation agreements (if applicable)

Selecting a scheme

The board is particularly helpful when you have multiple different schemes, as within the same screen you can switch between them and view information while creating new offers, participants notifications etc. Click on Change Reward Scheme and select the applicable scheme.

Managing a scheme

If you wish to create a new offer participant notification etc for the scheme click on New and access the respective screen

Creating new entries for a scheme

Whether you would like to create a new participant, reward offer, notification segment or partner agreement, it can all be done through the Reward Board through the NEW button

Viewing existing entries of a scheme

If you wish to view existing offers participants etc you can view them all again through the Reward Board at the bottom of the page

Selecting dashboards to view

The dashboard components available in the Reward Board can be updated so that the ones most relevant to your needs are shown. You can select from a list of dashboards through Manage Charts button.

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Managing Reward Participants

Rewards participants are the customers that have a financial relationship with the organisation (i.e. they hold an accounts receivable) and have also signed up to the organisation's reward program by participating to one or more of the available reward schemes. A unique number is provided to each rewards participant that can be used as identification. One or more access tokens can also be used in order to identify and authenticate rewards participants.

Selecting and creating a rewards participants

To select an existing rewards participant navigate to Reward Board and search for the participant or click on New > Rewards Participant from the action menu.

Rewards Participants must be related to an accounts receivable through which the financial transactions as well as awards and spends will be handled. On creating a new participant you can either select an existing account or create a new one.

Granting access to the system for a rewards participant

Reward participants often need to retrieve information on the state of their reward accounts. This is usually done through a third party system such as a mobile app or a portal. In order to access their information they must identify and authenticate themselves. This is done by the use of Access Tokens. On creating a participant, an access token (or more) is assigned and related to the participant's accounts receivable. Every time the participant or related information must be accessed authorisation is provided through the access token.

Signing up to a scheme

Participants can be signed up by the company to specific schemes or can select schemes they would like to participate in through their mobile app or company portal.

If the sign up is manual then the scheme they would like to sign up, the registration date and the merchant making the sign up must be provided.

For schemes that you would like to make available to participants to join enable the 'Self Sign Up' at the scheme. In cases where you would like to restrict registration to a scheme for particular users then you can enable 'reference code sign up'. The reference code is usually a 3rd party id (i.e. student identification number) which is saved on the participant and its authenticity can be validated by external systems. If enabled then a participant won't be allowed to sign up the scheme unless a valid reference code is provided.  For more information refer to Schemes

Signing-off from a 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. To sign off a participant from a scheme you need to remove the

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) by either enabling or disabling Block Spending

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. In the Partner Unit Agreements under Partner Permission Settings section enable 'Allow Automatic Spend'.

   OR

2. In the Rewards Participants enable Automatic Spending.

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. You can terminate a rewards participant through the WEB API. If termination is based on a duplicate participant, you can define the participant by whom he was replaced and optionally, transfer the wallet balance and access tokens to the other participant.

Importing participants

The fastest way to create reward participants is by importing an excel or CSV file for this purpose. You can either import participants through Utilities > Import Data > Import Rewards Participants or through the Reward Board > New Import.

Through the import page you have the option to define values which will be applicable to all imported participants 'Use Specific Contact field' or 'Use field Specified in Import File'. Define the applicable settings applicable and Save.

A template is available through the Action Menu > Download Template which can help you prepare the file to be imported. Prepare an import file in either Excel or CSV format. Files in either format contain one column for each field that can be imported and a first row including headers. Click on Submit from the Actions menu and proceed by selecting the file with the participants. 

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

• 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 transactions instantly and through evaluation run

Awards and spends are generated by executing a rewards evaluation run or by performing events which can trigger real-time offers.

Award transactions are created instantly when the reward offer is real time, while spend transactions can be created instantly upon instant discount or automatic spend.

Award expiration transactions that expire awarded credit are generated by executing a wallet balance expiration run

Award and spend transactions which are not generated by real time reward offers, will be generated once the reward offer evaluation run is executed.

The frequency by which the run is executed depends on the Offer Evaluation Occurrence set on each of the offers. For each offer an evaluation run is executed as often as defined on the offer.

The run is a background process and does not need user interaction other than starting and stopping it. The run is available at Foundation / Platform / Manage Admin Settings / Batch Processes Admin Board

Cancelling transactions

Transactions can only be cancelled.

• 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.

To cancel any type of transaction navigate to the respective Data Entry page and click on Cancel from Actions Menu.  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.

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Additional Processes and Automations for Rewards 

Awarding customers through promotional campaigns

Awarding from specific offers can be targeted based on marketing/promotion campaigns. For example, you can set up promotion campaigns for a specific product where customers of a specific group will be awarded if they purchase it.

To do this you can create a promotion campaign through which you will identify your target group and send them a promo code. At the same time you can set up a reward offer, using the promotion campaign as an award conditions.

Once any of the participants in the campaign makes a purchase, if they provide the promo code they will be eligible to the award set up in the offer.

To set this up:

1. Generate promo codes through the promotion campaigns
   
2. Create a reward offer and in the award conditions select the promotional campaign
   

To award

1. The customer event must include the promo code

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).

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Business Flows