I have been working in the incentive and recognition industry for nearly fifteen years and have grown accustomed to its seasonal stages.  For example, summer’s arrival means the opportunity for mid-year review and assessment.  It is the perfect time for clients to take stock of the state of their businesses, and make plans for the remainder of the year. There’s still time to impact total year results, but only if one takes decisive action now.

For clients with existing incentive or recognition programs, this is a good time to do a comprehensive program review. Here at QIC, we have an established protocol for such reviews, including analyses of participant engagement, point award and redemption activity and reward item popularity. We use the output of these analyses to help our clients make adjustments to key performance indicators (see Mike Sullivan’s recent blog post ) and develop communications campaigns to insure the program’s visibility with participants. This, in turn, increases the likelihood that the program will drive the intended and desired business results for the year (and beyond).

For those clients that don’t have programs, a mid-year assessment of progress to plan many times highlights a need for corrective (or supportive) action. In some such cases, QIC has worked with clients on short-term programs that award customers for meeting prescribed year-end targets. In other cases, we have developed point-earning contests that award internal sales forces for exceeding budgeted levels. In all cases, QIC employs regular and frequent communication of a variety of types (see my earlier blog post ) to keep the short-term initiative “top of mind” for customers or sales personnel.

If you find your business wildly exceeding your mid-year plan numbers – congratulations! If not, and would like some ideas about how to help make your year a success, please contact us here or give us a call.