Please allow me to open by admitting to a serious case of writer’s block. My last post was more than three months ago, during which time I have been actively searching for topics that I thought would be of interest to our readers. I finally resorted to referring to one of my previous posts, Inspiration for Continued Inspiration, to see if that would help. And, in a way, it did.

I determined that I needed to consider a broader range of sources for insights and information that could, or should, apply to B2B recognition and incentive programs. As a result, I now refer you to a piece by Lee Breslouer, published on the food, drink, and travel website Thrillist – THE INTERNET RESPONDS TO CHIPOTLE’S NEW REWARDS PROGRAM. In this piece, the author presents a number of tweets with reactions to the rewards program recently introduced by the fast food Mexican restaurant, Chipotle. I’ll let you read the tweets, which stand on their own humorous merits, but I think that there are some clear takeaways for incentive programs and their design.

1 – While not universal, there is a plurality of responses that praise Chipotle for introducing a program in the first place. There’s also a bit of an undercurrent that says “why didn’t this happen sooner?” The message here is that you should never take your best customers for granted. If you’re not recognizing and/or rewarding those customers in some way, it’s certainly worth asking whether you should do so.

2 – Value propositions are important. That seems like an obvious statement, but it’s illustrative that more than one of the selected responses questions the strength of the rewards program value proposition. I can only assume that Chipotle researched this topic adequately prior to introducing the program, but the outcome of that research is apparently somewhat underwhelming. Here at QIC, we recommend that you test your reward value proposition with several (if not multiple) disparate audiences to obtain as much feedback as possible prior to roll-out.

3 –  Finally, one response said simply “so confusing I stopped reading the rules.” I trust that no further elaboration on this point is required!

In summary, regardless of the business, customer base and product, there are some timeless best practices to be followed in making a decision to launch program – and how it should be designed. As always, we’re ready to help whenever the time is right. We invite you to contact us.