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INNOVATIVE INCENTIVES & REWARDS PVT. LTD.
SIP project report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
PGDM Programme
By Suhad Ahamed
201811048
The success and final outcome of this project, which brings about the overall learning
experience of Marketing Activities at Innovative Incentives & Rewards Pvt. Ltd.
headquartered in Chandigarh, required a lot of guidance and assistance from many people and
I am extremely privileged to have got this all along the completion of my project.
First, I am very much thankful to almighty God for giving me strength and ability to
complete the internship program and also the SIP report in a scheduled time without much
hassle.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the whole ECC Team of IMT Nagpur, for
conducting ‘VOYAGE’ job fair in college and thereby providing me the platform to
showcase my capabilities and become a part of successful organization for internship.
I owe my deep gratitude to my company guide Mr. Brahm Alreja (Director, IIRPL) for
providing me the opportunity to work for the company and for his valuable guidance
throughout the SIP process and suggestions during this project work.
Last but not the least, I am thankful to and fortunate enough to get constant encouragement,
support and guidance from Dr. S. Anant Ram who guided me throughout the SIP period and
whose valuable suggestions helped me perform better.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Introduction 1-4
9 Bibliography 29
CHAPTER -1
INTRODUCTION
Loyalty programs are conducted by companies keeping in mind to encourage customers to buy
again and again or to use the business services. In fact these are brand promoting marketing
strategies formulated by companies applies in these loyalty programs. There are many ways in
which these loyalty programs are being conducted. In some cases company directly involves
in the execution process of loyalty programs where companies will be having a dedicated wing
working for the loyalty programs points tracking, gift redemption activities, other brand
promoting activities including social media marketing. But in some other cases, due to some
reasons which company give prior importance, these execution process and related activities
work will be outsourced to some independent consultant or brand marketing agency, who is an
expert in organizing these programs. There are various reasons why loyalty programs are
outsourced. The loyalty programs which these companies have undertaken from different
clients will have different features and redemption schemes, cover most kind of business.
A GLANCE ON HISTORY
The beginning was around the start of 1793, a U.S. merchant began giving copper tokens which
the customer can take and exchange for some items in some dedicated list of shops. This was
a new thing for the then people and gained instant popularity among people. And this technique
or strategy was replicated by numerous merchants and it got an instant click everywhere. A
famous example during 19th century is of “Grand Union Stores”. From 1872, in the company
catalog of Grand union stores, the Grand Union Tea Company gave customers tickets for
merchandise.
Another major diversion happened in the loyalty industry when a number of tour operator
including airline travel operators realized the value of offering something valuable to their
customers to use their company exclusively and be rewarded for their loyalty. In very few years
many companies from the travel industry especially airline industry introduce many loyalty
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programs for their customer with some different feature but philosophy of every program
remained the same.
From the data available online it is a clear understanding that, it is generally accepted among
merchants that acquiring a new customer costs a company about 5 to 25 times more than selling
to an existing customer. In addition, it is estimated that existing customers spend 67% more
than new customers. In short, Customer loyalty really pays off. Loyal customers can grow the
business more quickly than marketing & sales. Overall, only about 20-25% of customers are
really engaged in loyalty programs. In a survey conducted at the national level in the U.S., 66%
of financial executives have said acquiring new customers was the most important objective of
their loyalty program. Interestingly, Loyalty of Millennials is estimated nearly twice as much
as any other buyer.
There are many ways from the side of customer through which loyalty towards a brand or
organization can be shown- by positive word of mouth / positive online reviews etc. Loyal
customer will be spending in their favourite brand again and again and their positive customer
satisfaction convey the experience to their family, friends and colleagues. This helps in driving
free referral for the brand
Bringing in new customers and then customers bring other customers through referral. This
“Word of Mouth” marketing is far better than advertisements bringing new customers. These
loyal customers will remain for the brand.
Many companies may give a second thought of outsourcing their loyalty programs to some
agencies. But still, in market such agencies survive. WHY? Companies are actually risking
their brand life. So there are some reasons for it.
Some important benefits provided by organizations like Innovative Incentives in dealing with
these programs or campaigns are given below.
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1. BETTER PRICE
Gifts selection is a very difficult task. Actually it should be left to experts who handle
it on a big scale. Agencies like Innovative Incentives will check on what all products
are in market which are in demand and also economical for the client too. There should
be proper vendor connection with the related activities including logistics of gift
redemption etc. Agencies will be having a better connection
3. USAGE OF TECHNOLOGY
It’s very important in a loyalty program to monitor the points tracking and related
analytics related works. In agencies like Innovative Incentives, a group of system
analysts along with web developers do these jobs. This leads to better tracking of
customers also.
The biggest pain point for managing these programs is handling the logistics of the
rewards. Dealing with multiple courier partners and ensuring reward deliveries to
hundreds would make way for a disaster in the hands of people with no prior
experience. Big companies realized this truth much earlier and that is the reason they
leave all these hassles to experts who handle this for many other clients as well
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5. DECENT CUSTOMER CARE
This is very important while dealing with loyalty programs. The reward winners will
have never ending queries regarding gifts and latest offers. And this starts from the
launch of the project till the validity of program. Agencies need a bunch of smart and
efficient team to handle customer issues and they should be vigilant all time. A well
experienced set of trained callers should be well managed to minimize the problems
rising in the program.
There are two main factors or building blocks, on which a perfect Loyalty program is relied
upon. The group or bunch of people that we are targeting and market situation. Apart from
this, there are several other factors depends on the framing and success of loyalty programs.
They are:
1. DESIGNING OF PROGRAM
2. BUILDING UP OF INFRASTRUCTURE
3. MEMBER REGISTRATION
4. RECORDING OF TRANSACTIONS
5. MEMBER INVOLVEMENT
6. REWARD REDEMPTION
7. ANALYTICS
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CHAPTER-2
OBJECTIVES
1. To improve the website & social media pages of M/s Innovative incentives & Rewards.
2. To find out ways to promote the brand image of the firm on various social media
platforms.
3. To do analysis about entire brand marketing procedure done by companies in launching
their loyalty programs
4. To analyse best timings and procedures for social media posting in different channels
like Facebook, Instagram, liked in etc.
5. To find out changing customer perception towards loyalty programs.
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CHAPTER-3
What if the customer enjoy some permanent perks and benefits according to their rank? This
type of membership program is Tiered loyalty program. Here the customer is grouped or
ranked based on some criteria or metric and it’s not in the case of traditional loyalty
programs. Each rank-or tier- is defined by a set variety of rewards, services or benefits. In
fact, all these will be accelerated as customer shops again and again and progresses.
Customer may feel some competitive when hearing about the perks and benefits included in
the upper tier. And he may think ways to get up as early as possible.
Rewards in a tiered loyalty program can be easily compared with Maslow’s Hierarchy of
needs.
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EMPLOYER BRANDING STRATEGY
After my 3 weeks of internship, my boss gave me a task of preparing 65 nos. of reviews from
the employee perspective of the company. These reviews will be posted in the so called
employee review websites like:
• Glass door
• Indeed
• Career Builder
• Career bliss
• Job advisor
In fact I understand this was one of the best way to get good talents from the market pool. Its
very important to build up an optimistic employer brand. Below are some of the points which
I could refer from sources to support my statement
• 69% of candidates likely apply to a company if they actively manage their employer
brand.
• 84% of employees consider leaving their current jobs if another company has better
reputation
• 88% of millennials believe that being part of the right company culture is important.
• 79% of job seekers are likely to use social media in their job search..
So it was absolute sure that effective employee reviews can help companies maintain a
positive employer brand. Online reviews by employees can improve or damage an employer
brand.
(65 nos. of employee reviews were prepared and submitted to company guide along with
faculty mentor)
Company guide has informed that Posting will be starting from August onwards
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CHAPTER-4
COMPANY ANALYSIS
Innovative Incentives& Rewards Pvt. Ltd. was established as a full service brand marketing
agency at Mohali, Chandigarh in 2001. The firm helps "BRANDS" to understand the behavior
of consumers and is very much important in organizing & conducting Loyalty programs.
Customer loyalty programs can be differentiated into dealer types, influencer type etc. The
company is focused on introducing tools and imparting updated knowledge regarding
promotions of programs and brand marketing campaigns that accelerates the expectation of
brand among customers and in short this influence consumer behavior. Presently,
INNOVATIVE INCENTIVES have another branch at Dwaraka, Delhi and both branches are
performing in streamlined coordination for achieving the overall objectives of the organization.
The vision of the company is "To help brands share a direct marketing relationship with their
customers through a series of relevant, engaging and impactful rope”.
The company mainly focuses on Point Based loyalty programs. Both CUSTOMER &
INFLUENCER loyalty programs are being conducted by the company. In addition to the
loyalty programs, there are also consumer promotions, such as vouchers for holidays
/flights/spa/ films, events & brand activations, channel management, Call centres services, and
outsourcing.
Whole company believes in “3E” philosophy and kept as a standard for an approach to all
projects. These are:
• Experience – IIRPL has got a fantastic set of experienced we developers along with analytics
team. IIRPL team create marketing plans and CRM strategies that activate minds. This was
unlike other marketing agencies.
• Execution – A great idea or campaign is not enough until it is organized together with a
world-class process, analytics, etc. Smart execution is the key driver at INNOVATIVE
INCENTIVES.
• Excitement – Fresh approaches which lead to innovation in branding are always having a
welcome at IIRPL and this brings much excitement among employees.
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Efficient consultants at Innovative Incentives have worked for so many famous client firms by
providing expertise in the designing and execution of programs. So called programs are
influenced by the demands and wishes of customers. The clientele of the company includes
many famous brands that include
• Operations
• Projects
o Project Coordinator
o Asst. Project Manager
• Redemption/ Client Servicing
• Human Relations
o HR Manager
o HR Executive
o Front Desk Executive
• Despatch
o Despatch manager
o Despatch Executive
• Web/ App Developing
o PHP Developer
o Android Developer
o Ios Developer
• Accounts
o Senior Accounts Executive
o Junior Accounts Executive
• Back End support executive
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Back end support executive will be alert on all days at a particular time and all problems
related to the gift redemptions, logistics issues, and gift point tracking issues etc. will
be dealt efficiently.
TROUBLE SHOOTING
Back end team will be in continuous touch with operations team and web developers.
So any such issue related to website or app will be dealt instantly by the team of
Innovative incentives.
Client won’t be having any head ache in dealing with such issues like App issue,
redemption issue, gift issue, gift defect issue, which are a part of a loyalty program.
One system analyst and one web/app developer will be always vigilant to attend for any
customer related queries or complaints.
GIFT DESPATCH
Innovative Incentives have tie ups with various vendors like
o Bajaj
o V-guard
o Havells
o Zebronics
o Eureka forbes
o Samsung etc.
Provides gifts like mobile phones, vacuum cleaner, speaker etc. to customers of
various clients.
In the office it has a big store room for keeping gifts. Gifts are purchased and stored
at office with the help of an efficient back end analytics team who is handling the
loyalty program points tracking along with gift redemption department.
Gifts included from small items like grinder to big benefits like bike or car etc.
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POINTS TRACKING & GIFT REDEMPTIONS
Back end group of system analysts are handling a decent database of every project in which
following data of customers will be recorded:
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CHAPTER-5
WEBSITE IMPROVEMENT
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3. Can provide at least 5 or 6 flagship works done by Innovative Incentives along with
✓ Client LOGO
✓ Main Purpose of that Program
✓ How Innovative Incentives have handled it?
✓ Outcome or Impact of the program
✓ Because it makes easy for the customers to check about the loyalty programs
done in their respective domain.
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8. To increase the interaction with one time website visitors along with regular clients
and employees, a separate section in the landing page where some ideas or thoughts
can be shared so that those ideas can be discussed and executed.
✓ Present picture over there do not convey the actual message what it want to.
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3. Need of a verified SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT to
Just Convey
✓ What are we doing?
✓ For whom we are doing this?
✓ Highlight purpose/outcome of program
- Instead of
✓ Irrelevant Content which makes no connection with the page
visitor
2. COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
Under the instruction my company guide I did a small research on online to have a
study on main competitors of Innovative Incentives in its industry- both at national
and international levels.
It was found out that there are mainly 6 key players in this industry playing at a global
level. They are
1. Accentiv
2. Channel play
3. One Loyalty
4. Grass Roots
5. Loyalty Prime
6. Evolve Brands
Through their websites and some online articles, the following datas were noted down
in the research
- Services / solutions
- Products/ Platforms
- Key clients
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(HARD COPY OF BELOW EXCEL FILE HAS BEEN SUBMITTED TO COMPANY
GUIDE AND SOFT COPY TO FACULTY MENTOR)
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3. EMPLOYER BRANDING STRATEGY –
Hard copy and soft copy of Whole document including 65 nos. of review was submitted to
both company guide and faculty mentor earlier itself.)
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4. POSTER CREATION FOR INNOVATIVE INCENTIVES
J.K.Fenner has been a market leader in its products. ‘PRAGATI’ is an ‘Invite only Loyalty
Program designed by Innovative Incentives for J.K.Fenner. This is mainly intended for
client’s influencers/dealers to enhance their efforts to market and sell products and thus fulfil
their aspirations.
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Once enrolled there is no time period for the scheme.
• Reward Every time
Customer gets rewarded for each item of JK Fenner that he buys
• Flexible Participation
Customer can redeem points as and when required a particular gift.
• Anytime and Anywhere access
Customer will have a mobile app which will help him to monitor the participation and status
all the time.
- Customer will be credited with Reward Points every time he register purchase through
the PRAGATI APP.
App registration will be under the name of customer
- Any registered PRAGATI mechanic can claim points with QR coded packing box/
pouch of J.K.Fenner product. Customer can also register the points in his name through
any of J.K.Fenner ’s partner retailers as well
- Procedure for adding points are as follows:
1. Simply open PRAGATI App
2. Select Add Points
3. Scan QR Code on the packing box/ pouch of J.K.Fenner product
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- Once Customer starts accumulating points, he can redeem the point for the gifts offered
as per the slabs.
Registration:
• J.K.Fenner sales team will be in touch with the customer on the registration process.
• Customer can either go to the nearest retailer or approach area’s JK Fenner sales team to
get registered on to the programme.
• All registration are subject to verification by J.K.Fenner sales team – post which customer
can start participating.
Verification might take 3 working days
(Here comes the role of Innovative Incentives. Project management team is always well
connected with web developing team. And on the very first day, verification will be done by
IIRPL and passed on to J.K.Fenner. Once the confirmation comes from client side, Customer
will be registered on proper channel and it will be updated in the app.
Accumulation of points:
• Customer can scan the QR Code of the products through the app and the points will be
accumulated in the registered account.
• In case of any problem with the application, a designated number will be provided to the
customer in Brochure and in app also.
(This will be dealt by IIRPL Customer caser service. App development team will be in sync
with the call centre services.)
• In case of dispute, the points will be given to the person who has the photo of the packing
cover which has to be send via the app
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• A VIDEO WILL BE PROVIDED TO THE CUSTOMER FOR FINDING OUT HOW
TO USE THE APP.
Redemption of points
• PRAGATI App has a redemption screen as well and customer can claim their redemption
through the app.
• Customer can also call at a designated number provided to them, from their registered
mobile number and they will also register redemption request of customer.
• All redemptions request are OTP controlled which will come to the registered mobile
number.
• A VIDEO WILL BE PROVIDED TO THE CUSTOMER FOR FINDING OUT HOW
TO USE THE APP
There are total 8 slabs for this programs and in each slab customer has the privilege
to choose among 5 gifts.
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(ABOVE POSTER WAS MADE USING CANVA AND SOME CHANGES WERE
MADE USING ADOBE PHOTOSHOP.
6. CLIENT PRESENTATION
With the help of supporting web/app developers I got a chance to present the working of
PRAGATI LOYALTY PROGRAM mobile app created by Innovative Incentives.
It was a small presentation conducted with the request of our client and representatives of
J.K.Fenner came to our Mohali office.
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CHAPTER-6
In today’s world, customers have a lot of option of being loyal to different brands. So
traditional loyalty programs won’t pay off.
Among loyalty programs, tiered loyalty programs stands out. The major key lies not in
“sales” & “distribution”, but in “customer satisfaction” & “long term engagement”.
So tiered loyalty programs is definitely one of the most efficient ways to bring back the
customer. Here the customer enjoy permanent perks & benefits depending on their rank.
Tiered loyalty programs rank members into certain groups based on a certain value
And now a day’s effectiveness of a loyalty program is fixed by customers by how easy it is to
get points and other kind of benefits. Other than monetary benefits, customer experience and
satisfaction plays a major factor in the overall success of program.
IMPORTANCE OF PERSONALIZATION
Customer satisfaction and service personalization is highly correlated. Now a days there has
become a trend that customers are ready to spend if they are assured that they will get special
care.
People involved in loyalty programs are creating their own segments so that better
personalization can be made available to customers through different experiences. So brands
need to follow customers constantly, make personalized recommendation, hearing from them,
trying different engagement approaches, new products, revenue models, etc.
People are not satisfied with traditional loyalty programs. Omni channel loyalty programs
connects customers to a brand on more touch points than the traditional. Here members are
getting chance to be rewarded not only for spending but also for the engagement with the
brand
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Ex: Beauty giant “Tarte’s” launched “tarte<3 rewards” loyalty program, which rewards
members for not only spending money with the brand but for sharing content on social media,
referring friends & reading emails.
So such activities keep the members engaged with the brand in a positive way and each member
will happily be a brand advocate.
AMAZON PRIME is a very good example I can state to explain the gaining popularity of
premium loyalty programs. People are ready to spend an extra money as an upfront fee before
the start of services in expectation of fabulous benefits offered in the program.
And from the reviews which are available online, I can say fee-based loyalty programs are
much better than free programs.
“ZOMATO GOLD” is also another Prime membership loyalty program similar to SWIGGY
SUPER in the food category.
It’s nothing but the “KEY IS EMOTIONAL LOYALTY” – People won’t think about money
when emotion takes place.
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CHAPTER-7
LIMITATION
• There was no social media tools available from the company side. I was using online
tools like Google Analytics for the assigned research work.
• There was no proper format given by company for competitor analysis.
• Instead of marketing activities I was involved in the project development phase of
company’s latest project “PRAGATI”. But due to shortage of time, I couldn’t be a
part of the remaining project development phase of PRAGATI loyalty program after
the web development and first client presentation.
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CHAPTER-8
• Company has a very unique service which can be provided which is exactly a niche
industry. So the only thing company needs to market it properly.
• Since the company is in such an industry where active participation in social media is
inevitable, Innovative Incentives should work on be active
• Innovative Incentives have planned to recruit a full time social media marketer which
is a very big positive leap for the firm.
This industry demands full time active engagement in social media channels which
can be provided by a concerned informed person, will definitely do betterment for the
company.
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CHAPTER-9
BIBLIOGRAPHY
• https://en.wikipedia.org
• https://antavo.com
• https://www.glassdoor.com
• https://www.careerbuilder.com
• https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/business/talent-
solutions/global/en_us/c/pdfs/ultimate-list-of-employer-brand-stats.pdf
• https://linkhumans.com
• https://growthhackers.com
• https://www.invensis.net
• https://innovativeincentives.in/
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