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Overview

When a customer reports that they didn’t receive an expected reward, your goal is to determine where the reward journey stopped. Most issues fall into one of these categories:

• The qualifying event never occurred.
• The event hasn’t been processed yet.
• The event wasn’t attributed to the referral program.
• The participant wasn’t eligible.
• The reward rule didn’t evaluate successfully.
• The reward was created but hasn’t been delivered.

This is a guide on how to address these questions from your customers. If you are looking for more information on why a WISMR may occur, please review WISMR 101: Understanding Missing Reward Requests​. For more info on the User Support section as a whole, check out Leveraging User Support Pages.

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Investigation Workflow

Before You Begin Collect the following information before investigating:

• Participant email address(es)
• Approximate date and time of the qualifying action
• Expected reward
• Referral, order, or account ID, if available
• Campaign or program name
• Screenshots or error messages

This information will help you locate the participant and reconstruct their referral journey.

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Step 1: Confirm the Qualifying Action

Verify that the participant completed the action your campaign rewards:

• Purchase
• Signup
• Trial start
• Account opening
• Account funding

If the required action has not occurred, no reward can be issued. Also verify whether enough time has passed for event processing. Depending on your integration, events may be processed in real time, hourly, or through scheduled batch uploads.

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Step 2: Open the Participant Profile

Locate the participant using their email address. From the participant profile, review both the Activity tab and Show Steps. For investigations, Show Steps is the primary troubleshooting tool because it displays the participant’s complete event timeline, including:

• Referral clicks
• Campaign attribution
• Qualifying events
• Reward evaluations
• Internal processing events
• Unattributed events

Always review events from the earliest event forward.

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Step 3: Verify Referral Attribution

Determine whether the qualifying event belongs to a referral journey. A successful referral journey usually follows this sequence:

1. Referral link clicked
2. Referral context established
3. Signup or registration
4. Purchase or other qualifying event
5. Reward evaluation

If the qualifying event occurred before the referral was established, it cannot be associated with the referral program. Referral attribution is not retroactive.

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Step 4: Look for Unattributed Events

An event may have been received by Extole but not associated with a referral. These events typically:

• Have no Campaign
• Have no Journey
• Have no Program
• Display Quality = NONE

This indicates that Extole processed the event but could not associate it with a referral journey. Without referral attribution, reward rules cannot evaluate the event.

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Step 5: Verify Reward Configuration

Navigate to Campaign → Rules to confirm that:

• The qualifying event is configured.
• The rule includes a reward.
• The reward rule is active.

If no reward is attached to the event, or if the event doesn’t satisfy the configured rule conditions, a reward will not be created.

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Step 6: Review Eligibility

Even when attribution succeeds, participants must still satisfy the campaign’s eligibility requirements. Common examples include:

• New customers only
• Minimum purchase amount
• Qualifying products
• Eligible account types
• Campaign audience restrictions
• Geographic requirements

If any eligibility requirement isn’t met, reward evaluation stops.

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Step 7: Determine Whether the Reward Was Created

If attribution, configuration, and eligibility all appear correct, determine whether the reward exists.

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Reward Exists

If the reward has already been created, investigate delivery. Common causes of delayed delivery include:

• Reward provider processing
• Email delivery delays
• Spam or junk filtering

Before you conclude that the reward the requester is asking about doesn’t exist, reconcile what you found against the referral journey rather than against the details in the request. Requests routinely describe the right referral with the wrong particulars. The date in the request is usually the qualifying action, not the reward. A requester who writes “loan date 5/29” or “order placed 7/8” is giving you the date of the outcome event. The reward is created when the event is approved and the rule evaluates, which can be days or weeks later. A reward whose date doesn’t line up with the date you were given is still very likely the reward in question. Check both people in the referral, not only the one named. Requests often name the advocate when the reward sits on the friend, or the reverse. A reward attached to the other participant in the same referral journey is the same case — not a separate one. Check the amount and the recipient address before ruling a reward out. A reward for a different amount may reflect a tier or a bonus, and a reward already delivered to a mistyped address is a delivery problem rather than a missing reward. If reconciliation shows the reward does exist, the request is a delivery or recovery question: check the state and the supplier, then resend, re-deliver to a corrected address, or approve the failed reward. Don’t issue a new one.

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Reward Doesn’t Exist

Review the participant timeline and reward evaluation to determine which condition prevented reward creation. If your investigation confirms the qualifying action really happened — for example, you can see the purchase or account funding in your own systems — but the event never reached Extole or occurred before attribution was established, you can correct the outcome manually. Create the event through User Support > Create Event, preferring the campaign’s makegood event when one exists so the compensation stays separate from organic funnel data. See How to Manually Create a Referral or other Event for the full walkthrough, including the duplicate-reward check to perform first.

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Understanding Activity vs. Show Steps

Both views provide participant information, but they serve different purposes. When troubleshooting, always rely on Show Steps.

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Common Investigation Outcomes

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The Qualifying Event Never Occurred

The participant hasn’t completed the required action, so no reward can be issued until the qualifying event occurs.

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The Qualifying Event Is Still Processing

The event has not yet been processed by Extole - wait until the next processing cycle before continuing the investigation.

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The Event Wasn’t Attributed

The participant completed the qualifying action before referral attribution existed or never entered the referral journey. Events without attribution cannot generate rewards.

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The Participant Isn’t Eligible

The participant failed one or more eligibility requirements configured for the campaign.

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The Reward Rule Didn’t Evaluate Successfully

Review the reward rule configuration and determine which condition failed.

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The Reward Exists but Hasn’t Been Delivered

The reward has already been created, meaning that the issue is likely related to delivery rather than reward generation. If the reward is in a Sent state, open the reward and click Resend on the Reward Details page. If the reward should go to a corrected email address for a Tango gift, see How to Resend Tango Rewards. For other suppliers, or if Resend does not resolve the issue, contact support@extole.com.

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Explaining the Outcome to the Customer

After identifying the cause, communicate the result in clear, non-technical language. For example:

We reviewed your referral activity and found that the qualifying purchase occurred before the referral link was used. Because the referral wasn’t established until after the purchase, the purchase couldn’t be associated with the referral program and wasn’t eligible for a reward.

Or:

We confirmed that your reward has been created successfully and is currently being processed by our reward provider. Delivery may take a little longer to complete.

Avoid using internal terminology such as Quality, Show Steps, or rule evaluation when communicating with customers.

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Investigation Checklist

Before escalating to Extole Support, confirm that you have verified: ✓ The participant completed the qualifying action. ✓ Enough time has passed for event processing. ✓ The participant timeline has been reviewed in Show Steps. ✓ Referral attribution exists. ✓ The qualifying event occurred after attribution. ✓ The reward rule is configured correctly. ✓ Eligibility requirements are satisfied. ✓ The reward has or has not been created. ✓ Any existing reward has been reconciled against the referral journey, not only against the date in the request. ✓ Reward delivery status has been confirmed. If all of these checks have been completed and the issue remains unresolved, contact Extole Support at support@extole.com and include your investigation findings.