Whether it's the busy holiday season or the dog days of summer, finding simple ways to surprise and delight your best customers can go a long way toward building loyalty and filling your schedule.
There are three powerful tools you can start using today to reward your VIP pet parents without adding extra busywork for your team:
All three are built right into Gingr, so you can manage everything in one place, from reservations and payments to recognition and rewards. In our latest webinar, we walked through these features so you're set up for success. Whether you attended live or need a recap, we've compiled the highlights for you below.
Think of store credit as your built-in gift card system. It’s tied to the owner in Gingr and is easy to see and use from day to day.
A green account balance icon appears on the owner’s profile when they have store credit, along with their current balance.
From the shopping cart, you can:
We walked through an example where an owner already had $40 in store credit. He added $60 more in the cart, checked out, and the account instantly showed a $100 total store credit balance.
You can:
Once it’s on the account, store credit can be used as a payment method for:
Your team can even split payments by applying store credit first, then collect the remaining balance via card or cash.
Pro Tip: In Admin > Payment and Purchase Options, turn on “Allow customers to purchase store credit” to let pet parents buy it directly through the customer portal. Great for holidays, birthdays, and last-minute gifts.
At this time, store credit cannot be used toward subscriptions or memberships. Because subscriptions and memberships require a card on file for automatic processing, they can’t be paid with store credit. Those recurring charges will still run on the stored card.
Want to reward your top customers but not sure who they are? That’s where the Customer Spend Report comes in. Gingr already centralizes your payments and reporting so you don’t have to juggle multiple tools, and this report is one of the most useful for loyalty and gifting.
You’ll see a list of customers with details like:
From there, you can print as PDF, export to Excel, oradd customers directly to a marketing campaign.
Once you’ve identified your highest-spending or most frequent visitors, you can try out some of these ideas:
Because Gingr includes built-in marketing tools and integrations, you can send targeted email or SMS campaigns to just those customers—no extra software needed.
Store credit and reports are fantastic, but what if you want something more automatic and ongoing? That’s where Loyalty Reward Points can come into play.. They help you build customers for life with simple, trackable rewards that don’t create extra manual work for your staff.
On a pet’s profile, you’ll see a current point balance section. With Loyalty Reward Points enabled:
Only your business can redeem points, so pet parents will contact your team when they’re ready to cash in. That gives you a great excuse for a friendly conversation and upsell opportunities.
You can also:
Go to Admin > Loyalty Reward Points to customize:
0 (points never expire).Most importantly, you’ll configure your reward tiers. In our demo, the tiers looked like this:
This encourages pet parents to save up for a better reward, which keeps them coming back and increases their lifetime value with your business. You can add as many tiers as you like. Just click Add, set the point threshold, and choose the store credit amount.
You can redeem points in two main places:
1. From the owner’s profile
2. From the shopping cart
Gingr also provides a View History option so you can see:
This transparency helps you maintain trust with pet parents and keep your team aligned.
A few great questions came in during the session. Here’s a quick recap of the answers:
Not at this time. Subscriptions and memberships require a card on file because payments run automatically on a schedule (weekly, monthly, yearly). Store credit can’t be applied to those recurring charges.
Yes. Gingr doesn’t distinguish between payment methods when awarding points. If you pay an invoice with store credit, that spend still earns reward points, which means customers can “double dip” a bit:
Yes. If you issue a refund on an invoice that generated points, you’ll see voided points in the history. Those points are deducted to keep everything accurate.
Not currently. Only your team can redeem points, either from the owner’s profile or from the shopping cart. That way, you stay in control of when and how rewards are applied.
Here’s a simple, three-step plan you can use right away, especially during busy holiday or peak seasons:
1. Run a Customer Spend Report for the past 6–12 months. Identify your highest-spending or most frequent customers.You’ll thank your most loyal pet parents, encourage repeat bookings, and keep operations running smoothly. That means more tail wags and less busywork!
Already a Gingr customer? Log in, head to Reports and Admin > Loyalty Reward Points, and start setting up your own reward strategy.
Not using Gingr yet? Our software is designed to help pet-care businesses thrive with tools that maximize revenue, optimize operations, and build customers for life.
Join the pack and book a demo to see how store credit, reward points, and powerful reporting can help your business reach its full potential.