We needed to find a way to increase distributor product sales by 20% and raise overall sales by 10% for a major U.S. company. However, raising sales wasn’t the only issue that we needed to address.

We also needed to create a process to easily and quickly bring new distributors into current and future sales promotion programs. And, we needed to build ongoing relationships and loyalty with Distributor Managers and DSRs.

So, how did we do this?

We created a golf-themed promotion that was geared towards the demographics of the DSR audience. This campaign was used to generate excitement, engagement, and an increased level of participation.

Promotion is a wonderful tool, but it still doesn’t increase overall sales on its own. You have to be able to manage that promotion in a way that is easy and effective. With that in mind, we developed a kick-off kit that made every aspect of the promotion campaign easy for Distributor Managers. We included instant enrollment directions, brochures, sales reporting tools, web support and award collections.

As always, we generated excitement and increased sales channel participation by offering highly perceived tangible lifestyle and electronics merchandise that offered the opportunity of earning outstanding rewards, guilt-free.

Now that we had a campaign and strategy in place, we needed to execute and deliver. We set the Distributor Managers up with logoed sport bags, filled with golf-themed items and communication materials. They shared them with DRSs at kick-off meetings.

For the DSRs, we offered an outstanding, yet focused rewards collection that featured five competing levels (Par, Birdie, Eagle, Double Eagle, and Hole-In-One) to generate more excitement and keep enrollees interested. We included the most popular merchandise including HDTVs, Bose stereo equipment, digital cameras, Weber grills, John Deere tractors, jewelry, bikes, and golf equipment.

To keep awareness levels high, we communicated regularly with enrolled DSRs via email blasts and mid-term reminder postcards. Finally, as an added service, we conducted a phone campaign to verify end-user sales.

Face it, results are the only things that matter. After we implemented our program and gave it awhile to take hold, we measured the results.

The Incentra team was able to help this company boost their product sales a staggering 100% with participating distributors. Overall sales also exceeded expectations and were measured at a 30% increase.

Through data gathering, a list of participating DSRs and end-users across the nation was generated. This information gave the client the ability to run new, targeted loyalty programs. Over 10 new programs have been implemented since 2006, and have resulted in product sales increases of as much as 400%.

As word of this success started to spread throughout the company, other business units wanted to get on board with the program as well. In short, the success of one unit of the company that utilized a program from Incentra became a success for the entire company on a national level.

We were given the task of creating a program to drive down costs relating to absenteeism at a large HMO. We had to reduce the absence rate from 6% to a much lower rate of 2%, with an eye on an estimated ROI of $100,000.

To make up for the absences, the company had to hire temporary workers from time to time to keep production at a feasible level. This resulted in unnecessary expenditures, including overtime spending.

Not only was employee attendance a problem for this company, but production and employee morale were also much lower than desired.

Just creating a Perfect Attendance program doesn’t motivate employees enough to want to come to work. We needed to create an engaging process that was going to keep these employees interested and excited not most, but all of the time.

We set up a system that awarded points to employees for each quarter with no unexcused absences. Also offered was a large pot of bonus points for a full year of perfect attendance - to encourage focus on the “big picture.” Points could be banked for the opportunity to choose from thousands of highly perceived lifestyle and electronic awards.

A communication campaign was created to kick-off, promote, and reinforce the program. Increased manager recognition of employees was also encouraged.

To deliver employee awareness of the new attendance program, we created a series of promotional flyers that helped to build a buzz at kick-off. In addition to the flyers, we distributed a customized award catalog (also available online).

Quarterly points statements were personally handed out to employees to further reinforce the importance of the program.

Employees that were able to earn and accumulate points had their choice of over 2000 items from the lifestyle merchandise collection. Top performers were also rewarded with recognition at a special event in their honor and a framed certificate of appreciation.

How did we keep the process running smoothly?

We provided in-person training to all managers and supervisors so that they understood how the program worked and how to show appreciation for employees’ efforts. Employees also received training in a team environment with their respective managers.

Return on investment was the main focus of this program. Our strategy helped the company reap the benefits of dedicated and motivated employees. We cut the absenteeism rate from 6% down to just under 2% in a one year span. The following year we improved results even more, driving absenteeism down to 1.5%.

In addition, the number of employees with perfect attendance rose by 6x. The program continued to keep unscheduled absences at a 1.5% rate.

It’s not all about percentages, it’s about the return on investment that we were able to produce for this company. This company’s return on investment now stands at approximately $100,000 per year.

What can you do with a service award program that is out-dated, out-of-touch, inefficient and lacking in personal recognition? One of America’s largest companies asked us this same question.

We needed to retool the program so that it would demonstrate a higher and more personal level of appreciation to awardees while delivering a stronger branding message.

Program administrators needed online management tools and a process that eliminated the burden of presenting awards onsite.

We knew that we needed to create excitement within the program to get participants involved again, but exactly how could we do that?

We had to develop a communications campaign with an exciting new look and feel, using technology to deliver a “wow” experience for program participants.

We also needed to get managers more involved in the recognition process. When conducting research, we found that many managers were often unaware of their employees’ service anniversaries. In order to make these awardees feel appreciated, we had to set up to notify managers of these milestone dates.

We also decided to streamline the fulfillment process, as awards were being delivered to factories and offices across the country, which was an administrative nightmare.

While employees were aware of the program, we needed to reengage them with new branding and build buzz around the enhancements.

The new campaign featured graphics designed around a “flash” timeline with historical corporate imagery. The print-on-demand brochures and website both featured a “wow” digital insertion of awardee name and service date as an important milestone in corporate history.

We started email notifications to managers to encourage them to recognize their awardees. Administrators were given a new program management website that featured password protected location-only access. Included was a series of training webinars for all stakeholders.

Finally, we changed the fulfillment model so that brochures were presented in custom boxes and delivered to corporate locations with awards shipping directly to awardees’ homes.

Our goals were to revamp the current program to create excitement with awardees while strengthening their bonds with the company, improve personal recognition, and to make the overall process easy and effective for administrators and managers.

We reached those goals with outstanding, measurable results.

As a result of our upgrade, administrators are ecstatic that the time spent coordinating the program has been reduced by 70%, and they rate the program success at 4.8 out of 5.

88.59% of awardees polled indicated that they were personally recognized in a “very good” or “excellent” manner. 97.17% of awardees polled are “extremely pleased” or “very pleased” with the overall service award experience.

A banking company came to us and told us that they needed a program that could give their employees the motivation and the opportunity to thrive in their environment. This company never had a formal recognition program in place and any attempts that they made in doing so always seemed to fall short.

After doing our homework, we realized that their method for putting an incentive program in place was very unorganized and unappealing to their employees.

We needed to create a program that not only rewarded employees, but one that also drove the mission, vision, values, and behaviors that this company expected from it’s employees.

With ease of use and organization within the program our top priority, we needed to create a coordinated multi-level recognition process that featured peer-to-peer, supervisor on-the-spot, quarterly nomination, and annual recognition.

A novel campaign needed to be put in place to generate recognizability and engagement with the recognition program. We also needed to train all supervisors and educate them with knowledge about managing the program as well as general knowledge concerning recognition fundamentals.

Our new campaign was entitled “Applause”, and it was centered around a theatre concept. The kick-off promotion featured a teaser postcard, and program packets were distributed to employees. These packets contained a program overview brochure, a folder, and peer-to-peer recognition sticker pads along with nomination forms. Packets given to managers featured a manager’s handbook and on-the-spot recognition cards that could be given to any employee at the manager’s discretion.

An award system was created that featured four levels of recognition:

Custom designed brass, acrylic, and marble awards were also used for maximum recognition value within the organization, and Spotlight awardees were able to choose from a selection of merchandise that featured the Applause logo.

Once our program was in place, this company started noticing results immediately.

For the first time in the history of the company a recognition program was in place that was organized and and easy to use, this enabled it to thrive, which motivated employees to work harder and work more efficiently.

All supervisory employees and those underneath them were recognized in the Applause recognition program. 1 in 30 employees were recognized at the Standing Ovation level, 1 in 50 employees were recognized at the Encore level, and 20 employees from across the nation were recognized with the highest level, Command Performance.

As a result of our recognition program’s success, active recognition became a required role of all supervisors, and was even included in their job description.

A leading health care organization had a problem.

They needed a recognition program that could drive their core values across the organization, improve overall employee morale and satisfaction, and deliver measurable performance increases.

They also needed to track which employees were being recognized within the program and which managers and supervisor were engaged in the performance process.

The recognition program had to be easy to use for participants, managers, and administrators, so the process would flourish.

And, they need to make a big splash when kicking off the program to generate excitement and engagement.

We had to create a program that focused on the employees, letting them know that they are always valued. On-the-spot recognition is the best way to create an environment where employees are shown appreciation for their efforts throughout the year.

Ease of use was important, so an online system had to be the backbone of the performance process.

Since spot-recognition was new to almost all participants, we needed to create an extensive kick-off and ongoing communications campaign to create awareness and excitement.

A training component was considered a must to educate managers and supervisors about the basics of recognition.

A promotional campaign and logo were created that focused on the employees, while communicating the cornerstone values of the organization. We kicked off the program with a multiple communications media, including: Custom video, program brochures, wallet cards, posters, award catalog, DVDs, and more.

A website was built where managers could quickly and easily go online and deliver recognition points with the click of a mouse. Participants could use the site to track performance and view and order lifestyle merchandise awards. In addition, spot recognition cards were created to help the recognition process grow. Functionality was also included to reward points for meeting performance metrics (such as safety, performance, clinical outcomes, etc.).

An administrative website was provided so that manager and supervisor recognitions could be tracked, giving the client a tool to manage the program with their staff to grow a culture of recognition.

Finally, team training and a training DVD were developed and coupled with web-based training to bring all participants up to speed on both the program rules and the importance of recognition.

As a result of our On-the-Spot Recognition program, this organization is measurably changing its culture by spreading the importance of performance and living the cornerstone values.

In the first year of the program, over 5000 awards were presented, 76% of participants were recognized at least once, and 84% of managers and supervisors participated in the recognition process.

Employees are far more aware of the organization’s values and are performing at a higher level as they seek to be recognized. And with Incentra reporting and tracking this reward process, the company has a solid management tool to maintain momentum.

Incentive rewards for team and individual improvement in performance metrics are next on the agenda for this client.

A national commercial/residential tree and lawn care company approached us to help them improve the performance of their field locations.

They needed to increase their overall sales, enhance profitability, reduce lost-time accidents, cut costs, and improve customer and employee retention.

Not only did they need to address these business issues, but they also needed something to improve employee morale and get people excited about their jobs.

Sounds like we had our work cut out for us.

Since the company revolved around teams of employees working together in specific locations, positioning an incentive program in the same manner would work best to accomplish its goals.

Through this program, incentive rewards were to be given out on a location specific basis. By setting the program up this way, we were able to create healthy competition within the company between locations. This would ultimately drive teams of employees to work harder and together to earn the rewards that they wanted.

A custom campaign with a theme that hit home with the employees needed to be set in motion. This campaign also had to help to communicate the company’s core values, mission, and culture throughout the entire organization.

The “CHIPS” campaign was born.

Each CHIP refers to one of the targeted performance areas, and office teams that were able to reach monthly goals received up to five CHIPS each quarter for every member.

A progress board that marked the number of CHIPS received was hung at each location for employees to view, reinforcing the incentive program and keeping employees motivated to perform at a higher level to earn maximum rewards.

Tangible rewards are always the best performance driver, so a custom reward collection (print and online) featuring 2000 lifestyle merchandise rewards was provided. These rewards represented the current most popular merchandise including HDTVs, Bose stereos, digital cameras, tools, jewelry, and much more.

Ongoing communications include quarterly points statements, online web tracking site, and frequent write-ups in the company newsletter.

The CHIPS incentive program has been in place with this company for the past five years, delivering improvements in all targeted areas. Just as importantly, the program keeps key performance and metrics “front and center.”

Recent surveys found that employees continue to motivated by this program and confirmed that employees would willingly worker harder to earn rewards. Shortly after the incentive program started, employees started working longer hours to finish projects on time so that they could earn more rewards. On average, employees are working approximately 15% more hours per week to meet CHIPS’ qualifying criteria.

Accidents happen more often than we’d like to think.

A food service and disribution company sought us out to put together a program that they could use to create a consistent and measurable corporate-wide safety incentive system.

This system also had to help establish the company’s identity and culture across the organization as a whole as well as any aquisitions that the company could pick up in the future. Prior aquisitions each tended to already have their own programs in place, this started causing a disparity within the parent company’s budget for such programs.

We also realized that we needed to hold division executives responsible for performance results and create a culture that would recognize managers and employees for performance improvements.

Since we were targeting different levels within the company we needed to create separate programs that would work seamlessly with each other.

A corporate program was created that recognized division executives for meeting standards and creating healthy competition among employees. A division program was also created to motivate a behavior change within managers and employees by awarding points for performance achievements.

We used a perfect attendance incentive as a catalyst to get employees interested and excited about the new program. Employees were rewarded for each quarter of perfect attendance, and participants with perfect attendance for the entire year received a substantial point bonus in addition to other special recognition.

We created a custom campaign for this program entitled “Take Pride in U.S.”. Prior to lauching the campaign the incentive program was introduced at an annual exectutive conference, and was widely acclaimed by those in attendance.

The campaign featured a kick-off video, flyer, poster and many other promotional materials. A website with individual employee point bank accounts and company information was also created.

Monthly points statements were distributed to reinforce awareness in the program and to promote positive recognition. Awardees used these points to select a reward from a large list of over 1000 items, including travel options and logoed apparel. Top managers were recognized with a special awards banquet held in their honor.

Video based training sessions following a train-the-trainer format were introduced, and they focused of safety topics and specific skill development.

After introducing our incentive program and unifying it throughout the rest of the company and it’s aquisitions we were able to reduce the budget for these programs by 45%.

We measured a reduction in lost workdays by 42% and lost time accidents by 18%.

The program continues to be a success for this company while providing a consistent and measurable safety recognition system.