Customer Reward Lifecycle Explained

What Is This?

When a customer receives a reward, it doesn't stay the same forever — it moves through different stages depending on what happens next. Understanding these stages helps you track whether a customer still has an active reward, has already used it, or missed their chance to use it before it expired.

Real-Life Example

Ahmad's café assigns a "Free Brownie" reward to Priya when she joins the loyalty programme. The reward shows as Pending in her account. She visits two weeks later, redeems it at the counter — and the status moves to Used. Meanwhile, Wei Lin received the same reward but forgot to use it before the expiry date. Her reward moved to Expired automatically, with no action needed from Ahmad.

How It Works

stateDiagram-v2
    [*] --> Pending : Reward assigned to customer
    Pending --> Used : Staff marks as used / customer redeems
    Pending --> Expired : Expiry date passes (automated)
    Used --> [*]
    Expired --> [*]

A reward always starts as Pending. From there, it either gets Used (redeemed successfully) or Expired (the expiry date passed without redemption). Once a reward reaches Used or Expired, it stays there — these are terminal states.

Pending

The reward has been assigned and is ready to use. This is the starting state for every reward.

How it gets here: The reward was assigned to the customer — either automatically by a campaign or transaction trigger, or manually by a staff member via Loyalty Program → Rewards → [Reward Name] → Customer Rewards.

What can happen next:

• Staff redeems it on the customer's behalf — moves to Used
• Customer redeems it themselves via the customer portal — moves to Used
• The expiry date passes without redemption — moves to Expired

Used

The reward has been redeemed. It can no longer be used again.

How it gets here:

• A staff member clicks "Mark as Used" on the reward record
• The customer redeems it directly from the customer portal
• The reward was assigned and immediately marked as redeemed at the same time (via the quick-assign form)

When a reward is marked as used, the system records the outlet (branch/space) and the staff member who validated it — useful for auditing which location processed the redemption.

Expired

The reward was not used before its expiry date. The system automatically moves Pending rewards to Expired once their expiry date passes.

How it gets here:

• The expiry date passed and the reward was still Pending — the system updates these automatically in bulk
• An expired reward cannot be revived or used. If you want to give the customer another chance, assign them a new reward.

Good to Know

• Expiry is automatic. You don't need to manually expire rewards — the system checks for overdue Pending rewards and moves them to Expired automatically.
• Notifications can be set up. Each reward can send a WhatsApp notification to the customer when a reward is about to expire or has just expired — configured under the reward's Notifications tab.
• Revoke is different from Expired. Staff can manually remove a Pending reward before it expires. This is not the same as letting it expire naturally.
• Outlet and Validator are only tracked for Used rewards. If a reward expires unused, those fields will be empty.
• Rewards assigned directly as "already redeemed" go straight to Used — they skip Pending entirely.

What's Next?

• What Are Rewards and How to Create Them — set up your first reward
• How to Set Up Conditional Reward Distribution — control when rewards unlock for customers
• How to Set Up New Customer Reward Automation — give new customers a reward automatically