Case Study: A Leading Office Equipment Company

A deep understanding of the channel helped the client keep their incentive program fresh.

Situation

For many years, the Client and Maritz partnered successfully in providing sales incentive programs that helped move product, increase dealer mind share, and reward desired behavior. Over time, channel structures and business strategies had become more complex. Channels became more independent, managing more of their own mix, evaluating and selling competitive products, and making customer service decisions based on their own set of circumstances. Sales data was not easily accessible. The Client was deploying new strategies to address broader issues including adjusting their product portfolio by shifting the product line from monochrome devices to color multifunctional devices. The need to keep sales incentive programs fresh and relevant became increasingly important. In 2005 the Client asked Maritz to help them take the program to the next level.

Solution

Maritz believed that in order to ensure freshness in a sales incentive program, clients must move away from the one-size fits-all paradigm. As always, the program design started with a discussion of the company’s key business requirements and a review of the prior year’s results. In addition, Maritz suggested that a combination of assessment and analytics was needed to get a clearer picture of their dealers and dealer reps, what they sell, what they value, what they redeem their reward points for, etc. The use of the Maritz IQ survey tool, and the subsequent analysis of the feedback from the Client’s channel, provided insights into individual preference and practices that pointed the way to making the program more relevant.

The Client recognized the opportunity to make some significant changes including:

• Changing the program and featured products quarterly to keep reps engaged.
• Reducing the claim period so rewards were more closely tied to desired behavior.
• Expanding print and electronic communications to address the diverse preferences of Baby Boom and Gen X audiences.
• More frequent communications to increase top of mind awareness of the programs and the program rules.
• Designing the reward offerings to better suit the lifestyle and generational preferences of the diverse audience.
• Offering rewards for product training and quizzes to strengthen the connection to the brand and the products.
• Increasing dealer loyalty by rewarding purchase of the Client’s parts and supplies.
• Making personal phone calls to new dealers to provide immediate clarification for any questions or concerns.
• Adding enhanced claim requirements to gather a better understanding of the Client’s end-user.

By acting on what they learned from the assessment and analytics, the Company demonstrated that they understood what mattered to their channel partners and that they were willing to provide fresh ideas to keep them engaged with the brand, the products, and the needs of their customers - the end user.

Results

By “keeping it fresh” the Company was able to:

• Increase participation by 42 percent.
• Improve productivity measured by average number of units claimed by Dealer Sales Rep from 1.4 to 2.2.
• Shift product mix to 14 percent multifunction devices.
• Deliver ROI of 17: 1.

In addition:

• The shorter claim period reduced the financial risk for the Client and allowed them to reinvest the saved funds back into the program.
• The enhanced claim requirements provided customer and competitive data, allowing for better marketing analysis.

“The program has been a tremendous success. In addition to all the fresh new ideas that were delivered, we drove tremendous results,”  the Client Sponsor said.