With economies across the globe on the brink of recession, retaining important figureheads in business has never been more important.

Some minds would automatically flip to customer retention, and rightly so – customer churn rate can be as high as 30% in some global industries, and as cost of living increases, we can only expect this to rise. However, it’s not only customers that will help businesses sail through hard times. Retaining staff and partners is crucial to keeping businesses afloat, recession or not.

Creating reward and incentive programs for employees, partners, and customers alike could be the key to maintaining a healthy business in the near future. But with different needs, cultures and locations to take into consideration – a one-size fits all approach is hard to come by.

Are you incentivising the key players in your business? Read on to find out the different approaches to incentives, how they can help your business, and what B4B Payments can do to give you the master key for you

What are incentives?

Rewards and incentives come in all shapes and sizes. Whether you’re focused on B2B, B2C, or B2B2C, there’s always a way you can utilise incentives to create value, loyalty and retention for customers, partners and employees.

Customer loyalty rewards

84% of global customers are more inclined to shop with retailers if they offer a loyalty reward programme or scheme. Some of the popular types include: 

Point based reward systems

Offering customers points in return for their purchases or continued service is an effective incentive to encourage them to stay a loyal customer. Points are usually tradeable for certain prizes, products or cash sums through these types of loyalty schemes.

Tiered incentives

Cashback incentives can be offered to customers that hit a certain tier level with their purchasing. With tiers completely customisable by companies themselves, often taking the form of length of contract or amount spent, they are a great way to ensure that people are getting extra value for their custom.

Omnichannel incentives

Want to inspire customers to use different channels in your business? Offering cash rewards or discounts to customers who are purchasing or completing actions on different channels like mobile applications is the way to go. Not only can these incentives phase out the resource intensive channels like phone or email.

Staff retention incentives

Retaining trained employees has never been more important than it is today, and with 74% of employees saying that incentives and rewards were important to them, offering schemes like this can be an easy win to keep them onside:

Time-based incentives

Rewarding staff for their ongoing service, or keeping employees happy during the holidays is becoming more common in competitive industries. Through prepaid or cash offerings, your staff are motivated to stay with your business until the next milestone, and are more likely to be satisfied when they return from traditional periods of annual leave.

Target based rewards

Traditional bonus schemes are a great way to incentivise staff to go the extra mile while in service, whether it’s based on deals completed or targets met. Offering percentages of business deals, or flat rate recurring bonuses through prepaid cash cards will help retain staff, as well as attract new employees to the business.

Partner incentives

Partners are among the most important people in your business, and may hold the key to continued business. In fact 57% of companies use partnerships to acquire new customers. Popular ways to incentivise partners include:

Referrals

Rewards based on referrals are popular for partners and individuals alike. Schemes that involve cash incentives for business referrals can bring new business into your organisation, negating some of your existing sales and marketing process.

Research

Knowledge is power, and market research is the key. Rewards for partners who engage in market research is a great way to strengthen connections, as well as ensuring constant visibility on the state of B2B and B2C markets.

How incentives help

Incentives provide a constant reason for staff, employees and partners to continue to interact with your business.

However, in an international, diverse, and often remote-based society the trend for the instant gratification of cash is emerging moreso. In fact, 84% of remote employees surveyed named prepaid cards their preferred reward.

Not only is cash universally accepted for partners, employees and customers around the globe, it also eliminates the need to navigate cultural and political trends, as well as logistical issues that can stem from availability and delivery of alternative physical rewards.

The B4B Payments solution

B4B Payments allows businesses to execute their rewards and incentives scheme in one unified manner – thorough physical and virtual (closed and open loop) services.

Prepaid virtual and physical cards can be distributed as rewards on incentive schemes to partners, customers and employees alike to encourage referrals, repeat business and retention. Instead of receiving bespoke rewards or gift cards that can only be redeemed in certain stores, B4B Payments allows payments that are recognised internationally, and managed through an easy-to-use iOS or Android cardholder app, giving your recipients the oversight on their spending and remaining balance.

What’s more, B4B Payments allows you to brand your card services, extending the reach of your marketing efforts, as well as incentivising the key players in your business.

Discover more about B4B Payments engaging rewards and incentives

Looking to add prepaid virtual or physical cards into your incentive schemes? Take a look at how B4B Payments’ solution can help you maximise your goals through seamless reward payments.

To find out how our solutions can help you, contact us today!