Incentive Solutions' New Mobile Rewards App

An app for incentive program communications, management, and rewards

Incentive Solutions has launched a new mobile app designed to make it easy to participate in and manage a full-featured incentive sales program that lives on a smartphone. 

The Atlanta-based incentive house's new app handles everything from enrollment and entering sales claims, to program communications, learning tools, and testing, to browsing and ordering rewards, says Steve Damerow, CEO of Incentive Solutions

"It's all done now via smartphone," he says, noting that in May, Google announced that for the first time, more than half of all Google searches were on smartphones and tablets. "The smartphone will revolutionize the B-to-B incentive market. It dramatically streamlines both the reward aspect and claims validation. The app makes incentive programs two to three times more effective."

Giving the example of Incentive Solutions' clients in the HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) manufacturing business, Damerow adds, "The fact of the matter is, the people making the sales are the guys bending over installing that water heater. They're not sitting in front of a PC. When they go home at night, they want to drink beer and watch TV," not fill out forms for a dealer channel incentive program. 

 "Our rewards mall has about 15 million items in it, plus digital downloads, plus real-time travel - kind of like Travelocity - plus event tickets like HubSpot," he says. "Our system queries all the vendors and only populates the catalog with vendors that have items in stock, and the ones that are the cheapest."

With the Incentive Solutions app, participants can now order items with points from retailers like Best Buy and Bass Pro Shops and pick it up the same day. "Or, you can actually go into a store, scan the UPC code, and order that item on your phone," Damerow notes. "Say you're at an Orvis, and you see a fly fishing rod that you want. You scan it, it checks for inventory on our online rewards mall, and you can order it right there on the spot."

On the back end, administrators can easily push program communications out to participants and create back-end reports. "This app allows us to host tutorials, learn and earns, surveys, and certifications," Damerow says. "Then we can run reports on, for instance, who's passing the tests on the features and benefits of the product. We can send push notifications - text messages. The most important thing is that it's really easy to use. That's paramount."

Returning to the HVAC channel sales clients, Damerow gives this example: "Bill is an HVAC installer," he says. "He buys his units from two or three different distributors. Bill sells a commercial air conditioner to Bob's store. Instead of having to fill out a form online or on paper, Bill an take a picture of the install with his smartphone of a QR code, bar code, or unique identifying number [on the product], and fill in the buyer's contact information." Now Bill and his distributor get credit for the sale, and the warranty is automatically filled out. So the manufacturer has gotten Bill to choose their product, the distributor to sell it to Bill, and has Bob's warranty information, letting it target Bob with products and offers in the future, Damerow adds.