Hi @Coffeeshop4. You understand the Loyalty program perfectly. While it IS attached to a customer account, the only way to sign up, accrue points, redeem rewards, etc, is via cell phone number. There used to be a “hack” that I recommended, but they patched that hole a few years ago. So….
I searched the formal feature requests for the Square Loyalty program and did not see that another seller has ever requested this. So, my recommendation would be for you to do so now. One word of advice. Don’t make the request too broad. You mention a couple of things in your post that could be features. Don’t put them all in one request or it will be rejected. Keep each request simple and discrete.
Another idea would be to give each customer a QR code they could show us that we could scan during checkout. Again, we can do this with e-gift cards so it should be possible to do with the Loyalty program as well. iOS customers can add a loyalty pass to their wallets to do this, but Android customers can not I do not believe.
Feel free to submit one or both by going to the board I linked above. And, if you do submit feature request(s), put the link to each of them here in a reply. I’ll look them over and most likely like/upvote them, and I’m sure others will as well.
For now, however, what you see is what you get. Thankfully, mine is a walkup window. I have a sign that says “Loyalty Program Member?” Give us your phone number to check your rewards. It works and has for months now. But, you are correct that it could be much easier.
Regards,
With Square gift cards you should be able to link them to the loyalty program.
In the dashboard click on customers then enter the customers name and scroll down to Loyalty Summary, click on the 3 dots, then manage cards. The gift should be linked there or you should be able to link it.
On the POS tap menu/customers, then enter the customers name, on the right scroll down to Loyalty Summary, tap the 3 dots, then tap Manage Cards.
@rtfulk To clarify your post, are you saying that Gift Card payments work like credit/debit card payments with Loyalty? I know that if the customer pays with the same credit/debit card each time, their loyalty points are increased. But I didn’t know that payments with e-gift cards would do the same thing. Interesting, if so.
@TheRealChipA According to Square gift cards, when you sign up for a gift card you can link it to the loyalty program, the gift card is associated to your account several ways, phone number, email address, below is a photo from the video and a link to the video.
https://squareup.com/us/en/gift-cards
@rtfulk Well, chalk this up to learning something new today! I wanted to see it in action, so I comp’ed myself an e-gift card and added it to my Square customer account that I use for testing purposes. Then I bought something with that card. The points were added to my test loyalty account! It also asked me if I wanted to redeem rewards because I have 3000 points in my test account so I can test loyalty tiers, and such. It worked perfectly!
Of course, there are drawbacks, such as:
- When the e-gift card is issued the first time, it must be manually linked to the customer account. I only see a mechanism for us (the seller) to do that from the POS or dashboard. The customer can’t do that, from what I see, so there’s that.
- The customer will have to hand their phone to us (the seller) so that we can scan the QR code on e-gift certificates, just as they hand us physical gift cards for scanning, now.
- If customers have enough points that they ONLY want to redeem them and not do any other purchase that requires payment, they will still have to give us (the sellers) their phone number to make this happen.
- If customers don’t want to prepay to load a gift card, then we are stuck with asking for phone numbers unless the customer always uses the same payment method. There’s no way around this, currently
All of those are minor issues, though, and they might work for @Coffeeshop4. Anyway, @Coffeeshop4, the summary of this back-and-forth between @rtfulk and myself is this.
- Gift cards on file (both physical and e-gift cards) can be linked to a customer’s record, either from your dashboard or POS. Your employees will have to do this, but once it is added, it is there.
- Customers can pay with their e-gift card. This works just like any payment card. Square Loyalty will recognize it as a card the customer has used previously and automatically increment points for that purchase.
- if a customer has rewards available, the POS will alert your employee so that they can ask if points should be redeemed.
Of course, as I mentioned earlier, if a customer DOES NOT want to prepay on a gift card, then you will have to continue to ask for their phone number for both cash payments and if their payment card has not already been used to accrue loyalty points in the past. That can’t be changed.
I hope that makes sense. And, @rtfulk, thanks for teaching me something today! Wow!
I’ll add a couple of more thoughts, @Coffeeshop4.
- I still think that having an Android loyalty pass like we have iOS loyalty passes, that can be scanned is still the ultimate solution.
- There does need to be a way to sign up customers for loyalty without phone numbers. There are still very old people, and Luddites, in the world, after all.
- Oh, and a suggestion. You can also look up customers by name. So, if they hand you a card your employees CAN ask if the name on the card is the same as the name on the loyalty program and look it up that way. No phone number needed except for the first time when signing up.
@TheRealChipA Thanks, the only reason I knew about it, is I'm working on a reward card like grocery stores. There will be a barcode on the back and when a customer walks up gives us the card we scan it and their info is displayed on the POS. I still have to scan the card in under the customers name in the reference ID section. That's the Achilles Heel of the process, when we are really busy I can just stop and do it.
I have also looked at a few companies that do digital loyalty cards that will be in your phones wallet. It may be easier because I get signups, then put the number in their reference ID section. I could pre sign up regular customers and not have to worry about a physical card.
@Coffeeshop4 On the dashboard click on then Loyalty, tab, then click on Marketing. You can send out an email or text to get people to sign up to the loyalty program.
In theory, if they have their phone number associated with the gift card and they enter their phone number for the loyalty program, everything should work.
