Wallet pass back fields are the space a customer opens when something puzzles them, and their job is to answer questions before those questions reach your staff. Put the reward terms, the expiry, how to redeem and your address there — ordered by what gets asked most.
Who actually opens the back of a pass?
Not everybody, and that is the whole point. The customer who passes you daily will never open the back, and does not need to. The person who opens it is the one who stopped at a question: do my stamps expire? Can I use this at the other branch? What happens if I change my phone?
So the back is not marketing space but service space. Every question you answer there is a question that never reaches your cashier in a busy queue, and a doubt that never turns into a deleted pass. It is the cheapest customer service you own.
The six essential fields
| Field | Content | Why it sits there |
|---|---|---|
| How you earn the reward | One sentence describing the cycle | The most looked-for item |
| How to redeem it | Show the pass at the till | Prevents awkwardness on qualifying |
| Validity | How long a balance lasts, plainly | The second most asked, and the source of complaints |
| Exclusions | What does not count, if anything | Must be read before the till, not at it |
| Where we are | Address and opening hours | Useful and rarely needed |
| Contact us | One number or account only | An exit route for exceptional cases |
That order is not cosmetic. The first fields get read and the last get skimmed, so whatever you put at the bottom is seen by far fewer people. Put exclusions in the middle rather than at the end: a customer who discovers an exclusion at the till is angry; one who read it a month ago accepts it.
Writing terms without sounding like a lawyer
Long terms protect nobody. The customer does not read them, and when a dispute arises you are not going to open a legal text in front of somebody in a queue. Write what you actually intend to enforce, in short sentences, in the language you would use out loud at the counter.
Do
- One sentence per term, with a blank line between them.
- Explicit numbers: "a year from your last visit", not "a reasonable period".
- Second person: "you get…", not "the customer receives…".
- Say what happens when they change phones — a common, silent worry.
Do not
- Do not paste boilerplate legal text you have no intention of enforcing.
- Do not write "subject to terms and conditions" without stating them; it means nothing.
- Do not reserve the right to change things "at any time without notice" — customers read that as a threat.
- Do not put on the back what belongs on the face, such as the balance or the reward.
The third item on the right deserves a pause. "Without prior notice" is common in boilerplate and gains you nothing in practice, while telling the customer outright that their balance could vanish overnight. Write what you will actually do instead: "if we change anything, we will tell you a month beforehand."
Three silent questions to answer
- What if I change my phone? A genuine worry for many people that nobody asks about. One sentence explaining the balance follows their account rather than their device is enough.
- Does this work at every branch? If you have more than one, say so explicitly. Ambiguity here makes customers assume the worst and use the card at a single branch.
- Do my stamps expire if I stay away? If they do not, say so — it is a strong advantage wasted by silence. If they do, say exactly when.
These three never reach you, because the customer does not ask them: they assume an answer and act on it. And a silent assumption always tends towards the worst case, so they use the card less and you never learn why.
The right length
Six short fields beat three long ones, and beat twelve fields nobody reads by a wide margin. The working rule: if you cannot read the entire back in half a minute it is longer than it should be, so cut whatever changes nobody's behaviour.
Test it simply: give the back text to a new member of staff and ask them afterwards what they would do if a customer arrived with an expired reward. If they hesitate, the text is unclear. If they answer immediately, you have written enough.
Common questions
Can I edit the back after customers have added the pass?
Yes, and the edit reaches every pass automatically. That is a genuinely useful property: you can add an answer whenever a question recurs at the till, so the back text improves over time rather than staying as you first wrote it. Review it quarterly against what is actually being asked.
Does the back look the same on Apple and Google?
The content is the same but the presentation differs: how many fields show before scrolling, how the detail view opens, and the order of some elements. Write so the meaning never depends on exact sequence, and make each field understandable on its own without the one above it.
Should I put links on the back?
One at most, and make it something the customer genuinely needs, such as a branches page or a way to get in touch. Many links turn a service space into an advertising list, and somebody who opened the back looking for an answer will not appreciate finding your social accounts instead.