Today we’re proud to introduce points expiry for Smile.io. This gives you the power to re-engage and encourage purchases from customers who have gone dormant.
Your marketing and accounting team will love this! Your marketers can use expiring points as a powerful influencer on shopping behavior, and accountants can clear liabilities. A win win!
How it Works
We have made points expiry easy to implement and use. We give you the ability to expire points, while also giving you powerful customer communication.
Expiry is Based on Points Activity
While points expiration is a powerful motivator of behavior, you do not want your customers to feel like they have no impact on it. That is why our points expiration is based on engagement - not a strict time period.
Once an expiration period is set, your customer’s points will only expire when they go the entirety of that period without earning or spending any points. This ensures that customers who are actively participating, shopping, and returning are not at risk of losing their points.
This creates a win-win relationship with you and your customers.
Reactivate Customers with Reminders
While points expiration is a great feature, it is only really effective if you can get customers to act on the impending expiration.
A reactivation email is designed to give your customers fair and advanced warning that their point balance is going to expire. This email serves as a friendly reminder to ensure customers will re-engage in order to keep the value they’ve accumulated with your store.
Create Urgency with a Last Chance Email
People procrastinate, and your customers are no different. If they see they have a week or more to use their points, they will likely put it off. This is why we give you the opportunity to send them the “last chance” email, which serves as the final reminder that they need to act now or lose their points.
Benefits of Points Expiry
1. Clears Liability
Points have an underlying value. Expiring points allow you to clear this liability for customers who are no longer using them. Your accountant will be pleased :)
2. Shortens Purchase Cycles
Say you sell luxury shoes and the average customer buys these every 15 months. Set your points expiry to 12 months to encourage them to come back sooner than they normally would.
3. Uses Loss Aversion
This is a psychological term that argues we are more likely to do something to avoid losing it, than we are to do trying to gain it. Points expiration puts the power of loss aversion to work for your store.
