We have 5 loyalty tiers and customers earn point multipliers as they increase in tiers.
We also use promotions where customers can earn multipliers on certain items.
These two do not work properly together and it is misleading to a customer. To the point that the customer could realistically claim that it is false advertising.
Let me explain.
John Doe is in the 3x point multiplier tier and I am running a promotion where customers earn 3x points on widgets.
My loyalty program gives 1 point per $1 spent.
If John purchases $100 in widgets, how many points would you expect him to receive?
You can make a reasonable argument for 600 points or even 900 points.
600 points if tier rewards and the promotion are calculated independently of each other. So John would earn 300 points for his purchase and 3x tier reward and 300 points because of the 3x promotion.
900 points if the tier reward and the promotion multiply each other. So John earns 300 points for the purchase and tier reward, which is then 3x because of the promotion.
(It would be nice if Square would let the business define whether the multipliers stack or not, but that's another conversation.)
Well, the answer to the question is... John receives 500 points for his purchase.
This is because of the way Square calculates base points, tier rewards, and promotional rewards.
Here's the breakdown.
John receives:
100 base points
+200 tier reward points (Since 100 x 3 = 300 and 100 + 200 = 300)
+200 promotional points (Since 100 x 3 = 300 and 100 + 200 = 300)
The problem is, Square uses the same 100 base points for each calculation, which means the 3x promotion is really only a 2x promotion, despite all the promotional literature saying that it is a 3x.
On my end, the logical fix would be for me to call it a 3x promotion but then set the multiplier in Square to 4x. This would result in John receiving the 600 points that he deserves. However, when John is looking at his account, he will see the promotion name "3x multiplier on widgets" and directly underneath that he is going to see the auto-populated description, that Square adds to it, indicating that it is a 4x promotion.
This would clearly cause confusion.
When questioned by customers, how can I justify calling it a 3x multiplier promotion when the customer isn't actually getting 3x points? It's misleading could easily be considered false advertising as I am promoting something to drive business and then not following through with the actual promotion.
Is this on the road map to be corrected?
If not, can we remove the auto-populated description from the promotion so that the customer only sees the promotion's title?
John Losito,
Sun Valley Lanes & Games
