A reward program must be set up in a way that it benefits your customers but also doesn’t end up costing you. A miscalculation may end up hurting your profit margin. A reward program is no less than a sales campaign; hence it needs to be given due time and should be set up to maximize customers’ benefit as well as your sales.

This blog/FAQ covers all the issues and doubts we have received from our merchants so far. We will be covering solutions to all problems and give pointers on reward strategy.

Also read: How to explain the value of store credits in your customer loyalty program?

Points to be kept in mind before setting up Store Credit (reward program)

The USP of the Flits store credit module is that we have a detailed rule manager. You can set up fixed rewards or on a percentage basis. The reward program gives you the freedom to choose as per your business model and profit margin. A lot of options to provide credits can often lead to confusion. Therefore, you should go through the below-mentioned points.

• Merchants need to analyze their customers, product price, business model, etc., before deciding which credits to give and how much. 
• Earning rule managers should be examined thoroughly to figure out which reward will benefit your customers the most. ( Flits suggests Credit on Orders rule)
• Use the Spent credit rule to control the usage of rewards.
• The reward program is an essential part of sales strategy as it can directly affect sales and the number of customers it should be crafted carefully.
• Store credits strategy should be carefully planned to get new customers, retain old customers, and increase the overall sales graph.
• Framing a reward structure is not rocket science but needs basic mathematical assessment and patience.

Let’s take a look at a few critical points in the form of FAQs.

1. How do I attract new customers?
2. How do I retain old customers?
3. Can I give credits on specific products?
4. What is the best strategy for using Flits referral program?
5. Can I return payment/reimburse to customers for cancelled/returned orders through Store credit?
6. How can I give credits to bulk c ustomers in one go?
7. How Flits Spent rule manager can be a gamechanger in your reward strategy?

1. How do I attract new customers?

Getting new customers can be difficult, mainly because of the competition in the online commerce industry. 

The following rewards can be used to attract new customers.

Sign up credits – The first step is to get customers to sign up on your website. This makes it easy for you to establish contact, send them promotional offers, and maintain that relationship with exciting products and rewards. By offering sign-up credits, you can cross a big hurdle of establishing contact with the customer.

Subscriber credits – Subscribers credits are just for taking the simple action of accepting marketing emails. This is another opportunity to establish closer contact and send promotional emails to customers. This can attract customers looking for specific products at a rebate.

Credit on first purchase– This may seem confusing because the Credit on the first purchase reaches the customer only after purchasing something from your store, so how does it help in customer acquisition? It helps by way of delayed gratification. Along with delayed gratification, it also ensures that the customer may come back to use the Credit.

2. How do I retain old customers? 

Retaining old customers is the biggest challenge. Reward on the first purchase will ensure that the customers come back to buy another product to use that reward. But there are many other rewards that you can give them later to keep them buying. 

Rewards on Specific order number and Continued rewards after X order number 

Reward on tenth or fifteenth or any order number will attract the customer to buy from you to reach that milestone to reap more benefits.
Continued rewards after X order is a classic way to increase sales by giving more rewards. This means that after a particular order number, the customer will get continued Credit. Many retail chains give points every time you purchase above a specific cart value, but the points system gets difficult for people to understand and the period to redeem them is slow. But with a store credit, customers can earn rewards that can be used any time they want.
Flits provides options to either give fixed credits or percentage credits. 

A lot of merchants have difficulty in calculating percentage rewards. Merchants often have a set reward in mind but want to give it on a percentage basis. We will lay out simple steps to help you find a percentage based on rewards or find a reward amount on a percentage basis.
There are many unique ways to use our reward program. Click on this link to read about various companies using our reward module in unconventional ways.

Monthly credits

You can keep on giving monthly credits to keep inactive customers interested in coming back. In the flits store credit module, you can provide monthly Credit either once a year or give it all year round. These credits expire automatically after 30 days. 

Birthday credit 

Birthday credit is another standard reward used by many retail chains. When it comes to birthdays, customers will buy something new and exciting for them. Customers may be interested in using the rewards to save a little extra cash on their birthday.

Tip – You can ask for the birthdays of wife/husband/parents/kids/family members as the chances of buying gifts on other birthdays are more.

3. Can I give credits on specific products?

The best way to promote specific products or give your customers a surprise is by giving Credit for particular products. You can add a tag to your products and then use the same tag to provide rewards.

Step 1. Go to Shopify admin and click on All products.

Step 2. Click on the product to which you wish to assign a tag.

Step 3. Scroll down and locate the tag section on the right.

Step 4. Input the tag which you want to use and save.

The come to Flits admin.

Step 5. Open Settings > Store credit settings.

Step 6. Click on the earning rule and scroll down to locate Credit on specific order.

Step 7. Add the same tag you added in the product section of the Shopify admin.

Step 8. Add credit amount/percent in the credit box and save.

Customers will get rewarded anytime they buy a product with tags you saved. You can use multiple tags.
Note: The spelling of the tag in Shopify admin and Flits Admin should be the same.

4. What is the best strategy for using Flits referral program?

In the referral program, merchants face a huge issue because the referrers sign up via links but never purchase anything. Getting accounts to sign up so that customers can earn referral credit is not beneficial in the long run as it is not helping you sell more. 
This can also lead to fake sign-ups to earn Credit via referral. To prevent this, the referee should receive Credit only when the referrer places their first order. You can switch on the ‘Refer friend’ rule to solve this issue but keep the ‘Referrer credit’ as 0 and Referee credit whatever you have decided. Then set “Credit on the referee” to get Credit when the referee places their first order.

Credit on referrals

Step 1. Go to Settings> Store credit settings > Refer friend rule

Step 2. Refer friend > Referrer credit > Keep it 0

Step 3. Referee credit > Enter referee credit as per your decision 

Step 4. Set credit limitation (total amount of Credit that can be earned through referrals) and time limitation (validity of credits)

Step 5. Scroll down to Credit on referee’s order(s)

Step 6. Credit on a specific order, keep the order number as one, and Credit as per your wish. (This is when you want your referrer to receive Credit only when the referee places their first order). If you use Credit on x and next orders, the referrer will get credits on all the referee’s orders on and after order number x.

Step 7. Save

In the above screenshots –

Referrer gets 20 dollars when the referrer places the first order.
The referee gets 15 dollars for signing up due to a referral.

5. Can I return payment/reimburse to customers for canceled/returned orders through Store credit?

Merchants often face credit deduction issues when a customer has returned or canceled the order. Also, when the customer returns/cancels an order, they need to be reimbursed.
Flits does not provide a return module, but you can deduct or add credit manually in such cases.
If you are a small business with few customers, our manual credit adjustment option will be very beneficial and cost-saving. If you have a large number of customers and use a return app. In that case, the Flits support team can help you integrate the return app with our reward module for automatic deduction of credits in cancel/return order cases.
If many customers have been affected by mistake, you can use Bulk credit adjustment and upload a CVV with customer details and the amount of Credit you need to adjust for each customer.

6. How can I give credits to bulk customers in one go?

You can use Bulk or Bonus credit. This feature is only for enterprise plan merchants

To use Bulk credit option –

Step 1. Go to Customers in Flits admin and find bulk Credit on top

Step 2. Click on Bulk Credit and submit a CSV file and upload. 

For Bonus credit-

Step 1. Click on Bonus credit 

Step 2. Enter the amount of Credit you wish to give.

Step 3. Add comment as to why you are giving the Credit.

Step 4. Add the number of days in which you want the credits to expire. Keep it -1 if it is for unlimited days.

Step 5. Customers can be selected based on the Amount of Credit spent, Number of orders, Amount of orders, the customer has a tag (gold, silver, etc.)

Step 6. Fill in the amount/ number/tag as per the selected filter.

7. How Flits Spent rule manager can be a gamechanger in your reward strategy?

A customer may accumulate a lot of Credit over time. It would help if you kept in mind that benefitting the customer shouldn’t result in your loss. This means that certain limitations should be set regarding the usage of rewards.

Steps to use the Spent rule :

Step 1. Click on Settings > Store credit settings> Spent rule 

Step 2. Input cart value range as per your choice and input credit limit (Fixed or percentage-based) in the Credit box. The upper limit will always be the maximum.

Step 3. You can set multiple cart value rules. To add various regulations, click on add extra rule.

Step 4. Extra rules will also give you an option to set a maximum limit. ( Maximum limit is not editable, it means indefinite cart value).

The spending rule for Rs X till maximum will adjust automatically if you add an extra rule, but you will have to input the credit amount everywhere.
The credit limit is set as 10% of the cart value in the above screenshot if it is between 10 to 100. The credit limit is 20% if the cart value is between 101 to maximum. 
This means that if the product is 50 dollars, the customer can use 10%, i.e., 5 Dollars as Credit. 
If the product is 150 dollars, the customer can use 20%, i.e., 30 dollars, as Credit.

(These values are only examples, not actual values for a sales strategy)

All the above questions have been written after a thorough analysis of the queries we have received from the merchants. This also includes a few inputs from the Flits team based on our experience. The store credit module is our biggest and most comprehensive module. If utilized the right way, it can do wonders to your sales. Most importantly, rewarding your customers shouldn’t end up costing you but help you earn more profit.

Ready to set up a high-converting customer rewards program on your Shopify store? Install the Flits app today.