It was one of those little ironies: a Canadian technology company that had discovered many of its field representatives were, for all intents and purposes, computer-illiterate.
As Carmen Inglese, partner with Toronto-based promotions agency AReA recalls it, the client decided that the situation called for a dose of tough love. So, with AReA’s assistance, the company mounted an incentive program for the reps, with one big catch: In order to participate, they had to register online.
And the result? Well, according to Inglese, participation reached 100% within the first month.
As this case history neatly illustrates, online technology can play a significant role in employee incentive programs.
Traditionally, corporate incentive program communications have been almost entirely paper-based. Today, however, a growing number of companies are incorporating at least some Internet or Intranet elements into their programs.
The advantages, Inglese says, are many.
For a start, there’s the cost saving involved in eliminating all of that paper. There’s the opportunity to build a template that can be used for future programs. And, of course, there’s the whole issue of timeliness.
‘The paper-based environment is outdated from the second it’s produced,’ Inglese says. The Internet, by contrast, offers companies the opportunity to update program information almost instantaneously – at little or no cost.
One would assume, then, that everybody’s doing it. But one would be wrong.
Only about 20% of AReA’s clients are currently using the Internet as the primary communications vehicle for their incentive programs, Inglese says. The rest are using some combination of online technology and more traditional means to reach employees.
Why? Because, as Inglese points out, adoption of the Internet as a corporate communications tool is still in its infancy. Within most mid-sized or larger companies, the average desk-based employee is usually at least Internet-literate. But that expertise hasn’t necessarily funneled down to the field force. And until those folks catch up with the constantly changing technology, organizations will still have to offer program communications in print as well as online form.
Another concern for some companies is that moving into the online realm may diminish some of the excitement traditional programs generate, with their glossy catalogues and frequent mailings.
Inglese, for his part, says that with proper forethought, an online initiative can be made just as stimulating as a traditional program.
‘Anything you can do with print you can magnify a thousand times on the Internet,’ he says. Animation, sound and real-time photos, for example, can all lend spark to an incentive program site. So can ‘success stories’ featuring digital photos of employees enjoying their hard-earned rewards.
Making the program site as interactive as possible also helps.
Consider Sharp Electronics of Canada’s ‘Sharp Shooters’ site, designed two years ago by AReA for the company’s nation-wide dealer incentive program. Participants can log on, check their points tally, click through the rewards catalogue and even place the initial order for a reward. Sharp also uses the site to post product releases, build a database and solicit feedback to help build future programs. And there are back-end engines that can generate any number of management reports.
‘This is the core of what organizations are moving towards,’ Inglese says.
How long that move will take remains to be seen. As Kerry Shapansky, president of Maritz Canada points out, there are a couple of obstacles in the way.
Foremost among these is ignorance – not just among the less computer-literate members of the work force, but also on the part of their employers, many of whom lack the necessary information about Internet usage by staff.
On a more practical level, there are concerns about bandwidth limitations, which can slow the downloading of program information and materials, and about the challenges of keeping online programs top-of-mind. (A print catalogue, after all, is something that can sit out in the open on a table and draw attention to itself. The same can’t be said of an online catalogue.)
Until all of these issues can be dealt with, Shapanksy says, it doesn’t make sense for promotion agencies to push the Internet too aggressively on clients. ‘We don’t want to be missionaries.’
That said, there has been clear growth in the number of client requests for Internet-based programs over the past six months, Shapanksy notes. By his estimate, close to half of the incentive programs launched today include at least some online elements.
Not everyone in the incentives business, however, sees the Internet looming large in the future.
Rob Stonehewer, president of Toronto-based Rob Stonehewer & Associates, says that many of his clients are retailers, for whom – especially at the lower levels of the operation – the Internet simply doesn’t play an important part in how they do business.
‘I’m not saying there’s not a place for it,’ Stonehewer says. But it’s important to recognize that online technology is just one of many avenues of communication available.
Sandy Matheson, managing director of marketing and incentive services at Maritz, says traditional methods of program communication are unlikely to be supplanted entirely by the Internet. Nor should they be. In the ideal scenario, employees ought to have the option of receiving program information through both media.
There are, of course, some promotions and incentives companies banking on the probability that online applications will become a dominant means of communicating program information.
Promotion Resource Group is one case in point. According to president Mark Jackson, the Mississauga, Ont.-based agency has recently developed a new arm, E-Loyalty, that will focus on putting clients’ promotional and incentive programs online.
The evolution is inevitable, Jackson says.
Consider the change in how purchase orders are handled, he offers by way of illustration. At one time, they were all mailed. Then they were faxed. These days, e-mail is the preferred method – and while some purchase orders still go out by fax, hardly anyone uses the old-fashioned post anymore. That, he predicts, is the direction incentive programs will take.
Also in this report:
– How not to motivate your employees p. B11
– Promotions can enhance the brand: Sales promos can do a lot more than just boost short-term results, if you follow a few simple rules of thumb p.B12
– Fulfillment can make or break a program: While it sounds simple, making sure the right products get to the right people at the right time is a complex process – one best left to the professionals p.B14
– Climbing aboard the millennium bandwagon: As Dec. 31 approaches, promotional products with a Year 2000 theme are increasingly in demand p.B15
