Rewards have become a staple of customer advocacy programs, but we find there’s still a lot of uncertainty about how to approach designing, promoting and maintaining them. Here’s our take on what to consider, and what’s worked and not worked based on work with our clients.
Before you go too far down the rewards path, make sure you can answer the question—Why are we considering this?—inevitably asked by those who hold the requisite budget.
On a personal relationship level, rewards are a means for showing gratitude to our customers. There’s plenty of debate around whether rewards are the reason for a customer doing an act of advocacy, or the post-activity “thank you.” The former is often frowned upon, viewed as “buying a reference.” In general, we don’t believe that most customers would participate, purely for the reward, if they didn’t feel confident or comfortable persuading peers to go with a vendor. That’s a lot of reputational risk, and integrity is an important currency in business.
Back to the key business question: what are the typical business objectives that make a case for a rewards program? It’s all about creating an ongoing relationship that not only encourages customers to use the product or service more frequently and broadly, but also fosters brand loyalty and positive word-of-mouth. That goodwill, managed effectively, translates to:
All of which, we can agree, have major implications for company growth.
Once there is buy-in for the purpose of the program, it’s important that the right rewards—those that move customers to participate—are offered. Know your audience. The group least likely to have interest in conventional rewards are VPs and CxOs. The most active programs are comprised of directors, senior managers and managers—depending on your specific industry and buyer persona. Your program advisory board is a good source of insights; a solid starting point. If you don’t have a board, then consider an advocate survey. Some programs bucket customers with similar preferences into segments. But, we believe customers are ultimately individuals and a one size fits all—even in a segment—can be a fraught assumption, so better you get to know each customer’s preferences and store them in their profile. There are so many reward options, starting with the basics:
The only limit on unique, memorable rewards is your own imagination. Here are some outside-the-box ideas:
It’s important to think through the rules (and administration of those rules) of a rewards program because if there’s any mystery, the uptake is going to be undermined and all will be for naught. Although you might want to create a layered, gamified experience (badges, accelerators, tiers), always reduce complexity. Keep it simple and accessible to maximize participation.
Your audience needs to know about the program before they can evaluate the benefits of participating. The initial announcements generate buzz and grab attention, but it’s the ongoing updates that ensure momentum. If customers are earning points, which can be redeemed for any of the items listed above, then they should be regularly informed of their point balance as well as their redemption options. This is no different than the updates you get from your credit card providers or favorite airlines. If you’ve ever had a hard time obtaining your rewards, take note. This is a real buzz-kill and must be avoided to achieve a positive customer experience.
The tracking of rewards can be a significant part of someone’s job. If you don’t have the bandwidth, then opt for a simpler, more manageable program. Better to be successful and simple than fail at what should be a satisfaction multiplier, not a hassle for your customers.
Observe how the behavior of advocates who participate in your rewards program is affected, in business terms. While feedback at a customer sentiment level is important, don’t lose sight of those business objectives. Your control group is comprised of either customers not in the advocate program in general, or those in the program who aren’t leveraging the rewards program. Both may be interesting to compare to those advocates who are taking advantage of reward benefits. Are you seeing an impact, such as?
As you’re putting your plan together, keep these potential pitfalls in mind. A rewards program is very visible, to both customers and leadership. Damaging customer relationships is the last thing this initiative should accomplish!
If it’s not possible to gauge the success of the program, that’s a problem. Think through the reports you’ll need before you launch. You’ll want to be sure you have the necessary data, in a timely fashion, before committing to specific metrics.
If you aren’t seeing the participation you anticipated after the initial flurry (3-6 months after launch) of interest, then there are a number of areas to review:
While rewards programs are a meaningful component of customer advocacy, their success hinges on thoughtful design and management. To truly engage and retain customers, rewards must resonate with their personal and professional values. This requires not only a clear understanding of your audience’s preferences but also a strategic approach to communicating and administering the program. A well-executed rewards program not only incentivizes desired behaviors but also enhances customer satisfaction and loyalty, driving significant business outcomes such as increased sales, retention, and the holy grail: brand advocacy. As you venture into your rewards strategy, remember to keep it simple, personalized, and closely aligned with both customer needs and business objectives, ensuring the program remains a valuable asset rather than a program blunder. To learn how ReferenceEdge can help you manage your reward program, contact us today.
It's only natural that many advocacy leaders have landed on the same objective: make the program easier to use by meeting users where they're already working.
Today, that increasingly means Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or whatever generative AI assistant employees happen to have open.
Imagine a salesperson simply asking AI, "Find me three German healthcare customers using product Y, willing to speak with a prospect," instead of navigating to another interface, or waiting for someone from advocacy, or elsewhere, to respond. It's easy to see the appeal. Removing friction has always been one of the fastest ways to increase adoption.
It is exactly the right instinct.
The difficult parts, arguably the reason program managers exist, occur before and after AI says, "Here are your three best matches."
The value advocacy professionals bring is the ability to operationalize and scale customer advocacy for maximum impact. Quality advocate information doesn't just appear, it's the result of a system.
Now that the user has three advocates, what should happen?
Notice what happened. The search was completed.
The next steps are just as manual as ever if AI search is the be all, end all.
Reality Check
AI can tell you who could participate. It can't tell you who should participate unless someone (or something) has been keeping score.
This is where the story starts to feel strangely familiar.
Many companies still operate their program using spreadsheets, scattered CRM fields, shared drives, email folders, and the remarkable memories of a handful of program managers.
Eventually, organizations realize they aren't managing an advocacy program at all. They're managing lists that happen to contain advocates.
But the shortcomings are real:
Purpose-built advocacy platforms emerged because advocacy is much more than a search problem.
Ironically, AI has convinced some organizations to revisit the same shortcut they worked so hard to escape.
Let's imagine two different worlds.
In the first, AI recommends an advocate for a sales call.
Months later, AI knows this customer recently participated and may deserve a break before being asked again.
Now imagine the second world.
Three months later someone asks how many customer reference contributed to the revenue this quarter.
Silence. Nobody really knows.
The advocacy happened...hopefully. The program didn't. Collectively, the organization slowly stopped feeding the very system it depended on to understand its advocacy program.
Reality Check
If AI helps facilitate twenty closed-won opportunities this quarter, but none are recorded, your executive dashboard still says zero.
One of the easiest mistakes to make in an AI-first world is assuming that successful interactions somehow become organizational knowledge on their own.
They don't.
If a customer agrees to speak with a prospect and nobody records it, the organization loses far more than a single activity.
The most valuable advocacy data isn't simply who your customers are.
It's everything they've done.
That's the story AI actually wants to read.
It's often said that AI needs good data.
That's true.
But operational history is far more valuable than static customer information.
Those aren't search results.Those are patterns.
Remove any one of those pieces and AI becomes little more than an exceptionally fast search engine.
Reality Check
Every workflow skipped today is a pattern AI won't discover tomorrow.
The AI revolution has created tremendous excitement, and rightly so. Finding the right advocate is becoming dramatically easier than it was only a few years ago.
That's worth celebrating.
Just don't confuse a better search experience with a better advocacy program. Search is only one chapter in the story.
The organizations that see the greatest return from AI won't necessarily be the ones with the most sophisticated models.
They'll be the ones with the richest operational history.
Those organizations won't use AI merely to answer the question, "Who should we ask?"
They'll use AI to answer far more valuable questions.
That's when AI stops behaving like a better Google search.
That's when it starts behaving like a strategic partner.
Finding the right advocate has always been the opening scene.
If your AI can find advocates but your program can't learn from using them, you've built a remarkable search engine instead of a remarkable advocacy program.
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