More and more retailers are having their employees ask shoppers to go online to fill in a customer satisfaction survey when they get home.  I’ve asked whether this information garners any benefits to the person handling my transaction, and often the response is that the individual can get a special recognition if they have a high ranking.

One young man told me that the reward he was being offered was a gold name tag.  Really.  Why would an employee struggling to get by on retail wages (and we all know that jobs in retail pay less than we would like) want a gold name tag?

I’m all for offering prizes and incentives to motivate employees, and we know that a cash bonus is not always possible.  It seems almost trivial, for example, to offer a “reward” of just a few dollars.  We have a system at our store where staff members can accumulate their “way to go” coupons until they reach $25, at which time they can cash them in. That makes a bigger impression on the paycheck, and also saves handling a lot of small amounts.

But if you want to give a prize that isn’t cash, ask your employees what they would like.  A gift certificate for a local coffee shop (or frozen custard stand, in our case) is always welcome.  For a larger reward, a restaurant certificate might be welcome.

We sometimes offer a free give to customers if they mention reading an email we’ve sent out, and in truth the items we offer are usually not very exciting since we’re trying to keep the cost down. We get a higher rate of return by offering a certain percentage off, or $10 off of a $50 purchase. 

When we have contests for customers we usually offer gift certificates as the prizes.   But if you want to offer a big prize, a friend of mine who is in marketing tells me that the hot item right now is an iPad.  She said that when her company offers the possibility of winning an iPad as an incentive they get a high level of participation. The $500 it costs you to buy an iPad could be an economical way to build your email list, for example, if that is your goal with a promotion.  (The illustration with today’s blog is from https://blog.greengeeks.com, a web business that used this technique in 2012 to get customers to post video reviews of their products.)

A carrot as opposed to a stick is only good motivation if the person you are trying to influence wants a carrot.  There is no better way to find out someone’s reward preference than to ask — personally I’m much more likely to act if there is a piece of chocolate being offered than a carrot.

Happy Retailing,

Carol “Orange” Schroeder