- Overview
- Configuring Store Settings For Reward Tiers
- Fixed Period
- Rolling Period
- Disqualification Warnings
- Configuring A Reward Tier
- Reward Tier Based Discounts
- Reward Tier Workflow Rules
- Reward Tier Emails
Overview
The reward tiers feature is an optional enhancement to the AmeriCommerce reward points feature set. By using this feature, you can create multiple tiers or levels based upon how much your customers spend that give them increasing levels of benefits beyond the standard reward points. As such, you must be using reward points to take advantage of the reward tiers feature.
Each reward tier that you add has an associated qualifying total spend; to qualify for a particular rewards tier a customer must spend this amount or more within a designated time period. If a customer achieves a particular reward tier and then does not spend enough to sustain that tier, they will eventually be disqualified from their reward tier and will revert to either a lesser tier or no tier depending upon their total spend.
Configuring Store Settings For Reward Tiers
You have the option to turn on reward tiers for each individual store. Note that since reward tiers are associated to a particular customer, the reward tier settings from each customer's assigned store will be used even if the customer places an order on another of your stores.
There are two main modes of operation for reward tiers; Fixed Period and Rolling Period. You may set this option using the Period Type For Qualifying Spend setting. This setting determines the time period that will be used to calculate the qualifying spend for your customers to determine their appropriate reward tier.
Note: Rewards tier calculations are performed daily.
Fixed Period
Fixed period indicates that the time frame will be a fixed start and end date. When using this option you must then choose a Fixed Period For Qualifying Spend which allows you to choose either Monthly, Quarterly, Twice-Annually, or Annually. When choosing any one of these options, the start and end dates will be automatically determined by the system based on the current calendar year. You may additionally configure the Use Current And Previous Fixed Period To Determine Tier setting. When this setting is enabled, the system will separately calculate each customer's total spend for the current period AND the previous period based upon your choice for monthly, quarterly, etc. and will take the higher of the two values to determine the customer's reward tier.
For example, if you chose a fixed period type of Annually, and choose to use current and previous period, the system will calculate each customer's total spend for last year and the current year, and use the higher value to determine the reward tier. If you choose monthly, the system will calculate the previous month and the current month, etc. This allows you to have reward tier "travel forward" into the next period if you so choose. If you do not enable Use Current And Previous Fixed Period To Determine Tier, then only the current fixed period will be used.
Rolling Period
Rolling period indicates that the time frame will not be fixed but rather will be relative to each individual customer's order dates. When you choose this option, you will also be able to configure Rolling Time Frame For Qualifying Spend which represents the number of months in duration for the rolling window. The first time a customer places an order, the date of that order will commence the rolling window for that customer. Assuming you configured a rolling time frame of 6 months, any additional spend the customer had within 6 months of that original order date would constitute that customer's qualifying spend, and the system will determine the appropriate reward tier. After 6 months has elapsed, the first order will "age out" however any subsequent orders will still apply to the qualifying spend until they too age out.
Disqualification Warnings
The final consideration for configuring reward tier settings for your stores is determining if and when to send disqualification warnings. Regardless of how you've configured the Period Type For Qualifying Spend setting, if a customer's spend over time is not enough to satisfy their current tier's qualifying total spend, they will eventually become disqualified from their current tier. When disqualified, a customer may drop to a lower tier, or may have their reward tier removed entirely, depending on their particular spend. The system will automatically adjust these tiers accordingly. For each tier, you may optionally specify a Tier Reminder and a Tier Disqualification email template. When these are configured, and when a customer is nearing disqualification, the system will use the values in the When To Send Disqualification Warning and When To Send Tier Reminder Emails settings to determine when to send these emails. Both of these settings represent the number of days before the potential disqualification of the customer on which to send the emails.
Tier Reminder emails can be thought of as an advanced disqualification warning; as such it must be sent before the Tier Disqualification Warning, meaning When To Send Tier Reminder Emails must be a larger value than When To Send Disqualification Warning. However you may specify a value of 0 for either to indicate that you do not want to send these emails. The Disqualification Warning is meant to be a final warning to the customer that the will lose their reward tier status if they don't have any additional spend by the necessary date.
Configuring A Reward Tier
When setting up reward tiers, you may add as many tiers as you want. Each tier will have an associated qualifying spend that determines how much a customer must spend in the configured time frame to qualify for the tier. A common use might be to have "Bronze", "Silver", and "Gold" tiers that have increasing qualifying spend.
Each tier also as a Points Earned Per Dollar Spent setting. This value will override the store and global rewards settings when this customers places a new order. Unlike those settings, this setting may be a decimal value. This allows you to award more points for the same spend for customers in higher reward tiers. When calculating the number of points earned, the system will automatically round up to the nearest whole number.
You may optionally configure a Welcome Email for the reward tier. When this is set, any time a customer is assigned to a tier, they will be sent the configured welcome email. Note that if a customer achieves a certain tier and receives a welcome email, then later qualifies for a higher tier, and subsequently reverts to the previous tier, they will receive another welcome email for the original tier.
You may also configure a Nearing Tier Email for the reward tier. When setting this, you must also configure values for the Nearing Tier Threshold and Nearing Tier Threshold Type settings. Together these settings allow you to send a customer an email informing them they have almost achieved this tier. The system will determine when to send this based on the threshold, which may be a fixed dollar amount before the tier is achieved, or a percentage of the qualifying total spend.
You may finally configure a Nearing Disqualification Email and Tier Reminder Email. These are sent based on the store's configured number of days before a customer will be disqualified from their current tier if they do not have any additional spend by the necessary date.
Reward Tier Based Discounts
When using reward tiers, you will have the option to create discounts with rules that target the customer's reward tier. This allows you to create customized additional benefits for each reward tier level, such as enhanced free shipping for higher tiers, free items, or extra discounts on specific products. This allows highly customizable expansion of the reward tiers benefits.
Reward Tier Workflow Rules
If you use the workflow rule engine, you now also have the option to create custom rules that both target the customer's current reward tier, as well as set the current customer's reward tier. These options are available for both Order and Customer rules.
Reward Tier Emails
As mentioned above, there are 4 different types of built in email triggers related to reward tiers supported by the system, Welcome Emails, Nearing Tier Emails, Nearing Disqualification Emails, and Tier Reminder Emails. When sending these emails, the system will populate the following special merge codes for these reward tier emails:
##TIERNAME## - the name of the reward tier
##QUALIFYINGTOTALSPEND## - The qualifying total spend of the reward tier
##POINTSEARNEDPERDOLLARSPENT## - The corresponding value for the reward tier
##ADDITIONALSPENDNEEDEDTOREMAINQUALIFIED## - for Nearing Disqualification and Tier Reminder emails only, the additional dollar amount the customer must spend to remain qualified for their current tier
##DISQUALIFIEDTIERNAME## - for Nearing Disqualification and Tier Reminder emails only, the name of the tier to which they will revert (or "No Tier") if they do not meet the additional spend required.
##ADDITIONALSPENDNEEDEDTOQUALIFY## - for Nearing Tier emails only, the additional dollar amount the customer must spend to qualify for the tier
##ADDITIONALSPENDNEEDEDBYDATE## - The date by which the additional spend must occur, for Nearing Disqualification, Tier Reminder, and Nearing Tier emails