PointLoyalty - loyalty programs online

Let’s make one more attempt to explain what PointLoyalty Manager actually does.

PointLoyalty Manager let’s you create rules for processing user actions and compute according bonus points
- on a base of user action itself
- on a base of user characteristic
- on a base of user previous activity (actions performed prior to current date)

Computed bonus points are then added to user accounts and the sum on one’s account represents how loyal the user is to the company.

Examples of using our system in real life:
- Computing bonuses – in real time mode.
- Computing discounts – in real time mode (calculated amount gets subtracted from total price amount )
- Discounts – delayed calculations
- Maintaining user ratings – delayed calculations

Theoretically there are much more applications, but we will keep listing real-life examples here.

We already mentioned several times that PointLoyalty Manager can be used not only for tracking bonus points in loyalty programs. It can be also used for maintaining various user ratings for internet resources such as social network sites, forums, etc.

It is often not really necessary to process all user actions immediately online (despite PointLoyalty Manager does not put any limitations for such use). More frequently it is enough to refresh the ratings once per day.

In this case the internet resource owner need to setup Cron task sending user activity record for past time period. The server load will be distributed better. Other way to improve site responsiveness is to send actions after user logout.

Being on a conference in a place where usually spend vacation time…
One of the local companies demonstrated an interesting technical solution for solving next problem of internet shops:

Some company announce that it is ready to sell certain product at X price instead of standard Y – if the whole stock of N product items will be bought at the same time.

Then the customer is involved into getting N buyers of the product for this company, not only the company itself.
Of course, the program can be much more complex – the price can depend on the date, one can define a limit for price decline, there can be various options to handle purchase refusals, but the essence is this: “Hey, customer, let’s get those N other buyers and you will get the product cheaper”.

What will happen if the internet connection will be lost? This is one of most frequent questions we hear from our customers who are interested in our online product version.
Our answer – nothing bad will happen. It is of course not very good that customer transactions will not be processed immediately but we believe that it is not fatal for the business – the calculations will take place later. When network connection will get restored – transactions need to be sent once again (this moment must be considered during the integration process).
We can see 3 categories of system robustness according associated costs:
- No additional integration – transactions data is getting lost when the there is no connection to internet
- Keep customer transactions and send them once internet connection is restored.
- Allocate backup internet connection channel – absolute robustness.

How expensive is the loyalty program and how fast it is possible to start it?

Marketing forums novice members always ask such a question and never get a straight answer. This happens because it is impossible to give answer not asking in turn – what exactly you plan to do?
Here are some issues you need to take into account.
Time and human resources must be spent on:
- study previous experience,
- choosing strategy,
- training personnel,
- adopt customer care procedures,
- order, install and setup support software,
- educate employees to use the software,
- establish channels for rewarding customers,
- etc

Further it depends on you.
If your company is a big clumsy monster – you’ll stuck in months of official red tape. If your company is fast and mobile – everything is not that ugly.
It is easier to establish such programs for companies working in online business sphere.
Their advantages are mobility, technically advanced personnel and high initial level of business automation.

When our solution is used as a technical platform for creating bonus points based loyalty programs – pilot version of the system can be launched within one week timeframe.

Sometimes our critics say we are cheating – you create software for calculating bonus points based on complex set of rules. But accruing points to customers’ accounts is not what loyalty program term means.
We agree with what they say – loyalty program is much then what our software does. We provide only a tool which we believe is essential piece in loyalty programs set of tools, techniques and management efforts. We say it short in a slogan on our web site “Loyalty programs online” to avoid lengthy titles. One should understand we provide only a tool to reach one’s goals – we do not provide an entire loyalty program solution.

We have met various offer rules while developing software for loyalty programs management.
Designing our system we wanted it to support any kinds of bonus calculation rules depending on the current purchase and the history of previous customer behavior. Sometimes people say they don’t need such universal approach and their rules are simple and straightforward. We tried to recall the most complicated rule we had to support according to customer requirements:

Assign N% from purchase sum as bonus points
- if customer is from category “X”
- if the purchased item belongs to subcategories “A” and “B” (2 rules in fact)
- if the purchase is made during certain timeframe
- if there were purchases of goods from “Z” category (during certain timeframe)
- the sum of previous purchases were less then M (during certain timeframe)

And only if all of these conditions are met we add N% to customer’s account.

We don’t actually know how such complex rule was explained to customers - this is not our business – at present time we support even more complex rules. As to questions on whether to use complex rules – the client is always right

PointLoyalty company released an integration module for shopping cart solution from KonaKart company.
Using PointLoyalty integration plugin will give following advantages to net-shop owner:
- Lots of options in creating bonus reward programs for customers. Bonus programs are managed in SaaS solution from PointLoyalty company.
- Informing customers about current reward offers, allow customers to track their purchase record, earned bonus points and past redemptions.

Flexible plugin and member console settings make possible to customize application look and feel and tune it according website design.
Tunable things are:
- Information displayed to customers – like bonus points, purchase record.
- Member Console design – colors, fonts, etc
- Customer notification options

This solution will be useful for all KonaKart-powered netshop owners and to all those interested in online integration with PointLoyalty system.

About PointLoyalty company:
PointLoyalty company offers SaaS system for online management of bonus loyalty programs. For any size and type of business there is an effective solution for consumer rewards program management.

See more details on the company website
http://www.pointloyalty.com

New version of REST API and Web Services for integration with SaaS customer loyalty system PointLoyalty Manager is released.
New version has following changes:
- Few small bugs were fixed .
- Added several utility resources to simplify integration with external systems. Details…
- In PointLoaylty Manager and Member Console the bug with date type data coming from various locations was fixed.
- java library PointLoyalty java rest client was extended to support new API features.
Remind you that new versions of services and libraries are always compatible with prior releases.

Us usual – from our email exchange:
Pay attention that we DO NOT provide full scale trainings on loyalty programs organization for your particular business. We assume you have marketing people responsible for business development or you use services from according consulting companies. We can only give some hints on what to start with, or point out some common marketing issues besides full technical support on establishing loyalty system in your organization.
So, in our trainings we concentrate on all technical issues in using bonus programs, details of PointLoyalty Manager functioning and some initial steps of overall organization of customer rewards system in your company. In any case if we encounter marketing issues which go beyond our competency we will recommend marketing specialists for you.