What is a digital coupon / gift certificate in a nutshell?

This is a set of coupons that are issued to a specific customer. The customer can receive it in the form of SMS (numerical number), in the form of paper with a QR code printed on it, or in the form of a digital code, which he must enter on the inCust website in order to gain access to all offers.

Ноw does procedure of scanning a QR code in which a gift certificate is “integrated” works? After scanning, a message is displayed to the customer stating that N coupons have been added to the wallet. Access to the wallet is provided instantly: you can view your coupons and read the terms of their use. All this is vividly visualized in the incust mobile app.

What should I do if the customer does not want to add a gift certificate to his wallet through the site or does not want to install the inCust mobile application? In this case, the customer at the checkout must name the number of the gift certificate. The cashier enters the number and the digital certificate redeems immediately and offers automatically appear in the customer’s electronic wallet.

Also a gift certificate can be activated in a customer self-identification solution –  inCust Kiosk. This inCust solution is already in great demand in stores that have decided to speed up customer service in the point of sale.

inCust Kiosk is a system installed in a low-cost tablet, deployed with a display to the customer, with which he can, without distracting the cashier/salesperson/barista, enter his phone number or scan the QR code from the mobile application with the camera built into the tablet. The customer can redeem his gift certificate on his own and see coupons suitable for use at this point of sale right on the tablet’s screen.

Then each new customer near the cash desk, can scan his QR-code of the application and receive another offer in his electronic wallet.

Our experience suggests three options of using gift certificates.

1. Granting the customer the right to choose a product or service that is most relevant to his wishes.
2. Generating additional income for your company.
3. Creating additional value for the customer. After the sale, you increase the emotional value from cooperation by giving a bundle of coupons from which the customer chooses interesting ones for himself

Examples of gift certificate usage:

• Hotel guests. Guest receives a gift certificate. The certificate can be scanned by the guest in the inCust mobile application, and the guest will immediately see the best partner offers from the hotel – discounts on selected restaurants or places of entertainment. If the person goes to a certain restaurant, the hotel will also earn extra money. At the same time, the platform can automatically redeem money from the restaurant for bringing guests there.
  
• Set of discounts for tourists. Imagine a guide conducting an excursion in some area of ​​the city. At the end of the walk, the guide shares gift coupons with guests to the places nearby: museums, galleries, restaurants, etc.
• Tickets. Imagine that you are selling tickets to an event. A gift certificate is printed on the ticket. In it, the customer will find discounts for restaurants, cafes or some additional events.
• Печать специальных сертификатов и предложений на чеке. This option is suitable for a large retailer who likes the concept of generating profit from each square meter of area (in this case, we are talking about centimeters). That is, the store itself has already sold its products to the customer.

Let’s get started on creating a gift certificate:

First of all, you need to choose a Loyalty program which this gift certificate will apply to. The selected loyalty program determines which outlets, sellers, goods, customers, and with which series of coupons this gift certificate will work.

The Name of the gift certificate sets the name that you see and the customer does not. Here you can specify the name that is most understandable to you, so as not to get confused between several gift certificates.

The “Public Title” and “Public Description” specify what customers will see. Fill out these lines so that customers are interested in using the gift certificate and it is clear what it contains. We recommend filling out in several languages ​​so that multilingual customers can see your gift certificate.

Download a colorful image that will serve as an illustration of a gift certificate.

Set the Validity period of gift certificate, that is, from what date the gift certificate will be valid.

Choose the series of coupons that this gift certificate will combine. Please note, you can choose only those series of coupons that are created in the same loyalty program as the gift certificate.

Additional settings:

Gift certificates can add an element of the game to relationships with the customers. To do this, the options “issue random”, “limit on the amount of issue” and “limit on the time of issue to one customer” are introduced. Suppose you want to make a new gift for each customer on their each new visit. To do this, you need to create one gift certificate with an unlimited amount of use, but with a time limit for use by each customer, for example, once a day. This gift certificate can include many different offers from partner companies. At the same time, you can put a restriction: the customer can add this certificate to his wallet only once during the day, while giving out, for example, only one random coupon from the set. 

• You can configure the gift certificate so that the customer does not receive all the coupons from the certificate, but a certain number of random coupons. Turn on the option Limit the number of coupons used for the certificate, if you want to limit the number of coupons and enter the number of coupons that the customer should receive when adding a gift certificate.
• You can set up a gift certificate so that it can be used by one, several, or any number of customers. Enable the option Limit the number of uses of the certificate and enter the maximum number . For example, you can limit so that customers can use the gift certificate no more than 500 times.
• You can configure your gift certificate so that each customer can use the certificate one or more times. Enable the option Limit the number of uses of the certificate to one customer and enter the maximum number of uses for one customer. For example, you can limit so that an individual customer can use the gift certificate no more than 2 times.
• If the gift certificate can be used several times by one customer, then you can specify the minimum interval between the reuse of the certificate. Enable the Use minimum interval between certificate uses by the customer option and specify the Interval between reuse as the number of hours. For example, you can limit so that an individual buyer can use a gift certificate 10 times, but no more than 1 time in 24 hours.