Best Practices for Creating and Implementing Rebate and SPIF Programs.
Rebate and SPIF programs are powerful incentive tools best used to boost your partners’ sales efforts. Such sales incentive programs are designed to ultimately increase product revenue by the number of units sold. However, without automated checks and balances in place, managing rebate and SPIF programs can become time-consuming and burdensome to administer.
According to Jan Triplett, Ph.D., the CEO of the Business Success Center, SPIF can be defined as:
- Sales Performance Incentive Funding Formula
- Sales Performance Incentive Fund
- Special Performance Incentive Fund
- Specific Price Incentive For Final Sale
- Special Pay Incentives For Fast Sales
- Sales Persons Incentive For Fun
Fun Facts about SPIF Programs:
SPIF – Sales Performance Incentive Funds – was most likely by Drapers in 1859.
Depending on how much product a company needs to sell or the ROI goal, rebate and SPIF programs can help motivate channel partners’ sales team or improve their performance. Nevertheless, success of a rebate and SPIF program depends largely on the .
Below we have listed a few guidelines for creating and executing a successful rebate and SPIF program.
Define Your Goals
The first and most important step in creating any program is to define your goals. To set your objectives for a SPIF program first determine the areas in your company that need improvement. Create goals and SPIF programs based on the areas that need improvement.
For example, you can create SPIF programs based on the following goals:
- Increase sales
- Expand market share
- Improve customer service
- Partner enablement
Program Participation
As you are developing your program you need to determine is going to be participating in your rebate and SPIF program. Consider your partners’ situation and decide if program participation is beneficial or lucrative for them. Therefore, conducting a survey can be very beneficial in finding out the type of incentive and payoff system your channel partners find attractive.
Communication
When launching a SPIF program it’s paramount that you clearly communicate your program rules and performance criteria. In addition, you need to verify which partners are eligible to participate in the program. Your program should also point out which products are eligible. At the same time, the rules need to explain the duration of the program and how quickly channel partners will get reimbursed. The more details you communicate in your SPIF program, the less room you’ll leave for misinterpretation.
Campaign Marketing Strategy
Like any incentive program, rebate and SPIF programs need to be accompanied by a comprehensive marketing strategy. Work hand-in-hand with your marketing team to provide adequate marketing materials before and during the rebate and SPIF campaign.
Real-Time Reporting
The platform and reporting software you use play an important part in the success of your SPIF program. However, many companies waste their resources by employing manual processing to track the progress of their partner sales. As a result, partners become frustrated due to long payment cycles and a lack of visibility for channel rebate and SPIF information. Provide your channel partners with a SPIF management software that not only allows real-time reporting but also delivers status and validation to those participating in your program.
Tool for Managing your Rebate and SPIF Programs
CMR’s Rebate and SPIF Management module ensures your SPIF programs run like a well-oiled machine.
Our Rebate and SPIF Management module removes the burden of manual organization and maintenance. The module calculates valuable rebate and SPIF data specific to the partner or representative in real-time. The entire process uses an online interface that calculates rebates and SPIFs automatically from POS data. Subsequently, your partners will have access to a dashboard that gives them a summary of their earned rebates to date, transaction-level reporting, and progress towards increased earnings. This information is useful for tracking milestones and sales goals and creates an open flow of communication between you and your channel partners.
In addition to your partners having secure access to their sales data, your program administrators will have a full overview of rebate and SPIF data for every participating partner. Therefore, with all the information in one easily accessible place, the Rebate and SPIF Management module provides real-time channel visibility keeping you informed of partner/rep performance, incentive funds, and payments.