Create a VIP or employee audience

User attributes can be modified using user authentication. This means a determined end-user with developer-level knowledge could sniff their network traffic and check the relevant API calls used when accessing your program, and then edit their attributes to add or remove themselves from this audience.

We will shortly be introducing user flags, which are only modifiable using administrator authentication. This article will be updated when that feature becomes available.

Introduction

Giving your employees or VIP users special treatment in your loyalty program can encourage ongoing engagement with your brand. This could mean that they automatically join higher tiers in an advance tier system, get extra points when interacing with your program or recieve a discount on reward purchases.

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Configuration

This configuration requires user attributes. See the User data & attributes article for more information.

Adding the employee or VIP user attribute

1. Navigate to Users > Members. Find the user you wish to edit (use the filtering functionality if needed). Click 'Show' next to the user.

2. Click 'Edit' in the top right corner.

3. Scroll down to the 'Attributes' section. Click 'Add'.

4. Call the new attribute 'employee' and set the value as true.

5. Click 'Save' at the bottom of the page.

Creating a standalone employee or VIP audience

1. Navigate to Users > Audiences and then click 'Create' in the top right corner.

2. Give the audience a name and description. Turn on AUDIENCE_JOINED and AUDIENCE_LEFT events if needed. Set the refresh rate to 'Reactive'.

3. Move to the criteria tab. The criteria should be;

   • Attributes - employee is true

4. Click save.

Using the attribute in an advanced tier system

This audience creates a group of users who meet the tier criteria OR are employees.

This audience makes use of nested criteria. See the Create an audience with multiple or nested groups article for more information.

1. Navigate to Users > Audiences and then click 'Create' in the top right corner.

2. Give the audience a name and description. Turn on AUDIENCE_JOINED and AUDIENCE_LEFT events if needed. Set the refresh rate to 'Reactive'.

3. Move to the criteria tab. Click 'Add Group'. The criteria for the first group should be;

   • Attributes - employee is true

4. Click 'Add Group' in the top right corner. If your usual tier criteria just has a single requirement enter it in the second group and skip to step seven. If you have multiple criteria move to step 5.

5. For multiple criteria we need to create a nested group. To do this, click 'Add Group' next to the group that you made in step four. This will create a new group one level down from the two groups you've made so far. Click the same 'Add Group' button again to create extra groups at the same level.

6. Specify the criteria for your tier in the groups you've just created one level down. Click the red trash icon next to the second top level group you made in step 4.

7. Change the operator at the very top of the audience to OR. Click save.

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Tips

• This method relies on manually adding the attribute to each user. Alternative methods of validating a user as an employee would be to use the email address they sign up to the program with, or by giving each use a promo code to enter. Both these methods are less secure than manually adding the attribute though.