Email collection oddity

VanKalkerFarms · ‎05-03-2017

I had a customer redeem a marketing coupon today, clearly indicating that she had an email address in the system. I would expect redeeming that code would connect the purchase to her in the customer database. The email collection prompt appeared at the end of the transaction though. Perhaps it got confused because the customer who actually paid and the customer who received the email were not the same (husband paid, wife got email). The husband doesn't have an email address in the system, but it seems like the marketing coupon use should have then connected that credit card to her account.

Bob Van Kalker
My Van Kalker Farms Garden Center website
My Rise'n Roll Bakery Schererville Indiana Facebook Page
My Rise'n Roll Bakery Cedar Lake Facebook Page

RB · ‎05-05-2017

Unfortunately we currently don't use coupons to connect a credit card to an account. This is why when the husband paid, his account became the account associated with this transaction and that prompted the email collection screen. This is certainly something that we can improve, so thanks for raising this issue. I'll channel your feedback to the team.

VanKalkerFarms · ‎05-05-2017

So if it had been a cash transaction, would she have been connected to it and thus not gotten the email screen? I'll have to keep an eye out for that scenario.

Bob Van Kalker
My Van Kalker Farms Garden Center website
My Rise'n Roll Bakery Schererville Indiana Facebook Page
My Rise'n Roll Bakery Cedar Lake Facebook Page

RB · ‎05-06-2017

We need some way to identify your customer in order to link a transaction to an existing account.

So in the case of a cash transaction we do that if:

1- The customer signs-up for a digital receipt using an email that's already linked to their account

2- The customer opts-out of signing-up for a digital recipt, but shares an email using the email collection screen and that email happens to be already on file.

In the case that a customer doesn't share an email or uses a new email that they've never used before with a cash transaction then we create a new entry for that customer since there's no way to identiry the customer and thus link his/her transaction to an existing account.

I hope that answers your question

VanKalkerFarms · ‎05-06-2017

If a customer uses her unique coupon code from her email, don't you know what customer received that particular code? It seems like using the coupon code should tie her purchase to her email address. She shouldn't have to give it to me again.

Bob Van Kalker
My Van Kalker Farms Garden Center website
My Rise'n Roll Bakery Schererville Indiana Facebook Page
My Rise'n Roll Bakery Cedar Lake Facebook Page

RB · ‎05-09-2017

While we do know the customer that received a particular code, we don’t use the coupon to link the customer to the transaction. This is mainly to avoid attaching the wrong customer account to a transaction when someone shares the coupon with someone else or someone else pays for it. Ultimately the payment method is what's used to determine who that person is.

To clarify, lets imagine that we do link customer accounts to a transaction using the coupon, so in the scenario that you described:

1- The wife got a coupon

2- You add her coupon to the transaction

3- We link her account to the transaction

4- The husband pays with his card for her transaction

5- The husband's card is now linked to her account

Anytime the husband buys anything in the future, that will be then linked to wife's account and if she's opted in for auto-receipts then she'll get all of his receipts.

While the current scenario isn’t optimal it does protect against cases like the above.

I'd certainly love to hear your thoughts around this.