Loyalty/Rewards Programs in B2B

Ben Coffman

Have you implemented a loyalty or rewards program in a B2B technology company? If so, are there any best practices you can share?

Nicholas Zarb

Hi Ben,

I can talk to this topic - have developed both loyalty schemes & channel partner programs. e.g. we developed the Uber Rewards loyalty scheme, which spans B2B/B2C.

Fundamentally a good loyalty program should have clear defined goals, but typically they are things like improving retention by increasing switching costs, growing share of wallet, optimizing the product experience - usage/cross-sell, collecting data & differentiating yourself from the competition.

Next it is about structure - from a simple punchcard type model that can be effective but easy to copy, to more sophisticated tiered points based systems (like an airline), that help target multiple segments, but are more difficult to implement and manage.

Then it is about driving behaviors, and rewarding those behaviors - what do you want customers to do, are they willing to do that, and if so, how much do you need to reward them to do those things (and how much are you willing to spend). Rewards should be a mixture of hard and soft benefits - e.g. $ (as discounts or points for cash) and soft benefits like priority support. This always should be developed using customer research for that outside in view and so you can understand expectations, their perception of value, and likely changes in behaviors.

Finally, you have to then scenario model the outcomes as obviously customers cannot always exactly predict how their behavior might change, but also you want to design the scheme to provide some stretch and thus set tiers etc. at appropriate levels. We usually do monte carlo simulations of the financial model input assumptions so you can estimate upside probabilities.

And then implementation of course, but that's perhaps for another conversation!

Thanks!

Nick

BriannaRuddle

Hi Ben,  This is a great question. @John Ragsdale, Can you give any insight to Ben on implementing a loyalty or rewards program in a B2B technology company and any best practices?

Here is a conference presentation that may help answer some of your question. Presented by Sharon Nyugen at ServiceNow, "Customer Satisfaction Programs: Creating Accountability and Incentives | TSIA".

Hope this helps!

Ben Coffman

Hi Brianna. Thanks for the referral and the link. The presentation was interesting, but it doesn't cover what I'm looking for. I had a call with Sara Johnson, and she validated there really isn't much TSIA research in this area. She did give us some good insight though and she suggested asking the forum.

Ben Coffman

Hi Nick,

Thank you for the thorough and thoughtful insight here! This is definitely helpful. I'm going to connect with you via LinkedIn for a few follow-up questions.

Ben