The rule gives the points; the reward is what those points are worth in the customer’s eyes
Reward rules determine what earns how much; reward management determines what the earnings turn into. The reward catalog is the real element that determines a program’s attractiveness: discounts and shopping vouchers,
your own products, products and services sourced from business partners, service rewards such as free delivery, extended warranty, and priority service, experience rewards such as event invitations and early access, and donation options.
Every reward has a points price, a real cost, a stock or capacity, a source of supply, a redemption channel, and a validity period. Reward management is composing the catalog by segment and tier,
striking the balance between each reward’s cost and its perceived value, carrying out reward fulfillment and business partner settlement, and measuring which reward actually changes behavior.
When rewards are not managed, the program turns into a system in which points are accumulated but cannot be spent. The catalog is narrow and the same for everyone; the most valuable member and the new member are offered the same shopping voucher.
The reward sourced from a business partner is out of stock, and the customer finds out when they try to redeem it; the reward product leaves your own stock, but its cost is recorded nowhere. The points price is set once and
not updated even when the product price changes; some rewards cause the program to lose money while others are never chosen, and nobody knows why. Unredeemed points accumulate and the liability grows; as for redeemed points, which
reward they went to and whether that reward brought the customer back is not measured.
In Minerva, reward management rests on the reward catalog being defined in the same structure as the product and service master data. Every reward is defined with its type, points price, real cost, source of supply — your own stock, a business partner, or a service —
stock and capacity limit, valid channels, validity period, and the segment and tier to which it will be offered; the catalog is differentiated by segment and tier and appears with the same content on the B2R portal, in stores, and at the call center.
A reward given from your own product creates a stock movement and a cost record; a reward sourced from a business partner is ordered in connection with the business partner record and settled through the current account;
service rewards are tied to the related service and order transactions. Reward fulfillment — in store, by courier, by digital code, or as a service — runs through the order and shipment processes, and the customer tracks the status of their reward on the portal.
Redemption count, cost, points-price-to-cost ratio, repeat purchase rate after redemption, and preference by segment are monitored per reward on real-time dashboards; points prices are updated by the rules engine according to cost changes,
and the catalog is continuously recomposed around the rewards members actually choose and that change their behavior.
Do not leave the reward as nothing more than a shopping voucher; manage it as a catalog whose cost is known, whose stock is managed, which is offered by segment, and whose effect is measured.