Overview
When the program is active, customers will accrue points as they purchase products on your store, and when referring customers that make a purchase, if your store is using this feature.
Customers are notified of the number of points accrued with a purchase on the order verification page (before submitting payment information) and in the order confirmation e-mail (after an order is processed). They can also view the number of accrued points by logging into their account, and clicking on the View Your Reward Points link, where the words ‘Reward Points’ are replaced by the program definition entered on the General Settings page described above. When they do so, a page similar to the one displayed below is shown.
The page lists the following information:
- Current points balance
- Monetary value (points balance * conversion rate)
- Total number of points accrued to date
- Total number of points used to date
The store administrator can view any customer's Reward Points balance by using the Customers section of the Control Panel. The customer details page allows the store administrator to view the current balance, and also edit it in case there is ever a need to do so.
When Points are Accrued & Deducted
Note the following regarding the accrual of Reward Points:
- Points are accrued when an order is processed. If an order is still pending, Reward Points are not assigned to the customer. Therefore, the customer will not see the points appear in his/her account until the order has been processed. If a payment method is setup to process the order at the time it is placed, then Reward Points are immediately accrued.
- Points are deducted when redeemed in an order. When a customer redeems points, no points are accrued on the same order.
- If an order is canceled, the Reward Points accrued with the purchase are automatically deducted from the customer.s account.
- If an order is returned, Reward Points are not automatically adjusted. This is because ProductCart allows for partial returns, and therefore the system leaves it up to the store administrator to decide how many Reward Points, if any, should be deducted from the customer’s account.
Reward Points & Guest Checkout
This section applies to ProductCart v4 and above. ProductCart v4 supports “Guest Checkout”. That is: the same customer, using the same e-mail address, can place multiple orders on the same store without ever saving a password (i.e. without “registering” an account). Information is still saved to the store database, as it is necessary to process the order, but the customer is never prompted to retrieve a password based on a match on the e-mail address.
When a customer checks out as a guest, the following happens with regard to Reward Points:
- Points are accrued (if applicable) and saved to the database (as if the customer had registered an account)
- Points are accrued (if applicable) for each separate guest account that the same customer generates by placing multiple orders using the same e-mail address. So if the customer places 3 guest orders and accrues points on all 3, those points will be saved to the 3 separate records that have been created in the customers table in the store database.
- Points cannot be redeemed: a guest is treated as a new customer in terms of the storefront interface, so the customer is never prompted to redeem points. The customer is handled as if it he/she had never shopped at the store. However, customers are notified that points were accrued (in e-mails and on the order details page), and therefore this will work as an incentive for them to register an account.
- Points can be redeemed when a guest account is turned into a registered account. This can be done, for example, when the customer views order details for a certain order after logging in with his/her e-mail address and unique Order Code.
- Points accrued on different guest accounts are added up when all of those accounts are consolidated. Customers are prompted to consolidate their guest accounts when:
- They turn one of those accounts into a registered customer
- ProductCart detects that there are other guest accounts with the same e-mail address
Manually Editing the Rewards Points Balance
If for any reason points were not accrued correctly after an order was placed, or if points were not deducted correctly when used during a purchase, you can still change the number of points available in the customer's account by using the corresponding fields at the bottom of the customer details page in the Control Panel.
To edit multiple customer accounts at once, export customers with their current point balance, edit the balances in a spreadsheet, and then import the customers again using the Customer Import Wizard.