How B2B Reward Programs Can Help Companies Manage Supply Chain Disruption Problems – and Opportunities

1.  Are your customers being forced to buy from your competitors? 

Use rewards to promote alternate product solutions to customers and minimize churn 

Reward programs are data-driven sales tools. Normally your historical sales data is used to determine what customers have been buying. Rewards are used to encourage them to buy more of the same. This same data can be used to identify products or services these customers should/could be purchasing from you, and rewards can be introduced to influence more of those purchase outcomes. Similarly, reward programs can be used to help alleviate the negative supply chain impacts to your business when products are unavailable, shippers are slow to fill orders, or staff can’t be found to get the orders picked and packed.

When product inventory is not available, the reward program can use your sales data to help influence other customer purchase outcomes other than letting your customers simply go to the competition. Comparable products or brands can be suggested in place of the unavailable product – and a bonus reward can be associated with these alternatives in order to get the customer to choose them instead. Or if there are no alternative products immediately available, you can award bonus points as a customer ‘make good’, designed to help reinforce to the customer you regret not being able to meet their needs, encouraging them to wait a little longer for product to arrive and offering a token of your appreciation for their future loyalty.

2.  Are you seeing new customers because your competitors have supply chain issues?

Use rewards to solidify new customer relationships and drive more transactions

Rather than simply enjoying a short-term boost in sales, these alternate vendors should be doing everything in their power to convert “one and done’’ customers into long term accounts, where the vendor becomes an ongoing primary supplier for the new customers.

Encouraging these new customers to participate in your B2B customer reward program will help ensure you stay top-of-mind with these new customers. The reward program can be used to encourage repeat purchases of the products and services the customer came looking for when their primary vendor had supply issues. A B2B customer reward program is an automated sales tool and can also be set up to promote new purchase opportunities (with associated bonus rewards) that can be based on a new customer’s initial purchase – or by using purchase histories from similar customers as a guideline for relevant offers, encouraging the purchase of additional product categories, up-sell, cross sell, etc.

3.  Are you experiencing staff shortages and retention issues?

Employee incentive programs are useful in retaining and attracting staff

Employee incentive programs can help your company reduce the issues related to staff shortages or vacancies. These programs can be used to increase employee engagement by introducing a reward structure to recognize any workplace achievement, adding to their workplace happiness, and reducing turn-over. Employees can be rewarded for starting a new role, punctuality and attendance, workplace safety records, training, or course completions, referring potential new employees to your organization, being a team player and helping other employees, and for customer satisfaction.

Staff incentives can be varied, ranging from merchandise-based rewards (such as gift cards, electronics, or sporting goods), experiential rewards (trips, events, wellness perks) or workplace-based rewards like extra time off, the opportunity to volunteer in the community one day a month – or virtually anything else you (or they) might think of.

Employee satisfaction is a huge determinant in employee retention and a good employee incentive program can add to that satisfaction, boosting productivity, reducing churn, and encouraging referrals.

Rewarding customers and staff is not the only way to help eliminate the issues created by supply chain disruptions, but a good reward structure increases your odds of successfully navigating these areas and optimizing your results – versus competitors who do not offer such programs.

Lift & Shift offers a powerful B2B reward platform that can help your company leverage its sales data to drive incremental purchases with customers and channel partners or motivate sales staff. We work with manufacturers, distributors and service providers to analyze sales data, identifying purchasing gaps and other valuable targeting opportunities. 

We create and deliver highly relevant offers to customers, in-house sales staff or sales associates, motivating your target audience to respond, using a wide array of appealing reward options as influencers. Our performance-based reward structures deliver an unparalleled return on investment, with absolutely no wasted budget. 

Our customizable reward platform enables clients to easily benefit from a robust loyalty reward program. It's affordable and includes Lift & Shift’s turnkey professional program administration. We take care of everything so you can focus on your key initiatives.