Every time a company holds a special promotion during a particular time of the year, it is normal for businesses to expect an increase in sales. It would be awesome to keep these customers continually interested all year.
This is where the customer incentive program comes into play. To set up a program that will allow you to gain new customers and keep them loyal to you, an expert incentive company is necessary and valuable.
Touch Point Events specializes in incentive programs in the San Francisco, Bay Area From activities and excursions to local transportation, hotel.
The Misconception
A lot of organizations consider customer incentive programs to be a very expensive and tedious activity. Very few people know that there are experienced incentive companies that have the ability to make your incentive program happen without making you spend a fortune. Consider coming up with a customer incentive program if you want your customers to become loyal, increase your customer base and find convertible leads.
Incentive Programs are a Must-have
In the world of business, it is inevitable for customers to simply not return even if you have excellent products and provide good customer service. By finding a reputable, first-rate incentive company, you will have a way to make sure that customers will remember your brand or business.
There are several options in terms of what types of incentives your company can offer including a points program, a referral bonus, a thank you gift or simply a gift incentive. Customers enjoy the feeling of being appreciated, plus they like it when they get more than what they paid for.
You can achieve this effect through a customer incentive program. They will make sure that you have an awesome and memorable event within your budget. They will take you through the planning of your event step by step and make sure that your party is as enjoyable and as unique as possible. Event Companies San Francisco
Fail-proof Incentives
A company with expertise in rewards programs can help set up one for your business. Offering incentives without the help of these sort of experienced professionals could be risky.
These professionals know what works, what’s most effective, and what’s most appropriate. When your incentive program is backed up by an incentive company, you’ll be certain that incentives are targeted to benefit the appropriate demographics, industry sectors, and clients – including their purchasing practices and habits.
By utilizing an incentive company to mange your program, you will be assured that your incentives are geared towards your particular industry, demographic, and the shopping habits of your typical customer. A customer incentive program that is successful is one that offers the customer a choice of which reward they receive, such as a travel voucher, gift certificate, gift card, etc. It gives the customer a comforting feeling of control, and urges them to stay involved in the program.
Sheer Satisfaction
You can handle the fulfillment in various ways when you utilize an incentive company. For example, you can reward an online buyer electronically and ship the small gifts tagged with a tracking number. When the customer feels safe and secure that they will indeed receive the rewards, the customer incentive program is successful.
The incentive company will take care of keeping the stock’s inventory and making sure that it’s shipped correctly so you can focus on running your business.
Conclusions
By having a customer incentive program, a business can expect to see renewed customer interest and excitement for their company. With a minor investment in this program, and a quality incentive company to run it, your business may soon be reaping the benefits of long-term customer loyalty.
Are You Running an Unfair Incentive Program?
If you have any influence or management responsibility over employee incentive programming within your company, at one time or another you have undoubtedly heard negative feedback on how the program is unfair, favors one group over another or is just too difficult to achieve.
While you should always give these arguments fair consideration, don’t be unnecessarily pressured into watering down your employee incentive program to become a giveaway program.
Your employee incentive program may be demanding, but that is okay as long as you can be certain it is fair. How do you do this? Just ask these four questions:
1. Are the rules of the employee incentive program published so that everyone can understand the guidelines and how the program works? This is the most important of the four questions. If an employee doesn’t know what the target is, they will more than likely miss it. You can’t expect someone to play the game if they don’t understand the rules. This does not mean that you have to force feed everyone and make them sit through a daylong seminar and take a 150 question test to prove they have a solid grasp of the employee rewards program. It just means the incentive program guidelines are documented, that documentation is accessible by all participants and there is a forum for them to get any clarifying questions answered.
2. On average, does everyone in the same role have an equal chance of earning the employee incentive? – The “on average” part of this is critical. There will always be external factors influencing your employee incentive program such as current market conditions and personal situations that may tip the scales one way or another.
As a result, it will never be a totally level playing field every month for every employee. However, over the long haul these factors should even out and everyone should have the same opportunity to maximize the benefits of the program.
Another key phrase here is “everyone should have the opportunity to maximize”. This should by no means lead one to believe that over the long haul everyone is “guaranteed to maximize” the incentive program. There will always be folks who don’t want to go the extra mile and, as a result, will never receive the benefits that the “go-getters” earn – DO NOT water the employee incentive program down for these people.
3. Do a fair share (say 30% or more) of employees receive substantial benefits from the program? If the answer to this is “No”, you may have set the bar too high for your program. You don’t want to discourage folks from participating because the targets are too daunting. If your standards are too high, maybe the answer is to gradually ratchet the employee incentive program up over time.
4. Are the end results of the program published to all participants? Unless the results of the program are published, you will always invite skepticism over whether “incentives were actually awarded” or “did the manager’s ‘favorites’ receive these awards”.
Transparency builds trust and without trust in the rewards program, you can guarantee it will not be effective. Moreover, if done correctly, communication can actually enhance the ROI of the program.
If rankings are posted on a rewards website or communicated via social networking tools such as Twitter, good old-fashioned competition is bound to kick-in. Thus, yielding more of the positive actions you are trying to incent.
Another creative communication approach might be the use of a closed loop social network. This tool could be used to not only post results, but to facilitate best practices through discussion groups or forums, further developing the model behaviors you are looking for by letting employees encourage each other.
If you can answer “Yes” to each of these questions, then you can feel good about running a fair and equitable employee incentive program, that will not guarantee everyone wins, but gives everyone an equal chance at coming out on top. Discover more