RetailEdge has a loyalty program built directly into it. The loyalty dollar program is a batch process that is run periodically (end of month, quarterly etc.). #
Loyalty dollar credits are based on a customer’s spending history. Loyalty batches can be filtered to limit the qualified sales to particular payment methods, maximum discount percentages, certain vendors, departments, classes, customers, promotion codes, etc. And the customers’ loyalty dollars are tracked and will accumulate over time.
If you want to set up a loyalty program to get all of your best customers back into the store, this is how you might do it. As an example, Mrs. Smith spends $100 in July. So you would set up your loyalty batch to give your customers $10 of loyalty program dollars for every $200 spent. You also want to limit the issuing of loyalty dollars to only items that have not been discounted by more than 10% (since loyalty program dollars are essentially a discount on future purchases you don’t want them to be getting a double discount), only cash or credit sales (You don’t want to issue them them loyalty dollars for things purchased on account).
You can also limit loyalty dollar issuing to only customers with certain interests. Some RetailEdge users create interests (loyalty program) for their customers and charge a nominal fee for the customers to become lifetime loyalty program members. At the end of July, you would run a loyalty $ batch for sales in the month of July. Mrs. Smith will not receive any loyalty dollars for her spending in July, but will get a $100 carry over for her July spending. In August, Mrs. Smith spends another $100. The batch done at the end of August will combine the carryover from July of $100) with the August spending to give a total of $200. So she will be issued $10.00 in loyalty dollars issued.
Loyalty dollars are easily used by the customer and are available as another payment method when processing a sale.
When you want to notify the customers that they have been issued loyalty dollars, RetailEdge can export the loyalty customer batch information and loyalty dollars issued for the batch to a comma-separated text file that can be easily mail merged into a word processing program like Microsoft Word.
We set it up as a batch process for a few reasons.
1. It allows you more flexibility in how loyalty dollars are issued. You can run multiple batches for different vendors, departments, etc.
2. It minimizes mistakes and can be retroactively applied.
3. It allows you to control how the loyalty program is applied to customers. The loyalty program intends to have the customers come back in for future spending. If the customer is issued loyalty dollars as they spend, this defeats this intent and allows customers to get the dollars immediately. This would be getting around the intent and minimizing the effectiveness of your loyalty program.
To issue loyalty program dollars: #
1. Choose Issue Loyalty Dollars (Batch) from the Customer|Loyalty Dollars menu item.
2. Follow the Loyalty Program Wizard. When prompted press the Next button.
3. Set the Loyalty Dollars Criteria by pressing the Set Loyalty Dollars Criteria button.
4. On the Filtering screen add at least a Loyalty Dollars (Loyalty $/Sold $) and a sales Date Range filter.
5. Add any other filters you want.
6. Press the Ok button.
7. Press the Next button on the Wizard.
8. Press the Loyalty Dollars Pre-Batch Report button.
9. If everything looks alright on the report, print the report and then press the next button on the Wizard.
10. Press the Run Loyalty Dollars Batch Posting button.
11. Once the batch has posted, press the Ok button.
Your customers will now have a loyalty dollar balance that will show up on the Sales Screen Payment tab that will be available to them when you post a sale.
