Growave VIP Tiers program overview
IN THIS ARTICLE:
VIP programs are powerful customer retention tools, emphasizing exclusivity to encourage shoppers to spend more with your brand. They help achieve a higher customer lifetime value, particularly from your most loyal audience. This makes VIP programs an ideal strategy for boosting engagement and loyalty.
How do VIP Tiers work?
When customers reach the milestone you've set for your program, they are automatically assigned a Tier. You can configure settings to send them email notifications upon tier achievement and even provide rewards.
Customers can view their tiers in the Rewards widget on the storefront. Here, they learn about the benefits they receive from each tier and what actions they need to take to reach the next tier.
Configuring VIP Tiers enrollment
Before you start setting up the VIP Tiers, in the Growave admin panel, go to Rewards → Settings → VIP Tier program status → VIP Tier enrollment. Here, you can configure when customers are enrolled in the VIP Tiers program:
There are four options:
- Look up activity from the first order: Activity tracking starts from the customer's first order. All consequent orders and other rewardable activities in the shop will be considered in the customer's status calculation.
- Current year: This option tracks the customer's activity starting from January 1st of the current year. For example, if it is July 2025, it will consider activity from January 1, 2025.
- Specific date: Allows you to specify a date, which will serve as the starting point for tracking customer's activity and calculating their tier status.
- Update tier progress after the last customer activity: This option sets up tiers based on the customer's most recent activity. Activity means placing a certain number of orders (Purchases made), earning a specified amount of points (Earn points), spending a certain amount on your shop (Spent amount), or making a certain number of successful referrals (Referrals completed) depending on the milestone you selected. See details about selecting milestones below.
EXAMPLE: If the monitoring period is set to 365 days, our app will check whether a customer performed an activity on your store related to the selected tier enrollment milestone within the last 365 days, counting back from the date the setting was first activated.
For instance:
- If the setting was activated on January 1, 2025, the system will check for customer activities from January 2, 2024, onward.
- If a customer performed a valid activity within that time frame (e.g., their last valid activity was on June 1, 2024) and still meets the milestone criteria, the app will restart the monitoring period for such client from June 1, 2024, for the next 365 days.
With each valid activity, the system will re-evaluate the customer and reset the monitoring period if all requirements are met. However, if the customer stops performing actions within the 365-day window and no longer meets the milestone criteria, their VIP Tier status may be downgraded to a lower level or removed entirely.
Additionally, you can customize the frequency of rewards for reaching a specific VIP tier:
- Reward only once: The reward for a tier is issued only once. If a user achieves the same tier again, they will not receive the reward.
- Reward on every tier update: The reward for a tier is issued each time the user achieves the tier, regardless of how many times they reach it.
Setting up VIP Tiers
To set up and start running your VIP Tiers, go to the Growave admin panel → Rewards → VIP Tiers:
You can create as many VIP tiers as you want. Common examples include Gold, Silver, and Bronze, but you can use any names that come to mind.
Additionally, you can add a short description to give customers a better understanding of each tier. There is also an option to upload images, allowing for creative customization of your tiers.
Selecting milestone
After setting the starting point for tracking customer activities in the VIP Tier enrollment section, select the condition for achieving a tier — a milestone. You can choose one of the following milestones to create VIP Tiers:
- Earn points
- Purchases made
- Spent amount
- Customer tag
- Referrals completed
📖 Learn how to select a milestone based on benefits and goals
NOTE: If you've been using Growave's Rewards program without VIP Tiers and then enabled VIP Tiers, customers who meet all criteria (milestone achievement and enrollment settings) will be assigned to the respective tier and receive only one reward for that tier. They won't receive rewards for lower tiers, if any.
- Earn points: Customers earn tiers based on the total points accumulated through shop activity. For example, a member gets the Bronze tier for earning 6000 points.
Points are excluded from tier calculation when:
- The customer's Points balance is manually changed
- Points are imported
- Points are spent on a discount
- The discount is refunded
NOTE: If points are awarded for an order and then refunded, the points will be deducted, affecting the VIP Tier status.
- Purchases made: This milestone rewards customers based on the number of purchases they make. For example, a member who makes 10 purchases will achieve the Bronze tier.
- Spent amount: This milestone rewards customers based on the total amount they spend on your site. For example, a member who spends $150 will achieve the Bronze tier.
- Customer tag: This milestone determines VIP tiers based on the tags a customer has. If a customer qualifies for multiple VIP tiers due to having several relevant tags, they will receive the tier that was created first.
EXAMPLE: Suppose you have three VIP tiers: Bronze, Silver, and Gold, which were created in that order. You assign tags to each tier: order-tag , customer-tag , and product-tag .
A customer named Alex has the following tags: order-tag , customer-tag , and product-tag .
According to the Customer Tag rule, Alex qualifies for all three tiers. However, because the Bronze tier was created first, Alex will receive the Bronze tier.
NOTE: If a tag is used in eligibility settings to either allow or forbid participation in the Rewards program, it will not be available for use in the Customer tag milestone to assign VIP tiers.
- Referrals completed: This milestone determines a customer's VIP tier based on the number of successful referrals they have made. The program evaluates referral metrics, and a validated referral can help a customer advance to a higher tier, provided they meet the enrollment criteria for that tier.
Setting up default tier
You can configure a default tier to automatically assign to users who have not yet made sufficient progress to achieve higher tiers. Users in the default tier will continue participating in the loyalty program and will advance to higher tiers as they meet the required progress criteria:
Adding points multiplier
The points multiplier function of VIP tiers increases the number of points users receive after reaching a tier. For example, without a VIP tier, a user may receive 100 points for leaving a review. If you set a multiplier of 2 for a certain tier, a customer in that tier will receive 200 points for leaving a review.
NOTE: You can set up the points multiplier in every tier.
If a Boost campaign and/or Birthday point multiplier is active at the same time, only one multiplier will apply with the following priority order:
- Birthday point multiplier
- Boost campaign multiplier
- VIP Tier multiplier
IMPORTANT: The milestone for earning a tier can be chosen only once when you create the first tier. You will not be able to select another milestone for subsequent tiers you create. If you need to change the milestone, you must delete all existing tiers and create new ones, which will result in the loss of customers' earned and multiplied points.
Adding a tag to members when achieving a tier
You can enable an option to automatically assign a tag to customers when they achieve a specific tier (available for all milestones except for the Customer tag milestone). This tag can be used for audience segmentation and automation in tools like Shopify Flow, Klaviyo, Gorgias, or other apps integrated with Growave.
Selecting entry reward
NOTE: You can assign only one reward per tier. If you update the reward option, previously assigned but unused rewards will be removed (except for points).
Learn more about rewarding customers for reaching VIP tiers.
Perks for VIP Tiers
NOTE: This feature is available for Growave 2.0 users (who joined our app after January 22, 2024) starting from the Growth plan.
In the VIP Tiers section of the admin panel, you can offer additional rewards to your top customers with the Perks feature. Located at the bottom of each tier editing page, this section allows you to define up to five extra perks outside of the loyalty program.
Enter the custom perks that your customers will receive. These perks are fully managed by the shop owner, providing flexibility in what you offer.
VIP iter members can find their perks in the respective sections of the Rewards popup widget and Rewards page:
Key features:
- Add up to 5 perks per VIP tier
- Customize perks to fit your business needs
- Multilingual support for perks in various languages
This feature enables you to enhance customer loyalty by offering exclusive rewards to your VIP members.
Tracking VIP Tiers activity
You can monitor VIP Tier activity to see which customers have achieved specific tiers, when they achieved certain tiers, and what is the average order value (AOV) within the VIP Tiers program. To view this information, go to Analytics → Rewards tab → VIP Tiers.
NOTE: Extended VIP Tiers statistics are available for Growave 2.0 users). Learn more about Growave 2.0.
Changing VIP Tiers settings
If you make changes to the VIP Tier settings, please be aware of the following:
- Tiers will be recalculated. Customers who no longer meet the criteria for their current tier will have their tiers removed.
- A "Tier Unlocked" email will be resent to all customers subscribed to marketing emails, informing them of the change.
- If you modify the rewards associated with a tier, you will receive a notification to assist you in updating rewards for your customers.
For any questions or requests regarding the VIP Tiers program, please contact us at support@growave.io or use the chat icon in the bottom-right corner. We’ll be glad to assist you.