Sending a customer reward card, such as a prepaid or gift card, can provide many benefits: incentivize attendance at check-in meetings, encourage participation in product training, rebuild trust after a bad experience, show appreciation at the holidays and on other occasions, and much more.
But to get the most out of your customer rewards, you need to deliver them in a way that offers the best experience possible. A bulk reward sent with a generic message, sometimes days or weeks after it was promised, won’t do much to build goodwill and loyalty. It’s better to empower your individual sales reps to send rewards to their own contacts and accounts, as they can after you integrate BHN Rewards with a CRM like Salesforce, HubSpot, or Microsoft Dynamics 365. Here’s why.
READ MORE: Control Sales Budgets With the Right Rewards Management Platform
Personalization is not only preferred by today’s consumers, it’s expected. And it’s always good for your long-term strategy, considering that almost two-thirds say they will remain loyal to companies that offer a more personalized experience, according to Salesforce. Delivering a customer reward card from the individual sales rep involved means it can be sent with a custom, personal message that strengthens the relationship. Building strong customer connections is important for both sales and retention.
Sales reps can provide a better experience when they deliver a customer reward card right away. If they promise an incentive or appeasement reward, but it doesn’t arrive till several days or weeks later, it loses impact. Instant gratification is powerful and can help you close deals, generate loyalty, and boost retention. With BHN Rewards’ digital delivery options, reps can give their customers that satisfaction within minutes, with just a few clicks. It creates a more emotional response and helps the recipient better associate that positive experience with your brand and the sending sales rep.
When you use bulk rewards, the recipient list may be created without much thought or scrutiny, and you might end up using your budget where it isn’t needed. While rewards are almost always good for your business and customer relationships, you want to make sure they’re as effective and beneficial as possible. Those unnecessary rewards sent carelessly in bulk might mean you no longer have funds to give a customer reward card that would have been better spent to retain or upsell a client. By letting your reps use their discretion for when a prepaid or gift card is really going to benefit the business, you’ll make the most of your budget.
Once you understand the need to arm individual sales reps with the ability to send rewards individually, make sure you’re not missing any appropriate opportunity to do so. Consider expanding rewarding capabilities to your reps doing outbound prospecting to incentivize product demos. Rewards are also great for reengaging cold leads or shortening the sales cycle for waffling prospects.
Download our Sales Playbook to learn about more ways to use prospect and customer rewards to boost your sales success.
Hannah is a reformed journalist who has more than 15 years of experience and now focuses on content marketing for innovative tech companies.
Hannah is a reformed journalist who has more than 15 years of experience and now focuses on content marketing for innovative tech companies.
