CONTENTS
What if I want to give out loyalty cards?
How can I get loyalty cards printed?
Summary of the Loyalty module’s functions
Setting up an “earn 1 point for every £1 spent” scheme
Putting existing customers onto your loyalty scheme
Registering new customers onto a loyalty scheme
Serving customers who are already on your loyalty system
Auditing a customer’s loyalty points activity
Introduction
This manual will give an overview of how Cybertill’s loyalty points functions work, and instruction on how to get a loyalty scheme up and running on your system.
It presumes the reader already has a basic understanding of Cybertill, and is capable of
- using the till screen, and
- creating customer accounts.
It is a chargeable extra feature, and so is not available by default to all retailers. If you are interested in it, please enquire with your Account Manager.
Overview
Cybertill records loyalty points against customer accounts. It keeps track of how many points a customer has earned saved against their account in the system.
Consequently, when a loyalty customer next comes shopping, the till operator can simply select their account, and all the loyalty points functions will become active.
What if I want to give out loyalty cards?
You don’t have to give out cards to your customers to operate a loyalty scheme, but for many retailers it helps. It can make it easier for your till staff to ensure a customer gets their points, and it means every time a customer opens their purse or wallet they’ll see your logo there, and be reminded that they get perks for shopping with you.
If you were to have a batch of loyalty cards produced, and each card had a unique number printed on it, you could associate a specific card number with a specific customer account. This would mean that (for example) when your till operator enters a customer’s card number into the till, the till can instantly identify which customer account that card belongs to, and so the loyalty points functions will be triggered with little effort.
Alternatively, if your loyalty cards don’t have unique numbers on them, perhaps when a customer on your loyalty scheme tries to buy something, your till operator could simply ask for the customer’s name, and search for their account using that.
Ultimately, it doesn’t make much difference to your till whether you give out cards or not. Any cards you do give out will simply be a prompt for your till staff and/or a quick link to the customer’s account. As long as;
- the sale is put through against the customer’s account, and
- the customer is on the loyalty system, the till will handle the rest.
How can I get loyalty cards printed?
If you would like to use loyalty cards but aren’t sure how to get hold of them, we can help you there. Please contact either your Cybertill account manager, or our Consumables department (0844 855 1600, option 2, option 1 – or consumables@cybertill.co.uk).
Summary of the Loyalty module’s functions
In Cybertill, the amount of loyalty points a customer acquires depends simply on how much a customer spends in the space of a single transaction. Simply put, it’s like: “Spend £X, get Y points”.
Note: it’s possible to exclude certain categories from this scheme if you so choose, e.g. “Spend £X on any products except for those in Category Y, and get Z points”.)
You can specify at what rate customers earn loyalty points (i.e. how much they need to spend to get them; how many “points per pound” they get). You can specify how much each point is worth (each point’s value) and also specify how many points a customer must earn, before those points can be redeemed (i.e. spent).
As soon as the customer earns sufficient points, Cybertill will “convert” those points into loyalty credit; it will subtract from the customer’s Loyalty Points field, and it will add the relevant value to their Loyalty Credit field. (We’ll look at this process in more detail later.)
If you wish to, you could put different customers on different loyalty systems. For example, you could create “Gold” and “Silver” loyalty systems, then put your very best customers on the “Gold” system – so they earn points faster and/or each point is worth more than for “Silver” customers.
If you have a Cybertill website (either integrated or SOAP), it’s possible for loyalty customers to earn and redeem loyalty points on the website as well as in store.
Setting up a loyalty system
To create a new loyalty system, go to your Admin menu, then look for the Customer Loyalty Management option (roughly half way down the page).
Click it, and it’ll take you to a screen that looks something like this:
In the system depicted above, no loyalty systems have yet been added (hence the “No result” message). Yours will likely be the same.
To add a loyalty system, click the New link at the bottom of the page (indicated in red above). It’ll take you to a screen like this:
You’ll need to enter a Name for your loyalty scheme in the first field, then click the Save button at the bottom. (The
Descr and Type fields aren’t of great significance and can be safely ignored here.) After clicking Save, the screen will refresh and you will see more fields appear:
You’ll need to fill in most of these before you can continue. Here are some explanations of those fields:
| Setting | Explanation |
| Life days | Enter the lifespan of this loyalty system here, in days – i.e. how long a customer will remain on the loyalty system for. An example: Let’s say you were to enter “365” in this box. Let’s then say that on 6th January 2010, you put customer “John Smith” onto this loyalty system. On 6th January 2011 (i.e. 365 days later), John Smith’s loyalty system would become “inactive”; he would cease to acquire any more points from that day forth. (Note that he would not lose any loyalty credit he had acquired by this point; he’d still be able to spend any outstanding loyalty credit after this date.) If you enter a 0 (zero) in this field, then there will be no lifespan; the customer will be on the loyalty system indefinitely. |
| Point value | Enter here how much you would like each point to be worth, in pounds and pence (or whatever your main currency is). For example, 0.01 would be 1p (if you’re a UK retailer). |
| Redeem qty | Enter here how many points a customer must earn before they are eligible to redeem them. (For example, if you want to prevent customers from spending any loyalty points until they’ve earned 100 of them, enter 100 into this box.) |
| Number required | If you intend to give loyalty cards out to your customers, and each of those cards has a different number printed on them, tick this box. (If you do so, your till operators won’t be permitted to add a customer to the loyalty scheme without also recording what card number has been issued as well.) |
| Sale value | See explanation below |
| Qty points | See explanation below |
| Per GBP | See explanation below |
These three fields at the bottom are where you set how much money customers have to spend in order to earn points, and how quickly they are earned.
Let’s look at how to set up one of the most popular types of loyalty scheme:
Setting up an “earn 1 point for every £1 spent” scheme
This system is (a) simple to set up, and (b) simple for both retailer and customers to understand. Consequently, it’s quite popular.
To set this system up, fill in those last three fields as follows:
…then click the Save button underneath.
That’s it – job done! Yes, it really is that quick. Your scheme is now up and running, and you can start signing people up to it immediately.
Let’s give you some more detail as to what you just did, for clarity’s sake. We’ll start at the bottom field and work upwards.
By ticking the “Per GBP” box, you’re saying that you want to give out loyalty points per pound that your customers spend.
In the “Qty points” box, you enter how many points your customers are to earn per pound spent.
Lastly, the “Sale value” box, which is a little more complicated. Here, you enter the minimum amount the customer must spend within a single transaction before they can earn any loyalty points from it. Within a single transaction, for every
pound they spend above this value, they will earn the amount of points specified in the “Qty Points” box beneath.
An example might help to clarify. If you were to set your loyalty card up like this:
…then because your Sale value is set to £10.00, your customer only earn loyalty points for every pound they spend over £10.00, within a single transaction. So:
- If they spend anything up to £10.99, they will not earn any points.
- If they spend £11, they earn 1 point.
- If they spend £12, they earn 2 points.
- If they spend £13, they will earn 3 points, and so on.
Note that if they spend £8 in the shop on Monday, then £7 in the shop on Tuesday, they will not earn any points. They must spend £11 or more in one go to qualify.
Let’s consider another example for good measure. Were you to set your scheme up like this:
…then your customers will earn 5 loyalty points for every pound they spend over £20.00, within a single transaction. So:
- Spend anything under £20.99, don’t earn any points
- Spend £21, earn 5 points
- Spend £22, earn 10 points
- Spend £23, earn 15 points, and so on.
Hopefully that’s clear enough now. So, if we refer back to the settings described on the previous page:
You should see that under these rules, for every pound a customer spends over the value of £0.00, they earn 1 point.
In other words, spend £1, earn 1 point. Nice and simple.
Now you’ve seen how to set up a loyalty system, let’s move on to how you can put your customers onto it.
Putting existing customers onto your loyalty scheme
You can add existing customers to a loyalty scheme either from the till or the back office screens. Let’s start with the latter.
From the back office
Start by going into the Admin menu, then clicking the Customer Search option (usually found about half way down the page).
You’ll probably then see a “filters” screen like this:
Use these filters to find one of the customers you’re looking for. For example, try entering the first few letters of the customer’s surname in the “Last name” box, then click the Search button at the bottom right.
Note that if you’ve used these customer search functions recently, you might instead see the results of your previous search. If you want to “reset” the search functions, click the “Filtered results” at the top of the screen:
In the “Filter Dialog” box which appears, click on the Reset button in the bottom right corner.
After that, make your way back to Admin and Customer Search again, and this time you should see the filters.
Eventually, you should get a list of search results, looking something like this:
Find the appropriate customer, then click their account number at the left. (Depending on the size of your monitor, you may also see an Edit link at the right. That will also work here; it’ll take you to the exact same place.)
You’ll now find yourself in a customer editing screen:
Scroll about three quarters of the way down this page, until you come to the section marked “Loyalty Cards”.
Click on the New Loyalty Card option (indicated in red above).
You’ll now see this form:
In the Loyalty Card field, choose the appropriate “card” (i.e. scheme) you want to put this customer on to.
The Issue date fields should default to the current date, so you probably won’t need to change this. (Feel free to do so, though, if you want to “back-date” your records of when this customer got their card.)
If you intend to give or send this customer an actual loyalty card, and if your cards all have unique numbers on them, enter the relevant Card number in the box provided. (That will link this number to this customer.) In the Status field, you have four choices:
| Setting | Explanation |
| Active | The default option. Choose this if you want the customer to start accumulating loyalty points immediately. |
| Active | The default option. Choose this if you want the customer to start accumulating loyalty points immediately. |
| Pending | If you want some more information from the customer before you put them onto the loyalty system, you could mark them as “Pending” here. (Then, once you have everything you want from them, you can simply change this to “Active” afterwards.) |
| Expired | The system will set loyalty cards to this status automatically once they have expired (i.e. the “Life days” period you set for this card has passed). |
| Closed | You would choose this if you wanted to take a customer off the loyalty system altogether for some reason. |
Choose whichever is appropriate, then Save.
The screen will refresh, and you should see a yellow “Save OK” message at the top. That’s job done; the customer is now on the loyalty system.
Next time you go to edit their account from the back office screens, if you take another look at the Loyalty Cards section, you’ll see the loyalty card name and number (if there is one), along with its current status.
From the till
Start by signing in with your PIN, then clicking on the Select / create customer button at the top left.
You should see a Customer search window pop up on screen:
Type in something to search for (e.g. enter the customer’s last name in the Last name box, and/or their postcode in the Postcode box), then click the SEARCH button at the bottom right.
You’ll be shown a list of all the matching customers:
Click or tap on the customer in question.
You’ll find yourself back on the main till screen, and you should see the customer’s name displayed just above the Basket panel:
Also note that just above and left of that, where there used to be a “Select / create customer” button, it’s changed to say “Account options”. Click or tap that next.
More options will then appear on screen (pictured to the left). Click or tap on the Account details button.
You’ll then see all of the customer’s name and address information appear in a pop-up:
Here, you’ll need to click or tap Edit customer along the bottom.
That should bring up a form in which you can edit all of the customer’s data:
You’ll need to find a “Loyalty” section on this form. By default, it will be the very last section at the bottom of the form, so you’ll need to scroll down to the bottom to see it:
(Please note that this form is customisable, so if one of your colleagues has amended this form’s layout it may not be at the very bottom. Your form may even be split across two or more pages; there might even be NEXT and PREVIOUS buttons in the bottom corners of this pop-up, and you might have to use those buttons to browse through and find it.)
You’ll need to click into the Loyalty Card box and select the name of your loyalty card/scheme there.
If you’re issuing cards with numbers on, you’ll also need to tap into the Card number field, and enter the card number there. You can either type it, or – if your numbers are in barcode format - scan it with your till scanner.
Tap the SAVE button when you’re done. You’ll then find yourself back on the main till screen.
From there, you can carry on with using the till as normal. If the customer is buying something from you, simply add their items to the basket and take payment as usual. If they aren’t buying anything right now, you can press Void sale. (This cancels the transaction you are currently in, but – crucially - it won’t cancel the changes you made to the customer’s account.)
Registering new customers onto a loyalty scheme
If you want to sign up a new customer to your loyalty scheme at the point of sale, you’ll need to create them an account.
Start by pressing the Select / create customer button at the top left.
A Customer Search window will appear:
Even if you’re pretty sure this is a new customer who hasn’t shopped with you before, it’s good practice to search for them, just in case you’re mistaken. (It wouldn’t be good to create a second account for an existing customer – especially if one of those accounts is on the loyalty scheme and the other is not!)
Enter their surname into the Last name box. (If they have a common surname, such as Smith or Jones, it might be worth taking another piece of information, such as their First Name or Postcode, and entering that here as well.)
Tap the SEARCH button.
If it comes back with a completely blank Customer search results screen, like this:
…then your customer definitely doesn’t already have an account with you, and you’ll need to create one. Tap the ADD NEW button at the bottom right.
An Add new customer form will appear:
(Depicted above is the system’s default “add new customer” form. It’s possible to customise this form, however - so depending on your system’s settings, you may not see some of the fields depicted above, or you may not see them in the same order.)
As a bare minimum, you’ll need to take the customer’s Last Name, if you haven’t already done so; ensure there’s something in that box.
You’ll also need to either enter the customer’s postcode, or tick the Postcode unknown box (indicated in the above screenshot).
After that, scroll down to the bottom of this form (use the scroll bar at the right) and look for the Loyalty section:
Tap into the Loyalty Card box and choose which of your loyalty systems you wish to put this customer on to.
If you are giving them a card, you should also tap into the Card number box, then scan or type the card number as appropriate.
Feel free to enter any other info about your customer as you see fit. (Consider taking the customer’s address and/or email. One possible benefit of running a loyalty scheme is that you can your customers’ spending habits, then possibly use their purchase history to send targeted marketing information – assuming the customer consents to that, of course, as per
GDPR.)
Press the ADD button at the bottom right when you’re done.
You’ll now see the customer’s name show at the top of the “Basket” panel in the centre.
Now you can continue with the sale as normal. When you finish the sale, it should show the customer how many loyalty points they’ve earned on their receipt.
The Points earned today row tells you how many points the customer has just earned in this transaction.
The Points row tells you the total amount of loyalty points that this customer currently has.
Serving customers who are already on your loyalty system
Let’s say that you scan some items into the basket for a customer, and you’re about to take payment. Just before they hand over any money, the customer either [a] produces a loyalty card, or [b] informs you they’re in your loyalty scheme.
You’ll need to press the Select / create customer button at the top left.
A “Customer search” window will pop up:
If your customer has a loyalty card with a unique barcode number on it, you should tap into the Loyalty box, then scan the card.
(If you aren’t using cards, you can still find the customer by using any of the other boxes. It’s usually best to type in their
Last name and/or Postcode, then press SEARCH at the bottom right.)
The till will then show you all the customers it can find who have that card number, or last name, or postcode:
Tap the name of the correct customer account.
You’ll then see the customer’s name at the top of the “basket” panel, and you may also see a window pop up telling you some info about this customer, such as whether they have any store credit, or if they’ve already earned some loyalty points:
If you see this window, tap the OK button to close it.
Carry on with the sale, taking payment as normal.
When the receipt prints out, it’ll say how many points the customer earned:
Redeeming loyalty points
As soon as a customer earns enough loyalty points to take them over the Redeem qty (i.e. as soon as they have earned enough points to spend), the points will get converted into “loyalty credit”, which is a special type of store credit.
Have a look at this receipt for an example:
In this receipt, 400 of the customer’s loyalty points have been removed, and the customer has been issued £4.00 worth of loyalty credit instead.
Next time this customer goes to make a purchase from you, when you press GO TO TENDER, you would see a message appear just beneath the “choose a payment method” buttons telling you how much loyalty credit they currently have:
To spend some of this credit, press the LOYALTY CREDIT button, type in the amount they wish to spend, then press OK (just like you would do for any other payment method).
(Note that the system will stop you from “spending” more credit than the customer actually has. So, on this occasion, were you to try and spend more than £4 worth of loyalty credit, you’d get an error message and the till wouldn’t accept it.)
If they don’t have enough loyalty credit to pay in full, the till will then prompt you to take further payment in some other way (cash, card etc).
A footnote: Your customers will not earn loyalty points for spending loyalty credit. When you buy something with your loyalty credit, you won’t earn any points for it.
For example:
Let’s say that in normal circumstances, a customer gets 1 point for every £1 spent. So, he would normally earn 20 loyalty points when buying a £20 item.
However, let’s say that this customer decides to spend £5 of their loyalty credit on that item, then pay for the other £15 in cash.
In these circumstances, they would only earn 15 points (on the cash they spent).
Auditing a customer’s loyalty points activity
You can see a log of all changes made to a customer’s loyalty points or loyalty credit from the back office.
Go to Admin, then scroll down until you find the Customer search option (normally found roughly half way down the page).
When you first click into it, you should see a search form:
You can use any of these fields to search for your customers. (Usually it’ll be most practical to use the Last name field.) After entering something to search for, click the Search button at the bottom.
If as soon as you click Customer Search, instead of the search form depicted above, you are presented with a “results” screen immediately…
…then the system is showing you the results of the last search that was carried out. In order to start a new search, you’ll need to click on the “Filtered results” option at the top of the screen:
That will bring up a pop-up window in which you can see and edit the search filters which are currently being applied:
Make the necessary changes, then click the Filter button at the bottom right.
In any case, when you’ve found your customer, click either [a] their account number at the left, or [b] the Edit option at the right.
Clicking either of these will open the “Edit Customer” screen:
Near the bottom of this screen, there’s a section entitled Change history. It’ll look something like this:
This section will list the last five changes that have been made to this customer’s account. Any time when a customer’s loyalty points or loyalty credit figures have changed, an entry would have been created in this log.
To see the full log, click the link to Display full audit at the top.
(Note that this log will show all changes, not just those involving loyalty points. If a customer’s address has changed, for example, there’ll be a record of it here. Let’s just focus on the “loyalty” entries for now, though.)
Most of the information in this log is fairly self-explanatory, but let’s examine the info that appears in the Module column a little more closely.
If it says tender/pay in that column, as in the example below:
…then this change happened automatically, when a till transaction was completed. (So, at the given date and time, the till operator “Simon Lavery” completed a transaction for this customer, and the till increased the customer’s loyalty points total from 24 to 35 accordingly.)
On the other hand, if it says customer/update in that column:
…then this change was done manually, from the customer editing screen in the back office.
(So, at the given date and time, the user “Simon Lavery” manually adjusted this customer’s loyalty points figure up from 74 to 84.)
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