GIFT CARDS AND IN-OFFICE E-GIFT CARD REDEMPTION
When gift cards are purchased from your online store, an email is sent to both the sender and the recipient of the gift card immediately, or on the chosen date of delivery if applicable. The email will contain an image of the gift card design selected by the purchaser, a message if the purchaser entered one, the value of the gift card, and a Gift Card Code (usually a 12-digit combination of letters and numbers).
E-Gift Card Redemption
There are a number of ways that a gift card recipient may choose to redeem an e-gift card at your practice. The customer can:
(1) USE the gift card towards payment of an online purchase by entering the gift card code at checkout
(2) REDEEM the gift card value directly to their Store Account where the value will be stored as credit that can be applied on future purchases, or
(3) BRING the gift card email or code to the office to redeem the value in-office.
1. The first and most common way is to make a purchase at your online store and enter the gift card code on the check-out page. When this occurs, there is nothing that needs to be done by the practice. The gift card value is automatically decremented by the amount being redeemed for the online purchase. If entirely used, the gift card code will automatically change to a Used status and the order will be referenced in the history of the gift card code. If not entirely used, the remaining value will be available for the recipient to apply towards another purchase by again entering the gift card code at check-out.
When you receive an order which was wholly or partially paid for with one or multiple gift cards, you will see the Gift Card Codes listed in the Order's payment totals. If more than one gift card was used, all gift codes that were used will be listed. Here is an example of how it looks in the Shop Manager Order details.
There are two other ways a gift card may be redeemed:
2. The recipient may create an account on your store (if they don't already have one) and redeem the gift card value directly to their account. Once this has been done, there will be a gift card credit on the account, which may be applied on future purchases made by the account holder. This method is generally more beneficial when the gift card value is relatively large and will likely be used on multiple purchases over a period of time. Having already redeemed the entire value to their account, the purchaser no longer needs to retain or enter any gift card codes. Rather, they can simply apply the credit directly from their account at checkout.
NOTE: When a gift card value has been redeemed to a person's Store Account, the gift card code itself will show as Redeemed when you view the history of the code. To check the available value, or to mark any of the value as Used In-Office, you must go to the Customer Account and view/edit their Gift Credit. Learn more about this.
3. If you want to allow it (most practices do), a gift card code may be redeemed in-office. In this case, the patient will need to provide you with either the name of the purchaser or the Gift Card Code, and your staff will need to log into the store back-end and manually decrement the gift card value by the amount being used.
This article covers how to manually decrement a partial or full gift card amount in the third situation, i.e. the patient is redeeming the gift card value in-office (not online).
IMPORTANT NOTE: This manual process of modifying the gift card value is only required in the case of an In-Office gift card redemption. When the gift cards are used in the online store, the value is automatically adjusted and you do not need to do anything.
If you prefer to watch videos, the videos below provide more information about e-gift cards and how to update them if they are used in-office. These videos demonstrate how your staff can manually update Gift Card Balance either directly on the Gift Code record (video 1) or once the Gift Card value has been redeemed to a Customer Account (video 2).
NOTE: The videos demonstrate the Store Back-End functions. However, as of December 2023, you may now perform these functions in Shop Manager. The functionality is the same, but accessed through Shop Manager. Be sure to view the screenshots and instructions that follow in this article in order to see gift card management in Shop Manager.
Viewing All Gift Cards
To view all gift cards that have been created on your store, login to the DermPRO OneLogin Dashboard, and click on the Shop Manager tile to log into Shop Manager. From the left menu, select Gift Cards. This will open the Gift Card grid.
To see only those gift cards that are currently active, click on the 'Filter By' button, click the arrow next to the Status field, select 'Active', then click 'Apply Filters'.
Although the gift card is an e-gift card intended for use on your online store, a recipient may want to redeem the value in-office. When this happens, a staff member must modify the value of that Gift Card Code in order to ensure that the amount redeemed in-office is deducted from the gift card value. If this is not done correctly and timely, the patient would be able to "double-dip" and use the gift card online after it has been already redeemed in-office.
To redeem a gift card or partial gift card manually when used in-office...
Step 1. Open the Gift Card Record
You may locate the specific gift card by (1) sorting the gift cards by clicking on the Gift Card Grid column headers, (2) filtering the Gift Cards by selecting 'Filter By', or (3) searching by either the Gift Card Code ("Code") or the name of the purchaser ("Customer"). Once you’ve located the record, click pencil icon on the far right-hand side to open the gift card record.
Step 2. Modify the Value
First check the current balance on the Gift Card. If this card was already redeemed to the customer's Store Account, you will see a current value of $0, and in the History you will see that the amount was "Redeemed." If that is the case, skip to the below section, Modifying Gift Card Credit Balance on a Store Account.
If the Gift Card amount has not been redeemed to an account and the card shows a current balance available for use, then you can adjust the Balance to reflect the amount being used in-office as follows.
In the BALANCE field, enter the remaining balance AFTER the in-office redemption.
- PARTIAL USE: If the customer is using only a partial amount, then edit the Gift Code Value so it displays the remaining balance. For example, if they are using $100 of a $500 card, change the gift code value from $500.00 to $400.00. Be sure NOT to mark partial redemptions as “Inactive”. It should still be "Active."
- FULL USE: If the customer is using the entire amount of the gift card value for their in-office purchase, then set the Gift Code Value to 0.01 and mark the status as “Inactive.”
The screenshot below shows how the gift card should look if completely redeeming the gift card in-office.
Step 3. Add Comment and Save
We recommend that you use the Comment field whenever you manually adjust a Gift Card Balance, entering an explanation of the change you are making to the gift card value. Remember to include any important information that will assist you in managing your records, including the name of the patient (which may or may not be the same as the name of the customer who purchased the gift card).
Finally, click the "Save Gift Code" button at the bottom of the page to save the change. Check the "Send to the Recipient" box if you also want to send a Gift Card update email to the recipient.
Viewing the Gift Card History
You may view the History of any gift card code to see its purchase and redemption history. In the example shown here, an $1,875 gift card was purchased and delivered to the recipient. The office manager manually updated the value when the recipient brought the gift card email into the office and redeemed part of it in-office. Then the patient redeemed the remaining balance to her online store account, where it now exists as Credit.
Modifying Gift Card Credit Balance on a Store Account
If the recipient redeemed the gift card value directly to their account, as you see above, when you look at the Gift Codes and review the gift card balance, it will show $0 balance and have a history that includes an entry where the card was Redeemed. In that case, you will have to go to the Customer Account and view the Gift Card Credit tab, where you will see the customer's gift card credit balance and be able to modify it.
First, let's take a step back and look at how a customer is able to redeem gift card value to their store account. The following sequence of screenshots shows how it works.
1) Log into my store account and select My Gift Cards from the Account Dashboard. Copy and paste my Gift Card Code into the field under "Check/Redeem Gift Card". Click the Check button to see if there is any available balance.
2) If there is available balance on the code, I can click the Redeem button to redeem the balance to my account.
3) Once redeemed to my account, I can forget the Code because that code has now been fully redeemed and no longer has any value. The value of the Gift Code now exists as Gift Card Credit on my account.
4) I can now apply funds directly from my Gift Card Credit to any future online purchases I make.
In the screenshot below, you can see the gift card credit in Shop Manager > Customers > Customer Details > Gift Card Credit.
- From Shop Manager > Customers > All Customers, use sort, search or filter to locate the Customer Account you want to review. Click on the pencil icon to open the details of the Customer Account.
- Click the Gift Card Credit tab to see the details of any Gift Cards that have been Redeemed to the account, and the current balance of the customer's Gift Card Credit.
- If the customer wants to use any or all of their Gift Card Credit for a payment in-office, click the EDIT BALANCE button.
To use a portion or all of a customer's account-redeemed gift card credit balance in-office, make sure you review the current Balance first. In this example, the patient has a Gift Card Credit Balance of $1,525.00.
To use any part of that balance towards an in-office purchase, click the blue EDIT BALANCE button, and enter a negative number to subtract the amount that they are using in-office. Enter a comment so you know why the amount is being deducted, and then click the Change button to apply the deduction.
In the pop-up window, enter a negative number to use credit for an in-office purchase, enter a comment to describe what the patient used the credit for, and then click the Save button to save the changes to their gift card credit balance.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you process a refund/credit memo on an order that includes one or more gift cards, please be advised that the gift cards WILL become CANCELLED.
Before creating a credit memo, you should verify the current value of the gift card in the Manage Gift Codes screen, so you will know whether you need to adjust your refund. If it has already been redeemed and has a current value of $0.00 OR $0.01, then you should adjust your refund accordingly.
