Category: Customer Loyalty

Customer Loyalty Incentive Programs

Effective Communications Improve Engagement

Improve Engagement with Effective CommunicationsEffective communications are instrumental to the success of any business, organization or enterprise.  As Rob Miklas colorfully illustrates in this postA Smoother Flight with Effective Program Communications – without effective communications your recognition or incentive program will most likely never reach its full potential.

Like regular announcements from the flight deck, pertinent program information should be effectively shared with program participants.   As I pointed out in a previous post, “communicating the program, its purpose (and its potential positive impact on the organization), and participants’ potential to earn exciting rewards is equally important.  It won’t matter how well you construct the program if the target audience doesn’t understand or has never heard of its existence.”

To achieve maximum reach and effectiveness, consider program communication methods from the outset and incorporate your communication strategy into your overall program budget.  Utilize methods that best fit your program participants and are consistent with program type.  These may include email campaigns, onsite messaging such as posters and/or banners, payroll stuffers, newsletter articles or program brochures/guides.  Social recognition events and consistent manager/employee interaction will also serve to validate program message and purpose.

Effective communications inform, engage and motivate participants – and significantly enhance potential program success.  Remember – the news you have to share is exciting and relevant to your participants.  Like most passengers who pay attention to the captain’s announcements – your participants will want to be informed of pertinent program information.

  • Inform – Your program design is sound – you have a clearly defined set of measureable and obtainable objectives.  You’ve assigned appropriate value to those indicators and weighted issuance to produce positive results.  Clearly communicating the program and its purpose is just as important to program success.
  • Engage – Your program won’t benefit the organization if participants aren’t actively engaged.  Consistent communications maintain excitement, remind participants about program benefits (rewards) and help to foster a healthy culture.
  • Motivate­ – Communicate individual and team performance regularly to encourage personal and corporate competition.  Engaged participants want to know where they stand – and how their performance positively impacts the organization.

Contact us to find out more about incorporating effective communications into your existing or future recognition or incentive program.

Recognition and Incentive Rewards – Trophy Value Lasts a Lifetime

In the Incentive and Reward Recognition industry, there are many articles, whitepapers, etc. written about this idea of Trophy Value as it relates to the rewards offering.  Trophy Value meaning the continued reminder tangible rewards, as opposed to non-tangible rewards (e.g., cash and gift cards), provide of the task completed and the work performed in… Read more »

Take Out Pizza and Online Points Programs – How Convenient!

I’ve discovered some interesting parallels between QIC’s online points programs – on the IncenTrac® platform — and take-out pizza.  First, I have a confession to make — I don’t cook (gasp!), and it’s not that I don’t know how or that I don’t enjoy cooking — I just don’t do it. It is time consuming… Read more »

Setting The Value Proposition of Your Incentive Program – How Much is Enough?

I recently had a somewhat mundane, yet ironically valuable, experience that highlighted for me the importance of establishing an appropriate value proposition in your customer incentive or channel sales incentive program.  Here’s the story. I purchased a number of items at a national-chain drugstore that has a loyalty program. After supplying my program ID and… Read more »

Building True Loyalty: Closing the Expectations Gap

An article by Jim Tierney about a Colloquy study entitled “Global Strategy, Local Tactics” is very enlightening.  The study looks at loyalty programs in five different global regions and as Jim points out, exposes an expectations gap that leaves a large part of the market disengaged.  As a result, the majority of programs are not building… Read more »

Having an Employee Recognition or Incentive Program Is Valuable – Making It the Best is Critical

Two recent publications, the 2013 Incentive Market Study (Incentive Federation, Inc.) and the 2013 Colloquy Loyalty Census, present a number of very interesting facts and observations about the recognition, incentive, and loyalty market. Among the more salient of those facts are:  74% of U.S. businesses use non-cash rewards to recognize and reward key audiences, and… Read more »