Tier Schemes

Overview

Many MarigoldLoyalty clients use membership Tiers as part of their customer loyalty programs. Tiers allow a client to organize Members into a hierarchy based on some distinguishing feature, such as total purchases or points earned. Tiers are often used as a way to incentivize Members to spend in your loyalty program by offering rewards or increased discounts at higher Tiers. 

Tiers don't necessarily need to be made public to your Members. Some loyalty programs use Tiers behind the scenes, simply as a way to automatically trigger special offers or discounts at specified thresholds. 

Access

To access the Tier Schemes screen, select Rules from the Main Navigation Menu, then select Tier Schemes from the Sub-Category menu.

Concepts

This section describes key concepts related to Tiers in Marigold  Loyalty. 

Tier Schemes

A Tier Scheme is the top-level asset for organizing membership Tiers. A client can have one or more Tier Schemes defined within their account. For example, you could define separate Tier Schemes for each brand in a multi-brand account. Other clients use a separate Tier Scheme for "hidden" Tiers that aren't exposed to their customers. 

Tier Schemes are independent from one another, and all of the rules and conditions are evaluated separately. A single Member could theoretically attain a particular Tier in one Tier Scheme, and a completely different Tier in another Tier Scheme. 

If you have multiple Tier Schemes, one of them must be designated as the "primary" Tier Scheme. The primary Tier Scheme is displayed in the "Membership Summary" section of the Members CSR screen. In addition, a Member's assignment in the primary Tier Scheme is displayed within the header of the Member Details screen. 

Note: The Primary Tier Scheme is designated on the Deployments screen. 

Each Tier Scheme deifned in your account is governed by its own Effectivity Period and Status, which controls when that Tier Scheme is considered "live" and actively in use. 

Tier Table

Tiers are represented in Marigold  Loyalty as a table with one or more rows, and with one or more columns. Each row in the table corresponds to a Tier. For example, if your loyalty program has Base, Silver, and Gold tiers, you would have three rows in your Tier Table. The order of the rows is important, and rows should be arranged in the proper sequence from top-to-bottom, going from the lowest tier on the top row to the highest tier on the bottom row.

Each column in the Tier Table corresponds to a condition or threshold required for a Member to achieve that Tier. A Member must satisfy all conditions across all columns to achieve a given Tier (that is, multiple columns are joined with an AND logical operator). The platform supports the following column types:

  • Metric: The earned value for a metric (such as "loyalty points" for example) for a specified period of time is compared to the values specified in the column.

  • Metric Group: Groups allow you to evaluate two or more metrics. The overall group is satisfied for a Tier if any of the constituent metrics are satisfied (that is, multiple metrics within the group are joined with an OR logical operator).

  • Expression: The column is satisfied for a Tier if the expression evaluates to "true." Expressions provide a way to define conditions beyond just using metrics. For example, if you want to limit a Tier to only US residents, you could use the following expression: getMemberValue('country'). Then, you would define the desired value as "US."

Below is a sample Tier Table for a simple loyalty program with five different tiers, and two columns: Metric A and a Metric Group comprising Metrics B and C. Members begin in the top row ("Base") and progress downward through the Table as they attain higher Tiers. 

Tier

Metric A

Metric Group

Metric B

Metric C

Base

0

0

0

Silver

1,250

25,000

12

Gold

2,500

50,000

25

Platinum

5,000

75,000

37

1K

7,500

1,000,000

50

Since Metrics B and C are within a Metric Group, the two columns are joined by an OR operator. In this example, for a Member to advance to the next Tier, they must meet or exceed the value for Metric A, and they must meet or exceed either of the values for Metric B or Metric C. The highest Tier that a Member satisfies is the resultant Tier for that Member.

A single Tier Scheme can have one or more Tier Tables defined within it. Each Tier Table deifned within a Tier Scheme is governed by its own Effectivity Period and Status, which controls when that Tier Table is considered "live" and actively in use

For example, a client could define a Tier Table for the current year with a set of metric thresholds needed to attain each Tier. Then, let's say the thresholds are going to change next year. The client could define another Tier Table for the upcoming year with the new metric thresholds. Each Tier Table has its own expiration period, so the first Tier Table could be set to expire at midnight on December 31, with the new Tier Table then taking effect immediately on January 1. 

Note: As a best practice, you should not define Tier Tables with "overlapping" effectivity; you should only have one Tier Table active at a time. Likewise, be careful not to allow any gaps in effectivity. In the event that the evaluation date for a Member's Tier assignment does not fall under the effectivity period of any Tier Table, the first published Tier Table on the Base Rules screen will be considered as the effective one.  

Tier Rules

Tier Rules define the criteria that allow a Member to move from one Tier to the next. Tier Rules are written as a logical condition, such as "Metric A is greater than or equal to 1250."  

MarigoldLoyalty supports Basic and Advanced Tier Rules. Basic Tier Rules are structured via the Tier Table as described above. Advanced Tier Rules are typically used for temporary conditions, such as a special offer to allow Members to advance more quickly to the next Tier. Each Advanced Tier Rule defined within a Tier Scheme is governed by its own Effectivity Period and Status, which controls when that Advanced Tier Rule is considered "live" and actively in use

Features

The features available on the Tier Schemes screen are described below.

Searching and Sorting

Search

The search feature allows you to search for a specified text string anywhere within the Tier Scheme's Display Name or Internal Name. 

  1. Optionally, in the search field near the top of the Tier Schemes screen, enter the desired text string.

  2. Optionally, from the "Status" drop-down menu, select a status (or "Any status").  

  3. Optionally, from the "Effectivity" drop-down menu, select an effectivity (or "Any effectivity").  

  4. Press Enter, or click the search button (magnifying glass icon).

  5. The Tier Schemes screen is refreshed to show only the Tier Schemes that meet your search criteria. Please note that if you enter multiple search conditions, the platform displays only the Tier Schemes that meet ALL criteria..

  6. To remove all search criteria, click the remove button ("X" icon).

Sort

The "Sort" drop-down menu allows you to sort the Tier Schemes on a variety of different fields. To sort the list of Tier Schemes, select the desired sort option from this menu.

  • Display Name (the default option)

  • Created Date

  • Updated Date

Navigation

Once you've found the desired Tier Scheme, you can navigate to the following other screens:

Create a New Tier Scheme

To create a new Tier Scheme:

  1. In the "Enter Display Name" field, enter the Display Name value for the new Tier Scheme.

  2. Click add tier scheme. The "Edit Tier Scheme" pop-up window is displayed.

  3. The "Display Name" field is populated with the value you entered above; optionally edit this value.

  4. The Internal Name is automatically populated based on the Display Name value. This field is disabled by default. To edit the Internal Name, check Edit Internal Name.  A confirmation dialog box is displayed; click ok. Edit the Internal Name value.

  5. Optionally, in the "Description" field, enter a description of the Tier Scheme.

  6. Click save.  

View or Edit a Tier Scheme

To view or edit the details of a Tier Scheme:

  1. Search, sort, or filter the Tier Schemes screen as described above.

  2. Click on the desired Tier Scheme.

  3. The Tier Scheme Details screen is displayed and populated with all of the information about this Tier Scheme. See Tier Scheme Details for more information.

Deploy Tier Scheme Metadata

After you've created or modified a Tier Scheme, you must deploy the Tier Rule metadata.

If you have Tier Schemes in your account that haven't yet been deployed, a warning message is displayed at the top of the Tier Schemes screen.

When you deploy the Tier Rule metadata to the server, the process automatically deploys the metadata for ALL modified Tier Schemes.  

  1. On the Tier Schemes screen, from the Actions menu in the top-right corner, select "Validate Tier Rules Metadata."

  2. If the validation step passes, you'll see a message that says, "Tier Rules metadata is valid." If the validation step fails, you'll receive an error message; review and correct your Tier Rules' expressions, then retry the validation step.

Note: You can deploy metadata immediately, but the best practice is to validate the Tier Rule logic first, to ensure no incorrect expression code gets deployed to the server that could cause issues

  1. Click deploy tier rules metadata.

  2. A confirmation dialog box is displayed; click confirm.

  3. If the deployment was successful, you'll see the message: "Tier Rules metadata has been deployed."

  4. Click close.