Hi, my name is Rob Shipway, and I am the VP of Product over here at Govalo. I have been working in the Shopify ecosystem for nearly a decade, and was one of the first 100 team members over at Shopify (pre-IPO!). After Shopify, I joined venntov, where I worked with Rhian, and led product over there. When given the opportunity to come work with the Govalo team I jumped at the opportunity, and have been loving it ever since.
This is the first of many updates I will be giving you, our merchant, our partner, our friend, on what is new over here at Govalo. Let’s get started - we’ve got a lot to cover!
- Rob Shipway, VP of Product
#1 - Giftable subscriptions with our new Bold Subscriptions Integration
Govalo’s mission has always been to make digital gifting better. We started with improving gift cards, and now we’re moving into other ways in which customers want to buy and send gifts. That next step is giftable subscriptions.
With the huge growth in subscription commerce over the last few years, it makes sense that customers want to be able to share the convenience and joy of subscriptions with friends and family. The Govalo x Bold Subscriptions integration will allow you as the merchant to offer your customers a true gift subscription experience.
How it works
The process starts much the same way as purchasing a subscription for yourself combined with that of sending a gift card. When a customer purchases a gift subscription, they can select how many months they wish to gift and are prompted to add the recipient’s email and a gift note. The recipient then receives an email letting them know they’ve been gifted a subscription. Much like when a customer sends a Govalo gift card, they can even select the date on which they want the recipient to get that email.
The recipient can then activate their subscription whenever they choose, and manage it the same way they would if they’d purchased it themselves. When the gifted period is over, they can add their own payment details to carry the subscription forward.
What this does is reduce all the major friction typically associated with gift subscriptions:
- No handover process from the gift buyer to the recipient involving print-outs or codes.
- Recipients can activate at their leisure, making it super convenient with no awkward timings.
- Recipients can easily manage their account the same as any other subscriber.
All of this leads to a better experience for all involved and a much higher chance of retention at the end of a gift subscription period.
Want to learn more?
Here is some support documentation you may find useful if you’re interested in Govalo x Bold integration:
Setting up your gift subscription
Configuring your email template
And you can head over to Bold’s blog here to read more from them.
#2 - Do more with email using our Drip Integration
Email is one of the most powerful channels you have to connect and engage with your customers. We want to empower more merchants to make full use of their email tools as part of their gifting experience and strategy. That’s why we recently launched our integration with Drip.
Drip users can now integrate with Govalo to fully customize the emails gift buyers and recipients receive, beyond that of the standard email customization offered within Govalo’s dashboard. That’s whether you want to just customize the look and feel of your gift emails, or get granular with segmentation and automation.
Want to learn more about how it works?
Click here to read our support documentation about connecting Govalo to Drip.
#3 - Make gift card redemption even easier QR Codes for Shopify POS
Gift cards should always be easy to redeem. After all, one of the major benefits of a digital gift card is they’re much more difficult to lose track of than a physical card. While this makes it easy to redeem online, our team started to consider the challenge of omnichannel commerce.
Customers these days expect fluid experiences when shopping. They want to be able to discover a product on social media, check it out in store, order it online, and have it delivered locally. The same applies to using a gift card - they should be able to use it whenever, wherever.
That’s why we’ve now added QR codes for gift cards that can be scanned and redeemed using Shopify POS.
How does it work?
When QR codes are enabled, gift card emails will from then on contain a QR code as well as the standard gift card code they can enter at checkout. The recipient can then shop either online using the standard code, or in your physical stores using the QR code. Your team members simply need to scan the code using Shopify POS - easy peasy.
#4 - Customize the way Govalo works with your stack using webhooks
No two Shopify stores are built equally. With over 7000 apps in the App Store, there are countless combinations you can add to your store’s stack to create the experience you want for your team and customers. Webhooks are a simple way to build unique and custom integrations, and we’ve made it to do so with Govalo.
Using your other services like IFTTT, Zapier, Alloy, Mesa, etc. or even your own server you can connect Govalo events to anything. Simply enter the URL you’d like these webhook events to be sent to! Govalo will then send events to this URL so that you can customize and integrate in countless different ways.
#5 - Understand customer action better with our event timeline feature
Being able to offer swift customer support is essential to customer experience and retention. The faster you can resolve a customer issue, the better. Many slow response times can be caused by something as simple as taking too much time trying to understand the timeline of a customer’s actions and how that has impacted them. So, we’ve made it easier for your support teams to see exactly how a customer has engaged with a gift card or store credit.
Govalo’s new event timeline displays the actions and timestamps of a given customer. From when they purchased, to when an email was sent, and more. This will give your team much needed clarity on individual situations, and allow them to speed up those response times.
We also shipped…
The last few months have been a bumper shipping period for our team. The 5 we already walked through are just the headliners, so let’s take a look at what else is new with Govalo as we head into the remainder of Q2.
Klaviyo Integration
Even more for email! Our Klaviyo integration was our first step into making it easier for merchants to do more with email and gifting. Premium and Enterprise customers can connect Govalo and Klaviyo which not only allows for deeper customization, but opens up new opportunities - did someone say create and issue gift cards directly in Klaviyo?
Bulk Issue via CSV
Running a promotion or giveaway? Got an enquiry for a large corporate gift order? Earlier this year we made it super straightforward for merchants to issue gift cards in bulk using a simple CSV file. Just plug in the details, upload it into Govalo and the job is done.
Store Credit Dashboard
One of our biggest updates to the app was the ability for Enterprise customers to manage and issue store credit using Govalo. After all, gift cards are a sort of store credit so it made sense to add this functionality into the app and make it simple for merchants to manage both from one central location.
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Stay tuned for even more exciting updates coming soon including more integrations with some top Shopify apps, and even more features that will really take your gifting experience to the next level.