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.

[Anthem]

Yes, and I agree, these are killer tools. 

Through Marketing and Loyalty, you've got access to automated campaigns via email and text. Fist-time customers, loyalty anniversary, lapsed customers, birthday, reward nearing, and others. These have been fantastic tools for our business and we're working on implementing them on our new business over the next few months. 

Some info here: 

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5660-using-automated-campaigns-with-square-marketing

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7199-get-started-with-text-message-marketing

[cspillane]

Hi @JimRomano,

Looks like @Anthem beat me to it, and I couldn't have said it better myself! Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

@Stacelyn24 want to tag you here as well so you see the response. 

[costless]

The bulk of our concerns revolve around the features, or lack there of, that get integrated into the Square Register when using Square for Retail.  It's really frustrating as a customer to see new features or settings that are available in iOS but not on your proprietary hardware that is much more expensive that an iPad, and paying an upcharge for Retail features that many times are less user friendly than the cheaper versions. With that said, keep in mind that these requests are specifically related to Square Register running Square for Retail.

1. Customer facing screen: It would be extremely helpful to have some control over how loyalty integrates with the checkout process.  Allowing customers to sign themselves in would save time.  This is a feature available on Square Register, but not for Retail.  Also, having a setting to turn on/off the ability for a customer to redeem their rewards on the customer facing screen vs the cashier doing it for them...again, not available for Square for Retail.

2. Reward redemption limits: We need the ability to limit the number of reward redemptions over a period of time.  For example, 1 reward redemption per day.  Simply telling a customer "no, you can't redeem that reward you see on your screen" is not great for customer service.

Overall, we love the loyalty program and have used it with great success. However the issues mentioned above make for less than ideal usability in many situations.

[seiderman]

Hi @costless,

Appreciate you bringing this up, and completely understand your concerns. Ensuring parity across all of our hardware and point of sale solutions is definitely top of mind for me. The good news is that we’re in the process of updating Square for Retail on Square Register to support customers checking in and enrolling any time during the transaction. We expect this update to rollout in early spring.

For your second request, this is a gap we’re aware of and hope to address later this year. Will be sure to reach out as we make progress.

[costless]

Thanks @seiderman 

We have another issue that just recently started I think with the latest update and related to the customer facing screen.  Since the customer has the ability to redeem a reward after the transaction, their banks are showing pending amounts for the full, non-reward amount.  Then, the final processed amount includes the discount.  We have received many phone calls from customers wanting to know why their pending transaction does not include the reward discount and is very confusing to them.  Will the new updates this spring allow the reward to be redeemed BEFORE the amount is processed?

[costless]

Hey @seiderman & @cspillane 

So I just got off the phone with loyalty support and there appears to be no fix for this pre-authorization issue.  It is a really big deal.  Our rewards are only $5, but what about other stores that may have $50 or $100 rewards?  Our customer's bank accounts are getting their money put on hold till the final transaction clears, which is usually the next morning.  It's not ok to submit a pending transaction for more than the final amount on the customer's receipt.  I've had to explain to dozen's of customers today why their bank account is showing $5.35 ($5 reward plus tax) more than their receipt.  Please give us the option to turn off reward redemption after the sale as soon as physically possible.

[seiderman]

Hey @costless,

Definitely understand the frustration here. Unfortunately, we're pretty limited in our ability to control the total authorization amount on customer's cards. Since the transaction is currently authorized for the full amount (prior to reward redemption), the customer's card will always show the full authorized amount for pending transactions. However, once buyers are able to check-in prior to the transaction, any reward-based discount will be applied before the transaction amount is authorized. Adding this functionality is a top priority for the team, and we expect to roll this out by early Spring. Will definitely keep this thread updated with our progress. 

[costless]

Thanks for the response @seiderman (@cspillane), however, "limited in our ability to control the total authorization" is within your control by not allowing reward redemption after the initial authorization. Could you imagine leaving Walmart with a receipt that says $20 but a charge on your card for $25?  What would that make you think about the store? As an outlet store, we serve a lot of low income customers that live paycheck to paycheck where $5 could be the difference between eating a meal that day or not.  It's simply unacceptable to put customer's money on hold without their knowledge and explaining this to the hundreds of customers we have every day is not practical.  Please consider either rolling back this change or adding the option to disable it.  Waiting for the overhaul this spring is not a solution that should be considered especially since you just rolled out this change.

[costless]

Hey @seiderman @cspillane ,

It looks like you've rolled out the loyalty checkin on the customer facing screen for Retail on Register, thank you!!! Looks really great.

However, customers can now claim a reward before the sale while they still have the option to redeem another reward after the sale.  This again causes the issue of preauthorizing their account for more than the purchase amount and gives them the option of redeeming multiple rewards in one transaction.

Can you PLEASE add a setting to disable redeeming awards after the sale?

[seiderman]

Hey @costless,

Sorry for the delayed response. From the description you provided, it actually sounds like you’re encountering a bug with the updated flow. If a customer claims a reward at the beginning of the transaction, they shouldn’t see the option to claim one again at the end of the transaction. Was able to check with my engineering team, and this issue should be resolved in the latest release. If you’re still seeing this after the next POS update, definitely let us know.

[costless]

Awesome! Thank you!!!

Do you know when that will be released?

[newlinecheckout]

Love your suggestion about having a customer facing screen that lets customers sign in to loyalty! This feature is actually available with Square partner Orda. Orda Express self-ordering kiosks for Square make it easy for customers to sign in to your loyalty program and redeem points with branded self-ordering kiosks! Here's a video of the awesome loyalty experience in action at Chef Jordan Andino's Flip Sigi! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5s3eHKjuXg

[Greenmonkey65]

Is there a way to see how much loyalty members are spending within a specific time period? Example, like for a month, quarter, week, year or custom? 

[seiderman]

Hey @Greenmonkey65,

Thanks for the question. This data should be easily accessible in the Sales report within the Loyalty section of your Square Dashboard. Using the date filter in the top right hand corner, you can review loyalty vs non-loyalty total spend, average transaction size, and distribution. 

Hope this helps, but definitely let me know if you have any additional questions and/or feedback.

[BenLun]

Hi. Just started using the Square Loyalty program and I am using the points method for specific categories.  I have certain weekday lunch specials such as buy one get one half off and happy hour during a specific time of the day.  Can the points reward be adjusted for these special circumstances?

Thank you in advance,

Shai

[seiderman]

Hi @BenLun,

Thanks for the question. Before answering, want to make sure I fully understand your request. Are you looking to offer less points during those times to account for the lower price? If so, this unfortunately isn’t possible in the product today.

[cspillane]

Hi @BenLun,

Good news! This feature is in the works and should be ready soon. We’re actually kicking off beta testing for it next week and would be happy to give you early access if you want to be one of the testers. Please let me know if interested. 

[heyhojayjo]

I have always enjoyed using the integrated loyalty but I do have 3 suggestions...

1. There should be a "Happy Hour" option.

For example: I wanted to do a "double points" holiday but the only way I can currently do that is by imputing the points myself at the end of the day. So being able to have that option to where it automatically double the points on certain days/times would be wonderful.

2. It would be great if there was a way to give multiple free items as a reward that would then take that count out of the inventory.

3. It would be great if there was finally an update to the loyalty screen option for those of us that use Square Retail. Because I have Square Retail, I do not have the "customer interaction" option on my Square Register. Meaning my customers can't use the smaller screen to simply put in their phone number before the transaction begins. They have to wait until they get to the sign up screen and type in their number again or the staff has to add the customer in and it would make it go much quicker/smoother if they could just put their number themselves.

[seiderman]

Hi @heyhojayjo,

Thanks for the question, and sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Have some good news on #1 and #3. Both of these updates are currently under development and should be released by early Spring. For #1 specifically, we’re planning to kick off a beta in the next couple of weeks. Let me know if you’re interested and I can include you.

For the second request, this is something we’ve heard before and are considered for a future update. While I don’t have any specifics right now, we’ll be sure to announce any changes in this area. 

[Nolanryan]

Please include me! Hope #3 will be the same for us that use square restaurants. Customers are confused why they’re having to sign in after transaction to then see they have rewards. 

[seiderman]

Yes! Should be the same across all Square points of sale.