"Duplicate" Rewards Accounts because of Gift Cards

[nbunda]

An issue that causes so much confusion for our staff is duplicate rewards accounts that are created when a guest with an existing rewards account uses a gift card.

The next time they try to manually add rewards, the staff will see the guest listed twice. I've looked into this each time, and the second one is always linked to a gift card they had used. Now, when this happens, it appears the rewards balance is internally linked between the two accounts, which is good, but the staff has no way of verifying that, and it leads to frustration for the staff and guest. There has to be a way to do it better. I personally think the days of rewards balances being tied to physical gift cards should be left in the past.

It also creates a concern for me that if someone gets a hold of another person's gift card that happens to be linked to their loyalty account, a bad actor could potentially use the gift card to always have access to the original guest's rewards account.

Is this a concern/issue for anyone else? Is there something else I'm missing that causes this?

[mollyd]

Yes! This is so frustrating for us and our staff as well. I've explained it multiple times but I understand everyone's confusion, it isn't necessary to have physical rewards cards. Especially because most customers themselves will admit they don't want to carry around a dedicated loyalty card. I've had countless customers ask to merge accounts when they just have a gift card attached to their account. I really hope they overhaul and update the loyalty program sometime soon. I would also love to be able to offer tiered rewards so higher frequency guests can be rewarded more than the casual diner.

[ashokr]

Although I'm not sure if spending with loyalty card who gets the reward? If the original purchaser of the card had Loyalty account, wouldn't the system give him loyalty points? I'm not sure. Someone within toast should tell if the purchaser of the gift card gets the points or the user of the card. I would think the former.

[www]

The purchaser of the gift cards does not get rewards points.

Only the gift card user gets reward points. The person who uses the gift card to pay will get reward points.

[www]

Are the gift cards automatically linked to the rewards account if the information (email or phone number) is the same? 

We've had a lot of customers requesting to merge accounts and it's often not an easy process because searching for accounts in Toast Web can be extremely slow. Especially if the old account they created is from several months ago and they also don't remember which store they created their account in.

Oftentimes a single query can take 10 minutes or more to load.

[nbunda]

What I think is happening is:

• Guest provides their rewards phone #
• Guest uses a gift card to pay
• That gift card now has its rewards balance linked to the guest’s rewards balance, but it’s still technically 2 different rewards accounts - their balances are just internally linked.
• Next time the guest tells the staff their rewards phone number, two accounts are listed. Guest has no idea why. Staff is confused. Nobody has any clue that they’re linked aside from guessing. Nobody made a choice to link the two accounts - it’s just automatic, and confusing.

I think a better approach would be to never have a rewards account on a gift card. Leave them separate. Rewards should only be tied to personal information like a phone number or email address, and that’s it. If the guest WANTS to transfer their gift card balance to their rewards account, give them an option to do that. But none of this automatic linking/treating a rewards account the same as a gift card. It’s confusing to everyone.

Just my two cents.