Getting Started with Tier Schemes

Overview

Many loyalty programs use membership Tiers to organize their Members into a hierarchy based on defined criteria, such as total purchases or points earned. Tiers are commonly used to encourage engagement by offering richer rewards, exclusive benefits, or higher discounts as Members progress.

Tiers don't have to be visible 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.

In Loyalty, membership Tiers are managed using Tier Schemes.

Tier Schemes

A Tier Scheme is the top-level asset used to define and manage membership Tiers. You can optionally have one or more Tier Schemes defined within your Loyalty account. For example, you could define separate Tier Schemes for each brand in a multi-brand account. Or you could use a separate Tier Scheme for "hidden" Tiers that aren't exposed to your Members.

A Member's current Tier status is calculated whenever the platform records an Activity (of any type) for that Member.

Tier Schemes are fully independent from one another, and all of their 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. This designation is made on the Deployments screen.

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

Access

The Tier Schemes screen is used to view, create, and manage your Tier Schemes. To access the Tier Schemes screen, select Rules from the top navigation menu, then select Tier Schemes from the side navigation menu.

For more details on how to search for a Tier Scheme, see Search for a Tier Scheme.

Tier Table

Within a Tier Scheme, the Tiers and their qualifying rules are represented using a table called a Tier Table.

Each row in the Tier 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 they 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. These conditions are expressed as Basic Tier Rules (see below).

For more information, see Working with Tier Tables.

Tier Rules

Tier Rules are used to define the conditions required for a Member to attain a given Tier.

The Loyalty platform supports Basic and Advanced Tier Rules.

  • Basic Tier Rules are represented as columns in the Tier Table as described above, and allow you to define a simple Metric threshold or expression required to achieve a Tier, such as "Loyalty Points is greater than or equal to 1250." For more information, see Working with Basic Tier Rules.

  • Advanced Tier Rules allow you to define more complex criteria than is possible in a Basic Tier Rule, such as an expiration date, or using conditional logic to limit the Members to which the Advanced Tier Rule applies. 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. For more information, see Working with Advanced Tier Rules.

Advanced Tier Rules are not part of the Tier Table. If a Member meets the conditions in an Advanced Tier Rule, they are assigned the Tier designated within the Advanced Tier Rule, even if they don't meet the Basic Tier Rules for that Tier.

If a Member meets the conditions of both a Basic Tier Rule and an Advanced Tier Rule, the Advanced Tier Rule takes precedence.

Creating a Tier Scheme

The entire process of creating, configuring, and publishing a Tier Scheme comprises the following main steps:

  1. Create a Tier Scheme.

  1. Define the Tiers in the Tier Scheme.

  1. Define the Tier Table. Optionally, a Tier Scheme can have multiple Tier Tables, although the best practice recommendation is to have only one Tier Table active and published at a time.

  1. For each Tier in the Tier Scheme, define the Basic Tier Rules.

  1. Optionally, define Advanced Tier Rules. Advanced Tier Rules allow you to define more complex expressions or conditions than what is possible with a Basic Tier Rule.

  2. Configure the Tier Scheme settings.

  3. Define the Tier Scheme's Effectivity Period, then publish the Tier Scheme.

 View a Tier Scheme Create a Tier Scheme Publish a Tier Scheme