Loyalty Notifications - Mail and SMS

iVend Retail versions 6.5 and above supports notification by Email and SMS to end customers. The notification is triggered by and event or by interval, such as a New Loyalty Customer being created, Points about to Expire, Points being Awarded or Redeemed, etc.

The user can design the Email and SMS templates, by using the iVend built-in designer.

Business Case

· To improve sales, a retailer wants to remind their customers to buy and earn more points when they are close to next level in the Loyalty Program. For example, an Email could be sent to all Silver Level customers that have 350 points available and they just need 50 more points to reach the Gold Level in the Loyalty program that the retailer runs.

· Whenever a new Loyalty customer is registered in the system, a welcome Email will be sent to them.

· The retailer wants to send monthly points statements to all of their customers.

· The retailer wants to send congratulation Emails to the customers that just upgraded to next level in the Loyalty program.

· The retailer also wants to send reminder Emails about points that are going to be expire soon.

Communication Settings – SMTP Details

iVend will use the SMTP account from the details defined in the Communication Settings, SMTP Details section, to send out Email notifications to the customers.

Log into the iVend Management Console and navigate to: Administration > System Initialization > Communication Settings – the Communication Settings page should come up.

Figure 1 – Communication Settings Screen

· Enter the Server Host, User Name, User Password, Server Port.

· Enable SSL if required.

· Click [Ok] to save the changes made for SMTP.

Note:  Once all the settings have been entered and saved, go back into the Communication Settings screen and click [Test Email] to make sure there are no errors with SMTP account that you have setup.

Communications Settings – Messaging Settings (Enabling SMS Notification)

Figure 2 – Messaging Settings

The following represents the list of supported SMS Gateways in iVend:

Figure 3 – Supported Gateways

Figure 4 – Messaging Settings

Scheduler Service

Open the iVend Configuration Manager from the Windows Start menu. The program will show in the Windows System Tray.

Figure 5 – iVend Configuration Manager App Icon

Right-click on the iVend Configuration Manager icon located in the Windows System Tray.

Figure 6 – iVend Configuration Manager Icon

Choose: Configuration Service > Scheduler

Figure 7 – Scheduler Service Configuration Screen

Update the SQL Connection information then, click [Update] and then click the [Start] icon.

Note: The Scheduler service must be configured and be running for the iVend Notifications service to work correctly. For more detailed instructions on setting up the Scheduler service, please refer to the separate article that is available on the topic.

Notification Setup

Log into the iVend Management Console and navigate to: Operations > Loyalty > Loyalty Notification – the Loyalty Notification Search screen should come up.

Figure 8 – Loyalty Notification Search

Click [F3 New] to create a new notification. The system will come with a set of pre-defined notifications already setup when the Loyalty system is initialized in iVend however, the user can modify these and add additional notifications if desired.

Figure 9 – Loyalty Notification Setup

· Select the Loyalty Program for which the new notification will be.

· Enter a unique Code for the notification and a Description

· Select the Notification Type:

Figure 10 – Notification Type Selection

· User Creation: This sends notifications to loyalty customers at the time of their registration to the loyalty program.

· N Points Away from Next Level: This is used to notify loyalty customers about points due to reach the next the loyalty level.

Figure 11 – Loyalty Notification Setup

· User Crosses into Next Level: This is used to send notifications to loyalty customers when they enter into the next loyalty level in the program.

· Loyalty Points Statement: This is used to send points statements to loyalty customers. You can also define the interval between notifications and the number of days by which the points will be expired.

Figure 12 – Loyalty Notification Setup

· User Award Redeem Points: Used to send notifications when loyalty customers accumulate points or redeem points at the POS.

· Points Are About to Expire: Used to send notifications when points of the loyalty customers are about to expire.

· Email/SMS template: Click the radio […] button to select the appropriate Email/SMS template for the notification type.

Figure 13 – Email Template Selection

Select the template from the available list that displays. Alternatively, you can create a new template

Figure 14 – Email SMS Template Search

· Enter the Send Email From Address and Email Display Name.

Figure 15 – Send Email and Display Name Fields

· Click [Ok] to save the changes made.

Conclusion

This is how you can setup Loyalty Notifications for Email and SMS in iVend Retail.