When it comes to both boosting sales and offering customers a way to save money, few incentives are as beneficial for all parties as a rebate program. Rebate programs vary in scale, and while some rebates are offered after a single sale, others require customers to make various purchases over an extended period of time. This can prove a challenge to properly monitor and fulfill, which is why using rebate fulfillment services is so important. It helps avoid the added headache of monitoring all sales and knowing when a customer reaches the established goal. In order to better understand the process of executing a rebate and fulfilling your end of the agreement, here’s what you need to know, from creation to fulfillment, of any rebate program.
Crafting the Rebate Program
Creating the right rebate program can be challenging. It isn’t simply picking a set of products and prices for customers to purchase before sending out a randomized rebate. Everything needs to be properly analyzed to make sure it generates new sales, boosts revenue, and doesn’t hinder the success of your business. This is done by performing a sales audit of your company while also sifting through the analytical data of not just what you sell, but when products are bought, when downtime occurs, and which customers are more likely to be interested in what rebates. There’s an art to creating the right rebate program, and Incentive Insights can help you with this.
Every business is different, so the right rebate program for your company as well as your customers will differ from the next business, even if you sell the same products. It is why you need to partner with an incentive service provider that doesn’t offer cookie-cutter experiences or services. You need an incentive service provider that can tailor the rebate to both you and your client profile.
Launching the Marketing
Once the rebate program has been decided upon and the necessary software applications, the rebate can be launched. Of course, your customers, both current and potential, need to be made aware of the rebate program. It doesn’t do you much good if nobody knows about it. You will want to work with the marketing department on how to educate customers about the services you’re offering with the rebate and how the rebate can assist the customer in saving money. Whether this is done through email marketing, mailers, social media platforms, or a combination of other outreach methods, the success of the rebate program is in the hands of the marketing department. Incentive Insights can help highlight attractive elements of the incentive plan that have proven desirable to customers and, in turn, will help generate additional sales.
Monitoring
This is where many companies begin to struggle. While one-off rebate programs that require a customer to make a single purchase aren’t difficult to monitor, multi-tier programs can prove challenging. When a customer needs to make multiple purchases over an extended period of time, it requires your business to stay on top of every single sale you make and who is making the purchase. Because if a customer isn’t granted their rebate, despite fulfilling their end of the agreement, it doesn’t matter if fulfillment failure was an accident or not, they will likely leave your business and have negative things to say about your company.
The purpose of a rebate incentive is to boost sales and bring in new customers, not push existing customers away. All of the negatives can be avoided with proper monitoring put in place. The easiest way to do this is to partner yourself with an experienced rebate fulfillment service provider.
Rebate Fulfillment
The monitoring of rebate progress and rebate fulfillment go hand in hand. When a final sale has been made to complete the customer’s end of the rebate agreement, it will trigger the rebate fulfillment. Depending on what the rebate is, the refund may automatically go back into a customer’s account. If that is not desired, or if you want to be notified of the completion of any rebate program, you can receive all of this information the moment the final payment has been processed.
You will then need to fulfill the rebate agreement. During the initial creating phase of the rebate incentive, you will want to provide information to the customer that dictates how much time you have at your disposal to provide the rebate. For example, you might indicate your company has up to 90 days to offer the rebate payment to the customer. It is important to clarify exactly the amount of time you have to perform the rebate fulfillment. This will prevent most customers from contacting you prematurely.
If everything can be handled electronically once a customer completes their final purchase, an email can be triggered that is sent out to the customer, thanking them for their final purchase. This can also be used as a reminder to the customer as it will tell them again when to expect their rebate and how it will be delivered to them.
Discover The Rebate Fulfillment Difference
Crafting a rebate program is one thing. Executing it and fulfilling it without flaws is something else. You’re already busy, so adding rebate monitoring and fulfillment to your plate, or that of another employee, may not prove possible. Instead of bringing on another staff member to handle rebate programs, which alone may make such a program no longer cost-effective, you need to turn to a rebate fulfillment service provider such as Incentive Insights. From helping you study the analytical data in crafting a rebate program, to monitoring and fulfilling completed rebate contracts, Incentive Insights is your one-stop shop for all things customer incentives. To learn more about what Incentive Insights can do for you and how we can help you separate from the pack, give us a call or request services via email.
