Avoiding 5 Common Pitfalls for B2B Loyalty Programs

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B2B Loyalty Programs,

B2B loyalty programs are a great way to capture success in the face of many businesses’ pain points. Customer retention, a lack of sales growth or margin protection, and losing share of wallet to competitors are expected issues that all companies deal with and can all be addressed in the design stages of your program.

However, they are not simply implemented and left to succeed—many problems can cause your program to fail without frequent analysis and modification. We’ve outlined the common reasons a B2B loyalty program can fail and how to avoid them.

Ready to take your brand to the next level with a B2B loyalty program? That’s where 212F comes in!

3. Is your program simple enough to draw value?

A B2B loyalty program can offer everything your customers could possibly want, but if the hurdles to register, engage, and redeem are perceived as too high, they’ll never actually reach that point. Complex programs can be doomed to fail simply by seeming too time-consuming to actually feel ‘worth it’ to participate in.

If your customers need to navigate convoluted processes, submit mountains of documents, or face technical challenges while trying to participate or redeem from the platform, they won’t feel as excited to actually gain the value you’re offering, reducing engagement. This means your program needs to be simplified and streamlined into user-friendly tools and platforms.

We’ve known this since we started designing our programs and platforms in 1996, which is why we manage the entire process, from strategy and design to continued maintenance and reporting, with our in-house data team, 212F Labs.

We break everything down into easily processable steps that your customers and channel partners will love. This allows them to focus on the reason they’re here—doing business with your brand and the value it gives them!

4. Are your customers equipped to use your program?

Similar to the need to simplify your program mentioned above, it’s crucial to provide regular updates, training and assistance for their journey through your B2B loyalty program.

By providing guidance and relevant materials to help your customers and partners maximise the value they can draw from your program and leveraging the available resources, you can ensure they won’t encounter any hiccups that could taint their experience with your brand.

These processes go hand-in-hand with a joint approach between your sales and marketing teams. The two-pronged attack of touchstone communications and face-to-face relationship-building with BDMs and sales teams will keep your brand front-of-mind and ensure a positive and streamlined experience with your program.

This is also why we provide in-house customer support through account managers and support centre call staff based in Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland – we ensure that all of our staff have the appropriate knowledge to assist any customer should any issues arise and solve them on the spot, sharply reducing wait time and allowing them to keep drawing the value they want, keeping them actively engaged in your program!

5. Are you and your customers drawing the right insights from your program?

The final issue that your program may encounter comes down to analytics. Do your customers have visibility into their progress? Does your brand understand more about your customers through their engagement in the program? If the answer to either of those questions is ‘no’, your program is in trouble from both ends.

Accurate and relevant tracking and reporting are essential to your program’s continued success. Our platforms are designed with user experience in mind, ensuring that your customers and channel partners can easily understand their progress in your program. This is supplemented by the frequent and relevant communication strategy we discussed earlier.

Similarly, with our internal engagement model and in-house data team, alongside ongoing monitoring and reporting from account managers, we can provide your brand with insights on where your customers sit within the program currently and the steps you can take to move them from being on the way out to back on the winner’s podium, redeeming rewards and making purchases through your business, moving share of wallet to your products as opposed to losing them to competitors.

This is not a comprehensive list of all possible reasons a B2B loyalty program may fail to succeed. Still, these are the largest ones to consider as your brand starts on your program journey. For these reasons and more, it is critical to partner with an agency that understands these common pitfalls and has put relevant precautions into the program design to ensure that both you and your customers can get everything you want and more out of it!

Ready to set yourself up for success with a B2B loyalty program?

If you’re interested in seeing what your brand and customers can gain from a B2B loyalty program, we recommend contacting us today for a no-obligation meeting with our experienced sales staff. We can hear your pains and design a program to solve them specifically—and more!

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