Although it may sometimes seem daunting, reviewing the ups and downs of any B2B program is essential to securing momentum. Analytics provide many metrics that can cause increases in engagement, and one of the best ways can be your B2B loyalty program reward selection.
Your reward selections go together with the success of your program, as the prizes offered need to be aspirational enough to drive constant customer engagement with the program, and they need to be modelled on your expected target audience’s desires. There needs to be a direct line between your audience and your rewards; otherwise, they’ll likely lose interest in the program.
We’ve pulled together a list of important considerations when thinking about how to improve your business loyalty program’s reward selection – read on and find out how your reward variety can push your program to even greater competitive heights!
Amazon and other fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) organisations have pushed the envelope in terms of the delivery experience for B2C consumers, which can create some difficult expectations when it comes to freight times. The way your reward program dispatches redeemed rewards will not be able to match the same-day or next-day delivery timeframes that many have become accustomed to, meaning that your organisation will need to find ways to manage expectations.
This means that your program will need to be upfront with expected timeframes for shipping and fulfillment. This can be managed via listing expected timeframes from claiming to delivery and redemption on your program platform, readily available for all participants within your program.
This will serve as a dual-pronged service. Firstly, it allows your participants to educate themselves on the ins and outs of your program, prompting them to spend more time on your platform, which allows your brand to take precedence front-of-mind when it comes to the next time they’ll need to purchase. Secondly, it also removes some of the stress from your customer service team’s service levels, as these questions are widespread and can eat up a lot of time that could be better spent on more pressing issues facing your loyal customers.
By taking the initiative and communicating expectations with your program participants, you can pre-emptively manage unrealistic expectations and increase satisfaction, prompting your customers to keep coming back for more.
While conducting your program review, you may likely come across customers with point totals just shy of achieving the top rewards. There are several reasons for this – they didn’t need to purchase your product again within the timeframe, they lost interest in the program, or simply forgot. These are negative outcomes, and all point to a lack of communication and engagement cultivated by the program.
One of the biggest reasons to create a B2B loyalty program is the amount of customer data and insights you can receive on your active participants, as well as the ability to create welcomed communication-point touchstones. You can leverage the knowledge you gain on the frequency and habits of your regular customers and use them to prompt the expected purchase times, leading them directly to your brand.
These communications can incentivise purchases alongside expected purchasing habits by highlighting how close the participant is to a great reward they may have had their eyes on, promoting bonus point offers or just advising how close they are to the end of the program. These methods are tried and true and borrow from human psychology, pushing your customers to buy directly from you while keeping the benefits of your program centre-stage.
Without going too deep, a popular psychological theory called “expectancy theory” posits that individuals believe the effort they put in will lead to an outcome or reward that they deserve. This motivates within programs that build well with physical rewards.
When customers receive a reward, they can physically hold it, this reinforces the connection between the effort placed in the program and the sense of accomplishment in the form of the reward that came from it. This also supplements the trophy value sentiment that comes from physical rewards – customers with physical rewards that can be displayed will cause them to reflect positively on the circumstances that led to them earning them and allow them to advocate for the brand and program that facilitated the transaction.
Having a broad range of physical merchandise provides your customers to be able to engage with the reward catalogue regardless of their level of engagement within the program. By being flexible in cost within the reward yield, you prompt your customers to engage with your program at any level, boosting participation levels and allowing the positive sentiment from the program to take full effect.
Continuing with the above suggestion of a deep and varied rewards yield, the pool of rewards should come about from a deep analysis of your target customer base’s demographics. By loading your reward selection with a series of items that speak directly to your target audience, your program reduces potential waste by taking on products that will make little to no impact.
Another option for your reward selection is to offer bespoke reward bundles with a variety of thematic rewards packaged together to provide additional value while providing discounts to your customers.
As well as putting together the bundle, we also generally include a letter from the program congratulating any redeeming customers on their accomplishment, branded to drive the connection between the business and the reward. This creates a feeling that can’t be replicated with a digital selection, as the ritual of opening the parcel creates joy and excitement unmatched by opening an email.
In addition to the perceived value, a program offering larger bundles of items that click with your audience can increase retention and engagement within the program, causing the participants to stick around longer than they already have if they had just purchased an individual item.
That’s not to say that digital options lack impact – physical rewards just serve specific purposes that digital selections can be unable to replicate. There are likely customer segments and demographics that connect with the convenience and ease of availability that digital offers, but these options lack the human connection element and trophy value that comes from a physical reward.
