The Benefits Of Digital Warranty & Product Registration Programs

If you ask anyone in business, more specifically someone in marketing, they’ll tell you how important it is to know your customer.

It is because of this, that so many of them look to get their hands on whatever consumer data they can find. Often, they’ll collect piles and piles of poor quality, inaccurate third-party data with no understanding of how to use it.

If businesses and marketing professionals could only just take a step back and realize, more isn’t always better–especially when it comes to consumer data.

When it comes to collecting consumer data, the best source is directly from your customers themselves. While that source might not give you the same quantity of data as a third party, it is sure to be better quality data.

The ability to gather self-reported data directly from your customers and then implement it how you see fit is one of, if not the most important benefit of, a product and warranty registration–something we plan to expand on throughout this blog.

Third Party Data Is Out, Self-Reported Data Is In

Let us circle back around for those of you we might have lost there in the introduction.

By now, most businesses realize the need for consumer data. And as long as they’re willing to pay for it, they have no problem finding a multitude of third party data sources. (Third party data is collected by–not surprisingly–third parties. The party collecting the data typically has no direct relationship to the person whose data is being collected.)

But let’s face it, while third-party data is plentiful and relatively easy to access, it is typically inaccurate, irrelevant, unorganized, and poor quality–can you agree? According to Digiday, 82% of surveyed businesses agree!

It’s time to get smarter about the data we collect. It’s time to shift our mindset away from quantity and instead, prioritize high-quality data. More particularly the kind of data that is actively given by consumers rather than collected passively–self-reported data.

Our point is, self-reported data is the most valuable type of data available to businesses today.

Not backing your marketing strategy with an adequate amount of target market research is mistake #2 on our list of 4 Mistakes Companies Make With The Marketing Strategy. Click to see the rest of the list.

Collect and Implement Valuable Customer Data With A Warranty Or Product Registration Program

If you’re interested in collecting self-reported data from your own customers, we suggest implementing a program that incorporates warranty or product registrations. When implemented properly, warranty or product registrations can be a gold mine for valuable customer data.

As long as your customers see the value in your program and trust that you won’t misuse their information, they should have no problem providing you with the data you request. This could be a name, address, ethnicity, income, education, family structure, marital status, etc.

Once obtained, you’ll be able to use this data to improve your marketing and sales goals, strategies, and processes.

Is a warranty registration program not the direction for your business? See the other unique marketing channels we suggest looking into for 2019.

Go A Step Further–Take Your Warranty or Product Registration Program Digital.

In the past, warranty and product registration programs required customers to fill out a separate paper card for each product they wanted to register, and then return those cards via mail to the business or manufacturer and wait for confirmation or approval.

Internally, a traditional mail-in registration is time-consuming and costly. Your team is tasked with printing the warranty registration cards, putting them with the product offerings, and then inputting the data into your CRM or database once returned. Plus, you’re typically responsible for paying postage back!

You can see why this process might be viewed as inefficient, outdated, and burdensome to a customer today–discouraging customer participation and limiting the amount of data you’re able to collect.

As a business relying on your warranty or product registration program to supply consumer data, it’s in your best interest to do whatever is necessary to increase and sustain customer participation. For you, this might mean it’s time to take your warranty or product registration submission process digital.

The Benefits Of A Digital Warranty or Product Registration Program

The benefits of a digital registration program can be felt by both your company and your customers–win-win!

Customer Benefits

By taking your warranty registration program digital, you’ll relieve a large amount of the burden keeping your customers from completing the process. By employing digital resources like one-time entry databases and automatic submission apps (programs that automatically start the warranty registration process based on customer purchase data) you’ll simplify your customer’s role in the process and thus, increase the likelihood that they’ll submit.

Business Benefits

A digital warranty and product registration program will save your business time, money, and stress.

By taking your warranty or product registration process digital, your business will be able to:

• Quickly receive and process registrations and claims
• Cost-effectively receive and process registrations and claims
• Encourage more customer participation
• Enter incoming registrations and claims easily (not manually)
• Access an organized database of relative customer data
• Use customer data for more focused marketing efforts in the future (product upgrades, enhancements, new lines, etc.)

At Incentive Insights, we have seen first hand how a business can benefit from a warranty registration program. Whether you go the digital or traditional route with your warranty registration program, our team of experts are prepared to help gather and report on the data that means the most to your business’s goals. We strive to provide you with customer data you can actually use to improve your sales.