The Customer Rewards feature does just what it says--it rewards loyal customers who shop repeatedly at your store. When a customer reaches a predetermined benchmark (either dollars spent or number of items purchased), he or she will then receive a rewards premium, which you will have set up here in the Customer Rewards program. The premium will be in the form of a user-defined balance card. Multiple rewards programs can be defined in the system, and any one customer can have multiple rewards programs attached to them as well.
The first thing to do is set up system-wide rewards programs that can then be attached to customers. For example, you may wish to have a rewards program for Fiction, another one for History, another for Cookbooks, etc. You can have as many rewards programs as you want, and you can make them as specific or as broad as you desire.
To access the Customer Rewards parameter:
From the [i] Merchant Desktop's Main Menu, select Tools-Parameters-Rewards. This opens the Rewards window.
Once in the Rewards window, the first thing you will see is the code-description screen, where all Customer Rewards codes and accompanying descriptions are listed. To access an existing code:
Highlight the row of the code you want to access. Once highlighted, click on the Properties button at the top of the screen, or simply press Enter. The Reward Properties screen for the selected code appears.
To create a new code:
From the menu at the top of the Rewards window, select File-New-Parameter. The Reward Properties window opens. This is where you will define the new reward.
The Reward Properties window has a number of fields in it. Let's start from the top.
The Code field is where you designate the code for this particular Customer Reward. It can be alpha or numeric, or a combination. Just make sure that each Reward has a unique code.
The Description field is where you describe the Reward. For example, if the Reward is for all Fiction books in your store, then the description might be "Fiction." Choose something that makes sense to you.
Beneath the "Membership" section of the window, there are a few fields. . . .
In the "Fee" field, key in any fee (if applicable) that you will charge a customer to become a member of this Reward program. You can leave this as zero, if desired, and charge no Reward membership fee at all.
In the "Days Valid" field, key in the number of days (from the issuing date) that the Reward membership will be active. If there is no expiration date, simply leave the field set to zero.
In the "Service For Membership Fee" field, select the service to attach to the membership fee. This service will be sent to the POS when adding or renewing a Reward membership that includes a fee. If the Reward membership has no fee, this field is not relevant, and can be left blank.
Here now are the fields listed in the "Reward Calculation" portion . . .
In the "Award the Following Service" field, you need to attach the Reward you are establishing to an existing service. When a customer meets the requirements for a Reward, the system will prompt for the issue of the Balance Card established here. The amount on the Balance Card is determined by the next fields.
The "For" field works as a two-part field. The field at the right dictates whether the Reward premium will be determined based on a percentage or based on a fixed dollar amount. Click on the pulldown arrow at the right of the field and select the choice you want ("Percent of Purchases" or "Fixed Dollar Amount." Then, in the left-hand field, key in either the fixed dollar amount to be rewarded, or the percentage of the purchases to be rewarded. (The Fixed Dollar value is self-explanatory. Once the benchmark for issuing the Reward premium is met, the fixed dollar amount established here will be issued to the customer. With the Percent of Purchases, when the benchmark for issuing the Reward premium is met, the keyed-in percentage off of the purchases is issued to the customer. So, if the benchmark is $100.00, and you key in 20% here, when the customer reaches $100.00, the system will prompt for the issue of a $20.00 Rewards premium--20% of $100.00.)
The next two fields--"When Dollars Spent Reach" and "Or Items Bought Reach" are what determine the benchmark for issuing a Reward premium to a customer. You can key in a value for just one of the fields, or for both fields. If you key in a value for both, the Reward will be issued when the first of these values is met. For example, let's say you set the "Dollars Spent" value at $100.00. And you set the "Items Bought" value at 5. If the customer spends $100.00 before she purchases five separate items, the Reward will be issued based on the $100.00 benchmark being reached. Likewise, if the customer purchases 5 items but has not yet spent $100.00, the Reward will still be issued, based on the 5 items value having been matched.
If you leave either of these fields set to zero, they will not be active.
Notes:
When the customer reaches a predetermined benchmark during a POS transaction, she will be awarded the Rewards premium based on that benchmark when you use "Percent of Purchase" as a calculator for the Reward. Any dollar amount spent during the transaction that exceeds the $100.00 will carry over to the next $100.00 cycle.
Example: Jayne is a customer with a Reward attached to her customer file. She will receive a Reward premium once she meets or exceeds $100.00 in purchases of applicable items. You have calculated the Reward setting the "Percent of Purchase" field to 20%. On Tuesday, she buys $40.00 worth of applicable merchandise. The system keeps track of this--but she has yet to meet the $100.00 benchmark, so no Reward is issued yet. On Friday, she comes back and spends $80.00 on applicable merchandise. This brings her total to $120.00. The Reward premium will be issued (POS will alert the clerk automatically that a Reward premium has been met during the tendering of the transaction) in the form of a balance card for $20.00 (20% of the benchmark amount of $100). The additional $20.00 will count toward the next $100.00 cycle. If she comes back the next day, and buys $50.00 worth of applicable products, the total is now $70.00 (the $50.00 she just bought plus the leftover $20.00 from the previous transaction). When she again reaches $100.00 in applicable purchases, she will be issued a Reward.
For a Fixed Dollar Reward premium, once the benchmark is met in a transaction (either based on dollars or items purchased), the customer will be issued the fixed dollar amount you have established. Any additional purchases will carry over to the next cycle, as described in the above example.
If the customer returns an item that had counted toward the Rewards premium, the accumulated totals for the premium are adjusted accordingly. For example, if Jayne has accrued $80.00 toward her premium but returns an item that had cost $20.00, she now has only $60.00 toward her premium. The same is true of quantity. If she had purchased 4 items toward the premium but returns 1, she is now only credited with 3. If the customer already has received the premium but then later returns an item, she keeps the premium. The return is credited against the next premium. So, if Jayne needed to reach $100.00 to meet her Rewards premium, and did indeed reach $100.00, she will receive the premium. But if she then returns an item that had counted toward the $100.00 premium (let's say the item cost $20.00), it is credited against the new, reset premium amount. In this case, her new, reset premium will actually start out as a negative 20 dollars.
Customer Rewards are calculated at the POS during the tendering process. Any sales or discounts will have already been calculated by the system. The Customer Rewards premium will be based on the net value of the purchased items (i.e., after sales and discounts have already been factored in).
Once you have determined how the Reward should be calculated, and what the benchmark will be, you need to determine what items in your store will apply to this particular Reward. You can make one Reward good for everything in your store, or you can make it as specific as applying it only to Horror novels written by Dean Koontz. That's why [i] Merchant allows you to create as many Rewards as you want--providing you with the flexibility to establish broad Rewards as well as specific ones.
At the lower portion of the Reward Properties window, there exists the "Selection Rule" section. This is where you will determine which items in your store will apply to the Reward you are setting up.
To create a Selection Rule for this Reward:
Click on the "Add to List" icon at the left of the "Selection Rule" portion of the Reward Properties window. A new row will appear, saying "All Items." If you wish for this Rewards premium to apply to everything in your store's inventory, you have nothing further to do. "All Items" encompasses all of your for-sale items. Assuming you have already established values in the fields discussed above, you can Close out of the window, being sure to Save your changes. The Reward is now created.
But if you want to limit which items in your store will apply to this Reward, there is still work to be done.
Click on "All Items." The Rewards Rule window will open up. This is where you'll define which items in your store will apply to the Reward. You can either select an existing Rewards Rule or create a new one.
At the top of the Rewards Rule window, there are two options: Query and Filter By. The second option--Filter By--allows you either to view rules only you created or rules everyone has created. A submenu will appear with the word "Me" on top and "All Users" underneath. Simply click on the one you want, and a black dot appears to the left of the selected choice. This is user-definable and up to you. Choose whichever makes the most sense. You can switch back and forth anytime you like, but the system will always default to the way you left it the last time you were in the Rewards Rule window.
The Query option has three choices underneath: New, Delete, and Select.
Choose New to create a new rule. A message box appears where you need to key in the name of the new rule. Click on OK when you are finished keying in the name, then set up the parameters for the new rule. To understand how to do this, just keep reading. (More on Delete and Select in a bit.)
If you want to view a rule already on the system, click on the arrow at the right of the field in the top left corner of the Rewards Rule window. All of the existing rules (or all of the existing rules only you created if you set the Filter By field to "Me") appear in a dropdown list. Simply click on the one you want. Its parameters display in the Rewards Rule window.
If you want to delete the selected rule from the system:
With the rule selected, choose Delete from the Query menu. The rule is deleted.
If you want to select the rule that is displayed in the Rewards Rule window and apply it to the Reward premium:
Click on the Select button to the right of the field. Once you select a rule, you are returned to the Reward Properties window, and the selected rule is listed under the "Selection Rule" field.
Okay, but how do you set up the parameters for a rule? If you want a rule to establish only mass market paperbacks be applied to a Reward, how do you establish that within a rule? It's easy.
To define the selection criteria for the new rule:
Choose the category you want to define in the Select Field field by clicking on the down arrow at the right of the field. A pulldown list of categories appears. Click on the one you want. Once selected, it displays in the Select Field field. For an example, let us say you selected Bindings.
In the Select Operation field, choose Like, equal to, greater than, less than, greater than or equal to, less than or equal to, or between.
In the Choose Value field, choose the value or values that define the selection criteria. With the Bindings example, say you chose "equal to" in the Select Operation field. If you then select MM (Mass Market) in the Choose Value field, the rule will apply to all inventory in your store with a binding code of MM.
For applicable categories (such as Bindings), there will be a binoculars icon at the right of the Choose Value field. If you need to view information on how to select a parameter in a code-driven field, please click here.
If you selected "between" in the Select Operation field, two fields will display under Choose Value. In the top field, choose the start value. In the bottom field, select the ending value. For example, if you selected Store Number in the Select Field field and you want the rule to apply to merchandise only between store numbers 1 and 5, you would select "between" in the Select Operation field, key in a 1 in the top Choose Value field, and key in a 5 in the bottom Choose Value field.
If you choose Publication Date (or any other date category) in the Select Operation field, a calendar will display if you click on the down arrow at the right of the Choose Value field. This is a convenient way for you to select a particular date.
Note:
If you choose Publication Date (or another date category) in the Select Operation field, the Choose Value field will automatically default to the current day's date. If you need to change that, instead of accessing the calendar and choosing a new date that way, you can simply highlight the default date and rekey the desired date.
Once you have set the fields the way you want, click on the Add button at the right of the Reward Rule window. The criteria you just set will display in the Selected Ranges box. For example, if you selected a binding code of MM, "Bindings = MM [Mass Market]" will display in the Selected Ranges box.
Note:
If you want to blank out the search fields and begin again (prior to clicking on Add), click on the Cancel button. The search fields are blanked out.
Repeat the above process as many times as you want to define the criteria for the rule. Each time you establish a new set of criteria and click on the Add button, the new criteria will display in the Selected Ranges box. The more sets of criteria you select, the more specific the parameters of the rule will be. So, for example, you may set criteria for multiple categories in order to establish a well-defined, highly specific rule. Perhaps you want to establish the rule with the following specifications: Store Number 1, Bindings = MM, Publication Date >1/01/04. Simply define these criteria, one after the other, until all are set. When the rule is established, the Reward premium will only apply to items that fall under all of these specifications. For example, if an item had been purchased from Store 1 (within the range you set), had a binding code of MM (also within the range you set), but was published prior to 1/01/04 (as you defined), then the item would not fall under the Reward premium as established by this rule. To establish a less-defined rule, simply remove some of the criteria. There is no limit to the criteria. If you want to define 100 sets of criteria, you can.
To remove a set of criteria:
In the Selected Ranges box, highlight the criteria you want removed and click on the Remove button. The selected criteria is removed from the template.
When you are through creating the rule, select it for the Reward premium by clicking on the Select button at the top of the Reward Rule window. (If you do not want to select the rule, then simply click on the "x" at the top of the Reward Rule window.) Either way, the rule is saved automatically in your system.
Back at the Reward Properties window, the rule you selected (if you selected one) in the Rewards Rule window now appears under the "Selection Rule" field. If you click on the rule, you are taken back to the Rewards Rule window.
You can create as many rules as you want. Every time you create a new rule (by clicking on the "Add to List" icon in the "Selection Rule" portion of the Reward Properties window), a separate line is listed under the "Selection Rule" field. So, in essence, you can set up one rule for a discount code or one hundred.
Within a single Reward premium, the rules are tiered. If you set up two rules, the system will check an item against the parameters established in the first rule, then it will check against the parameters established in the second rule, and so on, if there are more than two rules. If the item a customer is buying does not match the parameters in rule 1 but does match the parameters in rule 2, the Reward premium applies, and vice versa. But if, after checking the parameters in each rule, the system discovers that the purchased item does not match any of the rules, then it will not be applied to the premium.
If you would like to delete a rule from the list of rules in the "Selection Rule" portion of the Reward Properties window, highlight the rule you wish to delete and click on the "Remove from List" icon--directly to the right of the "Add to List" icon. The rule will be deleted.
Once you have filled in all of the fields in the Reward Properties window, and have established the rules, click on the Close toolbar icon. The system will prompt you to save your changes if you haven't. Once you return to the general Rewards screen, where all Rewards are listed, the newly created code will now be there. You can establish as many customer Rewards as you want. And you can attach as many Rewards as you want to individual customers.
For information on how to delete codes from your system, click here.