The loyalty market is more cluttered with competition than ever before. In today's digital landscape, finding a way to stand out and create "True Loyalty", where customers are loyal to your brand and resistant to competitive offers, has never been more difficult.
One method of building and maintaining enthusiasm and loyalty in your customer base is through the ultimate reward of a travel incentive. In today's highly competitive market, offering rewarding, memorable travel experiences is an effective way to let your customers know just how much you value them, and ultimately help improve your chances of long-term retention, as well as driving improved market share and increasing sales.
Those customers who work hard enough to earn travel rewards will enjoy the bragging rights and prestige that come along with a memorable trip. The buzz around incentive travel far outlasts the delivery of the reward. Your customers will be talking about the trip, sharing photos and posting online long after they arrive home, creating even more activity and engagement in your incentive programme.
Offering rewarding, memorable travel experiences is an effective way to let your customers know just how much you value them.
According to a pulse survey from the Incentive Research Foundation (IRF), 52 per cent of meeting planners expected to increase their travel programme budgets in 2015, while just 13 per cent said they were predicting a budget decrease. Furthermore, just 14 per cent of survey respondents said they were anticipating a reduction in total length of their incentive trip.
These are promising figures for the incentive travel space, suggesting many organisations are already seeing the benefits of implementing these schemes. Rodger Stotz, research chair of IRF, agrees.
"There is a buzz of what's happening, and it's very different than four or five years ago when everybody was just in the doldrums," he said.
Running parallel to these findings are the results of a survey conducted by the International Congress and Convention Association. It showed that 30 per cent of associations had planned to increase the number of meetings they were hosting in 2015. Event facilities seem to be taking notice of the growing realm of incentive travel, and are preparing themselves accordingly.
Maintaining and measuring incentives
While annual incentive trips are powerful, having the right motivation triggers in place for your customers throughout the year is an equally important ingredient to help deliver and exceed on your company's financial goals. This can mean the implementation of all manner of incentive programmes, with travel being just one part of your overall strategy.
For a growing number of businesses, implementing ongoing sales incentive programmes have been a key driver in establishing the right behaviours to ensure customers are given every opportunity to succeed and feel recognised.
Having a comprehensive capability to measure the success of an incentive programme is imperative to success. Through online sales incentive programmes, customers are able to set up metrics that allow them to track and report on all aspects of an incentive programme.
Staying fully informed about how the programme is working can not only demonstrate its worth to the business, but also identify where improvements can be made. To see just how it works in person, contact Power2Motivate for a demonstration, and start rewarding your valuable customers today.