Square Loyalty Q&A: Ask our product team anything about Square Loyalty 🤝

[Tom]

Hello Seller Community — hope your February is off to a good start!

On Thursday, February 17th, @seiderman (Product Manager) and @cspillane (Product Marketing Manager) hosted a deep dive into the world of loyalty. Together, they answered questions from “How can I drive more success from my loyalty program?” to “What features are on the horizon?” — we want to help you grow your business with Square Loyalty. We'll share a summary of best practices and address the main themes that came up on this day, and mark it as a Best Answer as soon as possible.

A few example questions:

• How can I configure my Square Loyalty program to increase engagement?
• What's the best way to increase awareness about my loyalty program?
• If I could do "_______" with Square Loyalty, it would make a big difference for my business.

[luxieclub]

We would like to be able to sell gift cards that can then be used to purchase products from us and would keep track of any balance for further use. Does this concept fit any of your programs?

[Anthem]

This could be helpful, covers info on both options Square offers. Physical gift cards and e-gift cards. We use physical gift cards regularly, great tool and added marketing benefit with custom printing options. We have many businesses around town that offer custom branded gift cards from us as rewards for referrals, anniversaries, and birthdays to their customers. 

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/topic/269

[cspillane]

Hi @luxieclub,

Yes! As @Anthem also alluded to, with Square Gift Cards you can sell gift cards online or in-store. Then from the Square Dashboard under “Sales” > “Reports” > “Gift Cards,” you can export a detailed CSV with a column that shows “Current Outstanding Amount.”

[Sunflowerrec]

We currently have a rewards program that we want to stay with but move to Square Loyalty.  It currently is Buy 10 Pizza's get 1 free.  Buy 10 sing order of wings get 1 free. My question is can I set it up to earn stars for each category so that if they buy wings it won't let them redeem them for a pizza?  My other question is in our POS we have our wings set up so a single order is $ and a double order is $$.  With our program now you get one punch for single and 2 punches for double order.  Is it possible to set it up the same?  Thank you for your help  

[artizansty]

Hi @Sunflowerrec! I’ll reply to the different questions you asked separately:

About buy 10X get 1X free: this actually isn’ta Loyalty problem, it’s a discounting problem! Yes it’s possible with automatic discounts to have the mechanic “buy 10 of X”, however the “get X free” wouldn’t be given in the form of an item, but instead in the form of a discount amount. Are you pizzas all the same price? If so, simply set the discount to be for your pizza items/categories, set an exact amount of items (this would be 10), abs then set your discount amount to be 0.09 and it’ll remove the cost of the 10th pizza. Here is a link to more detailed instructions: https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/3955-create-and-manage-discounts

Re your current program, are you saying that with a double order of wings they get double rewards? If so, and if you’ve got separate items for a single order of wings and another for a double order, then you can specifically set up that the single serve earns a regular allocation of stars, and a double would earn an increased amount. Here is a link to more detailed instructions: https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/3952-create-a-loyalty-program-with-square

Hope that helps!

[seiderman]

Hi @Sunflowerrec,

Great question. From what you described, it sounds like you want to set up two different loyalty programs: one for pizzas and one for wings. Unfortunately, while you can set specific category rules, it’s all under a single loyalty program. This means that any points earned from pizza purchase would be valid for wing rewards (and vice versa). 

As for your second question, there are a couple options. One of them is what @artizansty suggested. The other is using a spend based program. This is usually the program type we suggest for businesses like yours, as it allows you to provide a higher earnings for someone purchasing a double order of wings vs a slice of pizza.

Hope that helps!

[PartyManiaMD]

I've seen great traction with rolling out the loyalty program but there are a few issues I've noticed.

Why isn't the loyalty program tied to the receipts? Sometimes they hit the wrong button and choose not to sign up. It should be easier to go back and add their phone number to the receipt. Manually adjusting points is pretty tedious. It also raises issues on returns and having to manually adjust points again. Creates a lot of opportunities for human error.

I created a thread about it but why require phone numbers for the loyalty program when using credit cards? I find people want to sign up but dont want text message marketing. Text message marketing should be separated from the loyalty program. Obviously you need a phone number for cash transactions but it would be nice to split the text messaging portion off or have a toggle that allows people to earn without their phone number. It would actually increase the power of text offers to those that actually opt in and also increase the use of the loyalty program. 

Lastly, how does the loyalty program interact with returns? I haven't been able to figure it out. If they buy $100 and get $5 off their next purchase but then return that $100 does that automatically put their points negative? 

Being in retail we get quite a bit of returns unfortunately.

All in all most customers have been receptive to the program but I'd estimate 25% of them dont want to put their phone number.

[bradrsi]

If you scan the receipt for returns and exchanges, it adjusts the points accordingly.  It will take away points as well as add them.  

[cspillane]

Hi @PartyManiaMD,

Thanks for the inquiry! I’ll respond to your three questions as follows:

1. If using digital receipts, buyers who don’t sign up during checkout will see a link in the digital receipt to claim their points. From there the buyer can click the link and enter her/his phone number to claim the points from the transaction. If unclaimed, the points will expire 30 days after the transaction (or in the event of a refund or exchange). 
2. Re: the second question, we decided to use phone numbers as the required customer identifier because they’re unique (unlike a name), easy to remember (unlike a password or login), and you or your customer can easily enter them into the POS in a matter of seconds (speeding up the checkout process). It’s slightly more tedious, but if you have a customer that is concerned about text message marketing, they can still sign up for Loyalty using their phone number (so they can get their points!) and then subsequently opt out from future notifications by responding “Unsubscribe” to the SMS they receive immediately following the transaction. Additionally, they can also manage their notification preferences through their digital receipt and/or Cash App (if you’re using the integration). 
3. Last but not least, as @bradrsi mentioned below, Loyalty automatically returns points earned on a transaction when a refund is processed (or adjusts the points balance if an exchange is made). 

[HC_Charlie]

Thanks Tom! I've been using Loyalty for a while now and I really like it! It's super easy to set it and let it take care of itself. A few things I love is that Square remembers a person's credit card so if they use the same card at checkout their points are awarded, even if they don't physically "check in". I also love that customers can claim a reward on the customer facing screen on the Square Register....however, one issue I've noticed is that when they have multiple offers and we start scrolling through the offers, the screen will turn off and go back to the checkout screen before the customer has time to review/read the rewards. If there would be a way to extend the time before going back, or have a manual 'done' button that would be great.

We'd also love some kind of Referral program tied to Loyalty. I have so many customers who tell me they love to tell other people about our store. So if they could be rewarded for referrals and being an ambassador of sorts for us, that would be a dream option for us. I've seen other systems use something that can create a unique code or URL that customers can email to friends, and that is tied to their referral account where they can earn benefits.

Thanks for asking and hosting this Q&A!

[viluc]

I know it's hard to do this manually, but what we do is when someone leaves us a review or tells us who recommended them, we manually add a point to their loyalty profile if they have one. We text or call them to let them know we added a point for a review or referral. 

[seiderman]

Hi @HC_Charlie! Thanks for bringing this up. We definitely want to make the rewards redemption process as easy as possible. Would you be okay if we follow up with you on this? We’d love to dig into the issue a bit more. 

Regarding a referral program tied to Loyalty, this is an area that we actually think about quite a bit, and we’re hoping to add it to our functionality in the future. I don’t have any details that I can share right this second, but I’ll make a note to circle back with you as we explore this down the line.

[HC_Charlie]

Thanks for your reply. Always willing to help with feedback and suggestions! Thank you!

[seaside]

The square loyalty program has been both helpful and at times a challenge for our business,  

It may not be the best fit for our gift shop at times.  An example of what can happen.  A couple comes in and purchases something together and create and account and use one of the spouses cards.   The  card gets linked to the account and the spouse or partner that did not put their phone number to associate with the loyalty is surprised when they shop for a gift and their partner is notified of a purchase.  Is there any way to unlink all cards to loyalty.  Another issue is when someone from out of the area wants to give their points to a friend they are shopping with and use their phone number, now their account is attached to a card that is not their own.

Heather

[Anthem]

@seaside, You've dropped some thoughts that will be helpful as others consider using Loyalty.

Unlinking a credit card - Yes, this can be done, here is how I do it. 

1. visit CUSTOMERS 
2. click DIRECTORY
3. search the customer name you are looking to edit
4. click on the customers' name to reveal their Personal Information panel
5. Scroll down to Loyalty Summary
6. click the three dots "..." (upper right corner)
7. Select Manage Cards
8. In the 'Manage Loyalty Cards' pop-up
   1. Check the box next to each card you want to unlink
   2. Click Unlink
9. Click Save

Phone numbers: I don't believe multiple phone numbers can be saved to a loyalty account (I may be wrong?). So, if the 'friends' phone number were to have gotten saved over the actual loyalty account holder's phone number you'd follow a similar process as above but select 'Update Phone Number' instead of manage cards. 

The complications you've encountered tell's me you've been putting these tools to work and your customers are engaging. Well done and keep up the good work!

[seaside]

Thank you for your response.  I did learn how to unlink cards recently.  We have been using the program for several years and have a large number of customers on the plan.  I was hoping there was a way to bulk unlink all cards as it would be tedious to say the least to try to manually do it for each customer and or if there was a way to disable card linking.

Heather

[cspillane]

Hi @seaside,

Responding to both this and your clarification below. At this time it’s not possible to unlink cards in bulk, but adding functionality in this area is something we’re keeping on the radar for further exploration.

As @Anthem mentioned below (thank you!), you can unlink a card manually, but I understand you are already familiar with this practice and are looking for a more efficient way to manage large groups at a time.

[MasalaDesiCafe]

How do we (merchant) redeem the points for food ?

[cspillane]

Hi @MasalaDesiCafe,

Redeeming rewards is actually quite easy. Here’s a quick walkthrough:

• From the Square app, tap Rewards in your item library.

• Enter your customer’s 10-digit phone number to search for available rewards.

• Select rewards to apply them to the customer’s cart.

Your customer’s reward will be applied to the current sale, and you can finish the transaction as you normally would. You can find more on this in our Support Center Square Loyalty FAQ. 

Hope this was helpful! Let me know if you have any follow-up questions. Happy to answer. 

[sherwb]

When will Square Loyalty become available on Square Register in the UK?

We've been paying to use the loyalty feature for months, waiting for it to be available on our register but we're having to workaround by manually updating each loyalty customer through an iPad. 

[cspillane]

Hi @sherwb,

Short answer: very soon! Our product team is actively working to bring Loyalty to Square Register in the UK asap. We will be in touch when it launches shortly. 🙂