🛒 Supported on all platforms
💳 Available on Growth, Plus, and Enterprise plans
👤 Accessible to all roles
Deactivating your VIP program will pause the program for your customers, including movement through VIP tiers and entry rewards. If changes are made to your tiers while the program is paused, they will affect the tier placement of new and existing customers when the program is reactivated.
💡 Important: The Points, Referral, and VIP programs can be deactivated or activated independently of each other. To deactivate other programs, read our guides on deactivating a points program or deactivating a referral program.
Deactivate your VIP program
Deactivating your VIP program will pause the program for new and existing customers. To deactivate your VIP program:
In Smile Admin, navigate to Program > VIP.
In the VIP status card, click Deactivate.
Program behavior while deactivated
While your VIP program is deactivated:
The VIP section of the panel will not be visible on your website. (Note: if points and/or referral programs remain active, these sections will remain visible.)
Customers will not move between tiers or earn entry rewards for tiers.
VIP emails will not be sent.
Previously generated loyalty coupons or points earned from previous VIP tiers will remain active and customers will be able to use them.
Reactivate your VIP program
If you've deactivated your VIP program for any reason, including to make changes to your settings, you'll need to re-enable it for your new program settings to take effect.
To reactivate your VIP program:
In Smile Admin, navigate to Program > VIP.
In the VIP status card, click Reactivate.
Program behavior when reactivated
When your VIP program is reactivated:
Any new customer that joins your VIP program:
Will have their VIP tier calculated using your new program settings.
Any existing customers who were already in your VIP program:
Will have their VIP tiers recalculated using your new program settings.
Could lose their VIP tier if you've modified earning conditions, added a tier, or removed a tier.
Will not receive entry rewards or email notifications if their tier changes on the recalculation, but they will continue to earn entry rewards for future tier movement.
💡 Important: If your VIP program uses the 'Calendar Year' milestone period and is reactivated, tier calculations will be based on January 1st of the most recent calendar year. For example, if your program start dates is July 1, 2024, but you re-enable it on January 10, 2025, Smile will calculate tiers based on customer activity from January 1, 2025.
How to prevent customers from losing their VIP after reactivation
If you’d like to make changes to your VIP program, but ensure that existing customers do not lose their VIP tier, you can manually update their tier after making any changes.
To keep your existing customers in their VIP tiers:
Export a list of your customers and their current VIP tier before you disable your program.
Disable your VIP program.
Make any desired configuration changes to your VIP program.
Re-enable your VIP program.
Import your customer list using our Adjust customers feature to place them into the tier they were in before you made your program changes.
💡 Important: When you import VIP tiers, customers will remain in the assigned tier until the end of the next VIP period, regardless of when their tier would have expired under previous settings. For example, if you place Jane in Gold on Jan 5, 2025, she’ll remain in Gold until Jan 6, 2026.