Customer Loyalty is Royalty! How to ascend the throne in Dynamics 365 Part 1

Batman and Robin, Frodo and Samwise, Han Solo and Chewy! What do they have in common besides being nerdy? Loyalty! Everyone wants customer loyalty and Dynamics 365 delivers a host of ways to capture it from a customer base. This topic will describe the capabilities in Dynamics 365 and the setup to get started. When we are done, our loyal customers will be fighting to carry us up Mt. Doom.

In Dynamics 365, loyalty programs can be simple or complex, much like Gollum’s relationship with “The Ring!”

• Loyalty program tiers offer greater incentives and rewards to customers who shop more frequently or spend more money in your stores
• Define earning and redemption rules by customer
• Issue loyalty cards or numbers from channels participating in the loyalty program
  • Link loyalty cards
  • Link a customer record to a loyalty card
    • Customers can pool loyalty points from multiple cards
• Adjust loyalty cards tiers, add points, or transfer loyalty to another customer
• Track participation in your loyalty programs

The first step we advise in setting up a loyalty program is a mapping process to define the desired outcome. Think about the various aspects: Promotion, Enrollment, on-boarding, data collection and use, and retention/engagement. This initial process will highlight the needs of the program, create an outline to guide us, and help identify available system capabilities. <MR I think I can add to this section to stretch this out into two parts>

There are currently four prerequisites that need to be completed before you can set-up a Loyalty program: At least one Discount, at least one price group, at least one retail channel, and a Loyalty payment method. Remember that some, or all, of these aspects may already be set-up as desired.

Three of the prerequisites, Discounts, Price groups, and Retail channels are agnostic in D365 so we will start our journey with the fourth, Loyalty payment method. If there are questions about the previous other three you can check out our other blogs. For instance, we have covered Discount setup in a blog here.

The Loyalty payment method is the record that establishes what payment method is used within the store front. From Modules>Retail and Commerce>Channel set-up>Payment methods> Payment methods or search Payment Methods (Retail).

• Click New and enter a Payment Method and Name. Keep in mind company naming conventions.
• In the Default function field, select Card. This will allow the system to treat POS transactions as Card type.

It is time to set a date… not the swipe right kind of date, the Date intervals that will help define the Loyalty program aspects. From Modules>Retail and Commerce>Customers>Loyalty>Date intervals or search Date intervals (Retail).

• Let’s start by clicking New and adding a Name and Description.
• On the General fast tab there are many date options to use. Depending on the desired outcome, there are options to pick static dates, intervals such as Fixed or Fiscal year, and adjustment offset by days, months, years. We advise you spend some time on this tab learning the various options as they are many.
  • Start Set start date and Set end date Leaving these fields blank will default to the system date as the start and end date. To specify a date option, select a fixed date or a Interval type.
  • Having a date is simply not enough unless you get all gussied up! Once a date range is set, it can be adjusted. Use the Adjust start date and Adjust end date fields to make further tweaks to the date interval. Why adjust? An example could to track prior year purchases as part of the loyalty program. (Units set to Years and -1 in the Number of units field)
  • And now it is time to get Meta with the Secondary interval option. This is a date interval within a date interval, think Inception. This option will track not only the Start/End date but also intervals in-between, like monthly. (Set Interval type to Month and Start/end accordingly)
  • Date calculation display the outcomes of the date choices.

Moving on to Reward points, we have choices, so many choices. For example, we can define the type of reward that the customer can get, if the reward is redeemable or just for tracking, or time needed in the program before awards can be redeemed. To get there start in Modules>Retail and Commerce>Customers>Loyalty>Loyalty reward points or search Loyalty reward points.

• Click New and fill-in a Reward point ID and Description.
• Under Reward point type choose Quantity or Amount.
  • Quantity rewards based on the quantity the user purchases. Example: Buy 10 items and get 1 one free.
  • Amount rewards accumulate in currency and can be redeemed for products.
  • Note that some fields will be enabled/disabled depending on the option chosen.
• Decide on Redemption strategy. If a reward is redeemable then chose a Redeem ranking. This will come into play if there are multiple rewards available for redemption.
• Set Expiration, Vesting, and Maximum reward points, if desired.