One of the most useful Loyalty features of the Zen Portal is the ability to create Jackpots of points to be won by one of your lucky members at a random point in time. In this tutorial we will explore how the Jackpot system works, outline how to setup prizes and describe how to use Zen Vision to display the winner of the most recent Jackpot draw.

 

Each time a Loyalty customer makes a purchase they will earn points on their Loyalty card. When using the Jackpot system, a percentage (typically ten percent) of the points earned are pooled in the Jackpot pool instead of going to the customer for their sale. During a single random Loyalty transaction, the Jackpot is won by a customer and they win the pool of points which is automatically added to their card. They can also be notified via SMS or Email if they are allowed to be contacted by one of those methods.

 

If the Loyalty Menu is not currently selected, navigate to the Loyalty Menu by clicking the Menus link followed by Customer, Services and Loyalty. Open the Active Prizes screen by clicking on the Prize Maintenance link followed by Active Prizes.

 

 

The Active Prizes screen lists all of the Jackpot prizes currently in the Portal. Displayed details include the site and active date range for the prize. You can create a new prize by clicking on the Create New Loyalty Prize link for either all companies or a specific company. It is also possible to view and edit an existing prize's details by clicking on the link corresponding to the name of the prize. In this tutorial we will demonstrate how to set up a new Jackpot prize.

 

 

Start by clicking on the Create New Loyalty Prize -> All Companies link to create a new Jackpot prize. Enter a name for the Jackpot prize in the Prize Description field and double-check the company and site selection for the prize. The Loyalty Prize Maintenance screen contains four tabs - Settings, Filters, Prize and Jackpot Control. In general, when setting up a new Jackpot prize it is only necessary to enter the details in the Settings and Jackpot Control tabs, so this tutorial will focus on these two screens.

 

Enter the Start Date and End Date in the provided fields to set the date range that the Jackpot prize is valid for. The Number of Prizes and Period fields set the maximum number of times that the prize can be won in the selected period. For example, if you want the prize to be won at most twice a month, enter a 2 in the Number of Prizes field and select Monthly from the Period drop-down. A couple of special periods exist - Ad Hoc means that the prize can be won only the number of times entered regardless of period and Disabled means that the prize cannot be won at the current time. An Instant Prize is a different sort of prize to the Jackpot style of pooling points in that it can be set up as a giveaway that occurs when a certain trigger occurs (this is set up in the Filters screen). We want to set up a Jackpot prize, so set the Instant Prize to False. Similarly, the Prize Hour, Prize Day, Prize Message and Lottery Number fields are all for instant prizes only, so leave them set to their default values for now. The Start Hour and End Hour fields set the eligible times for the prize to be won, and the Enabled field is a master switch to set whether the prize is active or not.

 

 

When you have filled out all of the necessary details in the Settings screen, open the Jackpot Control tab. In the Jackpot Control screen you can set exactly how the prize promotion is run. Because we want to create a Jackpot prize, select True for the Jackpot Harvest Loyalty field. The Percentage of Points field sets the number of points harvested from each Loyalty transaction to be pooled for the Jackpot prize. If the Venue To Pay field is set to True, the points are awarded to the Jackpot prize in addition to the points being awarded to the Loyalty customer for their transaction; if set to False the points are taken from the customer during the transaction. For example, if the Percentage of Points is set to 10 and the Venue to Pay is set to False, and a Loyalty customer makes a transaction that would normally earn them 100 points, the customer is awarded 90 points and 10 points are harvested for the Jackpot prize pool. If the Venue to Pay field is set to True, the customer would earn 100 points and 10 points would be awarded to the pool.

 

The Minimum and Maximum Transactions before Win fields describe the range of transactions that the random winning transaction can occur in. When the prize is won, the transaction count is set to 0 and a new random number is selected within this range (and displayed in the Jackpot Transaction to Win field). Each Loyalty transaction in the Portal increases the transaction number by one and when the random number is reached the Jackpot is won again, assuming that there are still enough prizes to be won in the current period.

 

It is possible to set an Initial Points For Jackpot for the prize. This field allocates an amount of points to the Jackpot prize (at the Company's cost) each time their is a new draw. For example, if this field is set to 1000, the Jackpot prize draw will start with 1000 points before any points have been harvested from transactions. The Site Exceptions field can be used to list the sites that are not involved in the prize draw. Loyalty transactions at any site in the list do not contribute to the points pool for the prize or increment the transaction count and the prize cannot be won by a Loyalty transaction at any of the sites.

 

Notifications can occur when a Loyalty customer wins the Jackpot prize. You have the option of informing the winner by SMS, Email or both. Default SMS and Email messages are provided which you can edit to suit your needs. Note that the fields in the angled brackets (for example <<FIRST>>) represent dynamic data in order to personalise the message. Once you have finished editing the Jackpot Control screen press the Save button to update the prize in the Portal.

 

 

A great way to promote the Jackpot prize is to create a Jackpot banner to announce the winner at a Zen Vision terminal. There are several tutorials on Zen Vision later in the series, but for now we will just demonstrate how to create a banner for the announcement. Open the Jackpot Banner Maintenance screen by clicking on Jackpots then Jackpot Banners in the Loyalty menu. Select a Site and Vision Terminal to display the announcement on. Use the Foreground Test and Background Test drop-down lists to visually test the colour scheme of your banner. Press the New button to create a new banner and in the Banner column enter LAST_WINNER. Select a group to determine when to display the announcement and a duration that the banner should run for. Select the Foreground (text) and Background (banner) colours for the banner and set the Enabled field to true. Enter a Description for the banner and press the Update button to commit the banner to the Portal.

 

 

This tutorial has focused on the use of Jackpot prizes to encourage return custom in your business. We have looked at how the Jackpot system works in general and drilled down to give a comprehensive description of how to set up a Jackpot prize and make announcements on the result of a prize draw.