POS Loyalty Program

ROBOTILL comes with a flexible points based loyalty program. Loyalty programs are used to retain customers and increase sales.

Keeping track of customer sales

To enable customers to earn points, you need to link a sale to a specific customer even when the customer does not pay using his/her account. This is done by selecting a customer at any time during the sale by using the 'Customer' button in the Retail or Restaurant module.

To avoid needing to search for a customer each time, it is suggested that you use Customer Cards.

Program Setup

To set up the customer loyalty program go to ROBOTILL Back Office > Home > Set Up and Settings > Settings. Select 'Loyalty Program'.

You can activate or deactivate the loyalty program at any time.
The date the loyalty program must start. You can also choose a date in the past if you have been allocating sales to customers already - the customer points will be calculated from the start date of the program.
How the points are calculated. For example if the point conversion is 0.05 then points = money spent x 0.05. That means if a customer spends 1 500.50 (in whatever currency you are using) he will get 75 points.
The minimum number of points a customer needs before the reward screen will be available to the customer.
You can choose if you want to allow points to be converted to cash as the main reward. When a customer converts points to cash the customer account will be credited.
If you selected to allow points to cash reward, the cash amount will be calculated by multiplying the points with the 'points to cash' value. For example, if you choose the 'points to cash' value as 0.01, then points of 150 will be converted to 1.50 (in whatever currency you are using).
You can select a product that must be added as a reward. See below for more on rewards.
Enter the points needed to qualify for this reward.
Click on 'Add Product' to add this reward.
The rewards will be listed. You can select a reward and delete it if needed.

Customer Rewards

Apart from the main cash reward (that you can disable), you can also offer other rewards. You allocate points to each reward. If a customer has more points than the minimum you specified in the program setup, then the reward button will become visible. If the cashier then clicks on the reward button the rewards will be displayed. Only the rewards that the customer has enough points for will be listed.

If the customer chooses a reward the points will be deducted from the customer loyalty points.

A rewards is basically one of the following products that you create:

A discount product reward like '$5.00 Off' (description of the product) with a negative selling price of -5.00
Free gifts. For example a free pen with your company logo. These gifts should have a selling price of zero. You can do stock receiving and keep track of the stock on hand for these products like any other product.
A coupon for any product in your store (like a free can of Coke, packet of chips, etc). See the 'Free Coffee' example below.

When creating these reward items and coupons, it is recommended that you add them to a special category and mark the category as 'hidden at POS' so that these rewards are hidden in the POS apps. That way the cashiers will not be able to select these rewards directly and they are only allocated through the reward system.

Free Coffee Reward Example

You can choose any product in your shop/restaurant as a free item, but instead of adding the item directly as the reward, you add a 'reward coupon'. If you add the item directly as the reward, then the price will be added to the sale and it will not be free.

To create the free item (in this example coffee), we do the following:
(note: if you are not sure how to get to the screen below, you should first familiarise yourself with Combo Deals and Coupons).

We add a loyalty reward combo deal. The description is not displayed anywhere at the till and is only used in ROBOTILL Back Office
The special product is not the loyalty reward product. The 'Free Coffee' product is another product you need to create (and add to 'Rewards Category') with a stock code of FREECOFFEE (or something similar) and a selling price of the negative value of the item you want to give for free (the coffee) – in this example -18.00.

You add the product that you want to give free as a required item. In this case it will be the Coffee with a selling price of R 18.00. The product (coffee) must be scanned or added to the sale as well (even if it will be free).
The 'Free Coffee Reward' is a product that you need to create that will be the coupon that the cashier will select as the reward (that the customer chose). The product (coupon) will have a description of 'Free Coffee Reward', a stock code of FREE-COFFEE-REWARD (or something similar) and a selling price of zero. You will also choose the 'Rewards Category' as a category for the product so that it cannot be selected directly.

If the customer chooses the 'Free Coffee Reward' from the list of available rewards, the cashier will then tell the customer to get a coffee that will also be scanned (or added to the sale). When the sale is completed, ROBOTILL will detect that the two required items is part of the sale (the 'Coffee' and the 'Free Coffee Reward'). It will then automatically add the 'Free Coffee' item with a value of -18.00 that will deducted the price of the coffee from the sale.

How it works at the till

When a customer card is scanned or swiped and the customer qualify for a reward (has more points that the minimum specified for this loyalty program), the reward button will become visible. The cashier can then ask the customer if he wants to redeem a reward (or save his points for a later reward). The cashier can then click/touch the reward button.

The cashier can then just select the reward the customer chose. The reward will be added to the sale and the points will be deducted from the points of the customer.

Paying with Points

If you allowed the 'Points to Cash' option and the customer chose to convert his points to cash, the customers account will be credited. For that sale the cashier can then use the amount on the customer account (the reward) to pay for the sale and any shortfall can be paid by the customer using cash or a card.

Encouraging customers to purchase more

When a customer is selected for a sale, the 'Customer Sale Receipt' will be printed instead of the normal receipt. You can add the loyalty points of the customer to the receipt. You can also list the available rewards on the receipt to encourage customers to purchase more from your store so that they can earn their rewards.

To add the points and/or rewards to the receipt, see Print Design

Loyalty Reports and Stats

Each customer's current points can be viewed in the customer screen . From the customer screen you can also view what rewards the customer already used and how much points is left. There are also customer purchase history and loyalty rewards reports available. See reports.