A channel partner rewards program is one of the most successful strategies for growing a business with little investment. Companies have been relying on it to build sustainable growth for their products and services from time to time. Also known as a channel partner loyalty program, it refers to rewarding third-party vendors for promoting and selling your offerings to new customers. Channel partners use their own resources and distribution network to sell the products and services in return for a commission. Organizations collaborate with multiple channel partners to generate sales on their behalf as they go on to expand their market reach.
Implementing a successful channel partner program requires a streamlined workflow, effective communication and collaboration, and attractive incentives. Managing fruitful relationships with different vendors and driving loyalty can be challenging through a manual approach. To combat this, companies use channel partner rewards platforms to execute their channel partner loyalty initiatives seamlessly.
Role of Channel Partner Loyalty Platform
A channel partner loyalty platform is a digital solution that automates the end-to-end process of managing channel partners by bringing all the stakeholders in a single place. It allows businesses to build long-term strategic partnerships by motivating and rewarding sales partners. Companies incentivize them through cash-based bonuses, gift vouchers, recognition awards, or other similar methods.
Let’s discuss how these platforms help in maximizing channel partner loyalty programs to further your business growth.
Partner-centric program
Channel partner loyalty programs platform helps you create a partner-centric experience right from onboarding to incentives. These automation platforms keep the sales partners engaged, and motivated so that they improve their sales and revenue. With a solution like Zaggle Propel, you can complete the onboarding process in minutes through an automated verification and approval process. It eliminates the wastage of time and resources to kickstart a new channel partnership.
Effective collaboration
On-demand communication and collaboration are the cornerstones of partnership in this digital-centric world. Yet communication is a major challenge in the manual approach to channel partner programs. With a channel partner loyalty program, you can streamline the flow of information between the two parties involved. It allows companies and channel partners to be aligned and work towards the same goal. Zaggle Propel overcomes this issue through multiple interaction options including surveys, polls, and announcements.
Performance-based incentives
Channel partners get discouraged when their work isn’t properly rewarded. In manual processes, however, companies have little to no data to assess a sales partner’s performance. With a digital platform, you get a comprehensive view of their performance. You can generate and evaluate multiple reports, and at a granular level identify who are your top channel partners, and the ones that need additional support from you.
Automated workflows
Regardless of your payout schedule, every reward of your channel partner loyalty program needs to go through multiple levels of approval and validation. As you can imagine, it can be a nightmare to manage them. With a digital solution, however, you can streamline claims management by configuring an automated approval journey. Once a partner raises a claim, it gets queued in the cycle, and the payout processes are expedited.
Real-time visibility
With a digital platform to manage channel partner loyalty programs, you get access to a dashboard that gives you real-time visibility into your channel partners’ achievements. You can use the analytics to make predictions and estimations of your growth outlook. It will allow you to plan your future steps and make data-driven decisions. With Zaggle Propel, you get a dynamic leaderboard for partners with a list of achievers. It also provides quick stats and downloadable reports to plan an effective strategy around channel partner rewards programs.
Gamify your growth with Zaggle Propel
Saying that channel partner loyalty programs are essential for business growth is an understatement. But your programs must blend into the everyday operations of channel partners, and not become an operational overhead. You can do this through a channel partner rewards platform like Zaggle Propel. We have already discussed how Propel is an ideal fit to use channel partner loyalty programs for your growth. In addition to that, Propel also allows you to gamify your program. You can set rules to assign badges to partners upon reaching a milestone. This community recognition tactic helps in building a competitive environment that ultimately leads to more sales. All of these features make Propel an ideal platform for implementing a channel partner loyalty program.