VIP programs are one of the most effective retention marketing tools out there. With an emphasis on exclusivity, they create an experience that leaves customers wanting to spend more with your brand. This makes it the perfect tool for getting a higher customer lifetime value from your upper-tier or most loyal customers.

How do VIP Tiers work?

Customers, who match the criteria you set up for your program, automatically get a Tier. You can adjust the settings so they will get the email notification for achieving the tiers and even a reward for that. Customers, also, can find these tiers on a separate page or in the tab: 

As you see, customers can view what they get from tiers and what to do to achieve the next ones.

Setting VIP Tiers

Before you start setting up the VIP Tiers, select VIP Tier Enrollment in Settings -> Rewards -> VIP Tiers:

There are three options:

• Look up activity from the first order - Activity will start tracking from the very first order of the user. In this case, all available orders that have been made on the shop will be taken into account in the calculation of the user's status.
• Past year - In this case, we will look at the user's order history from the January of this year. We count the year from January. So for example (it is 2022, Nov) and you select the past year then it will calculate from 1st Jan 2022.
• Specific date - When you select this option, an input where you can specify the date appears. This date will serve as the starting point for calculating the user's status.

To set the VIP Tiers up and get running please go here: Dashboard > Loyalty and Rewards > VIP Tiers:

You can create as many tiers as you want. Usually, they go in the basic line of 3: Gold, Silver, and Bronze. But any name, that comes to your mind can be used.

Also, there is a field to add a short description, to give your customers a better idea of tiers. The option of choosing images gives you the room to use your imagination ✨.

Choosing criteria

Before adjusting the settings, choose how your customers are going to be sorted into the tiers. There are 3 criteria: points earned, purchases made and amount spent.

1. With the Earn points criteria given, customers get the tiers for the amount of earned points. I.e. member gets the Bronze tier for earning/having 5000 points:

Please note that we count the total points amount the customer has gained for the shop activity.

Points are not taken into account in the range calculation:

• when the customer balance was manually changed
• the points were imported
• points were spent for a discount
• the discount was refunded

NOTE: If a customer has received points for the order, in case of a refund points will be deducted and it will also affect the VIP Tier status.

2. The Spent amount criteria allows customers to get the tiers for spending the specified amount of money on your site. I.e. member achieves the Bronze tier for spending $70 at your store:

3. Setting up the 'Purchases made' criteria you let your customers achieve the tiers for the specified amount of purchases they made. I.e. member achieves the Bronze tier for making 10 purchases on your site:

Don't forget to set up the points multiplier in every tier.

The Point Multiplier function of VIP tiers multiplies the number of points users receive after reaching a tier. For example, without a VIP tier, the user may receive 100 points for leaving a review. You may set up a multiplier as 2 for a certain tier, then each time customer with the tier leaves a review, the points will be multiplied by 2, which counts as 200 points.

NOTION: The criteria for earning a tier can be chosen only once. So if you want to change the criteria later, you have to delete all the existing tiers and create new ones which leads to the loss of customers earned and multiplied points. For more details about the criteria, be sure to check this guide.

Selecting reward option

You also can choose points, discounts (fixed amount, percentage discount, free shipping), gift cards, and free products to reward your customer for achieving the tier. Or choose to assign no rewards at all.

NOTION: As of now, it's not possible to set up multiple rewards for a tier. In case you update the reward option, the previously given and not used rewards will be deducted.

For more details on the rewarding options, you may have a look at this guide.

The activity tracks here, so you could see, who has achieved and which tier:

Please contact us if there are any questions or requests regarding the VIP Tiers program, we'll be glad to help you. Or contact us just to say hi 😊.