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You can make customers’ VIP tier names available directly in Shopify by turning on VIP metafield sync. Once VIP metafields are synced to Shopify, you can use them to offer ongoing discounts for specific VIP tiers, setup Shopify Flow automations based on a customer’s VIP status, do advanced VIP customization with other apps, and simplify the life of support staff by having VIP tier information readily available within Shopify.
Feature availability: VIP is available on Growth, Plus, and Enterprise plans.

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What to expect

VIP metafield sync creates a metafield on all customer records in Shopify to store the name of the customer’s VIP tier. If the customer does not have a VIP tier, the metafield value will be - (a single dash). If the metafield value is blank, it means the customer’s tier has not yet been synced. As the customer changes VIP tiers in future, the name of their new VIP tier will be synced to the metafield. Syncing will be paused if your VIP program is disabled, and will automatically resume when your VIP program is enabled. The metafield will be visible on the customer details page in Shopify (in the Metafields card) and remain pinned for easy access. It is not currently possible to unpin the metafield.
Note: The metafield is not currently available to Customer Account Extensions.
The metafield is read-only (cannot be manually edited), and is available for use by all apps, themes, extensions, and Shopify Flow automations. It can also be used in the theme editor, with dynamic sources, and with both Custom Storefronts and Hydrogen.
  • Metafield name: Smile VIP Tier Name
  • Metafield key: smile.vip_tier_name
  • Metafield access: Public read-only
Warning: A previous version of this metafield was replaced on Feb 1, 2025. If you were using them, update your use of the Smile VIP Tier Name metafield.

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Syncing timelines

For individual customer VIP tier changes that occur from daily activity (like placing orders or earning more points), the metafield will be updated within 1 hour. As such, we don’t recommend including VIP metafield information in post-order emails or workflows that occur immediately after a customer completes checkout. If the customer is currently logged-in and browsing on a page where the rewards launcher or panel is included, any changes to their VIP tier will be synced to the metafield within 5 seconds. This helps ensure that by the time a customer reaches checkout, the VIP metafield information will be up-to-date. When many customers in your program change VIP tiers at once (e.g. from a VIP Tier Import or on January 1st after the yearly VIP rollover), syncing will occur at an average rate of 100,000 customers per day. If a customer performs an activity or browses your website in the meantime, they’ll have their metafield information updated based on the timelines mentioned above.

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Turn on VIP metafield sync

  1. In Smile Admin, navigate to Program > VIP.
  2. In the VIP metafield sync card, click Turn on.
Warning: Avoid setting up any automations, workflows, or other apps that rely on VIP metafields while they are still syncing. Look for the Synced badge on the settings card to indicate that VIP metafields are fully synchronized and ready to start using.

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Turn off VIP metafield sync

Turning off VIP metafield sync will permanently and immediately delete the VIP metafields in Shopify and remove all the data they contain.
  1. In Smile Admin, navigate to Program > VIP.
  2. In the VIP metafield sync card, click Turn off.
Caution: If you turn off VIP metafield sync while you still have apps, automations, or workflows using VIP metafields, you may encounter unexpected behaviour. Be sure nothing is using VIP metafields before turning off syncing.