Reward Management as a Part of Bonus Programs in B2C Markets

Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: At the moment bonus programs are – alone or in combination with other instruments - one of the most successful and most often used marketing instruments in B2C markets, to retain customers by giving them a bonus for loyal behaviour. A typical bonus program of this kind is Payback. The problem is that still there is little known about why customers participate in bonus programs and that especially the crucial aspect rewards management (also bonus management) is the blind spot of the marketing theory on hand. On the background of high investments in bonus programs and their rewards on the one hand and unclear reasons for the different success of bonus sets on the other hand this is an unsatisfactory situation. The target is therefore to show how bonus programs work and how rewards management is integrated in such a bonus program. Furthermore it is the target to show how rewards management can contribute to program success, how a rewards concept has to be set up and which possibilities (e.g. type of reward) there are for setting up a successful bonus set. To reach this a compilation of the scattered but carefully selected information in marking literature, papers, articles and further sources also from non-economic ones like psychology, a systematization of the findings and drawing of conclusions from this gives a clearer picture and helps to give recommendations for setting up a successful rewards management. For backing up the findings the results of an especially therefore carried out online survey get used. The decision to start with a bonus program must be based on the likeliness of the expected benefits that can be higher perceived product value, customer satisfaction, loyalty, from that customer equity and company value and cost savings as well as additional sales and cross and up-selling. Of course these benefits are strongly influenced by the customer retention potential of the bonus program set-up. The customer retention can be influenced through bonus programs by both psychological causes (e.g. satisfaction) as well as by rewarding the customer for certain behaviour. Because everybody can reward the customers the type of bonus / reward is decisive. The type of reward belongs to the burning mechanism of a bonus program. In a token economy rewards can be redeemed for collected points (artificial currency). Points and point issuance rules are part of the earning mechanism and are closely linked. The rewards are the [...]