CompUSA finds online game a good sales incentive for employees
To encourage its sales associates to sell more products, CompUSA Inc. is offering them an online "scratch-and-win" game that lets them earn up to $250 per sale above their usual commission. "It has proven to be substantially more effective" than traditional incentive programs, says Daniel Perrone, director of consumer services.
CompUSA is offering the game as a way to drive more store sales of a targeted group of digital products and services, including broadband Internet access services and related products like cable modems. Because of the program’s early success, CompUSA plans to also use it to push sales of digital music services, Internet telephony, home security and satellite radio products and services, among other things, the retailer says. "We are now consistently motivating team members to learn about and sell the targeted products," Perrone says.
The game incentive program is based on online game technology provided by RealTime Media and a Visa-branded stored-value debit card from Ecount. After CompUSA employees sell one of the targeted products, they log onto a secure web page, enter their personal and product information, then choose from among several game images that offer rewards ranging in value from $2 to $250. They use their mouse to "scratch" the selected game image and find out if they won. The value of rewards is then loaded to their stored-value card account. The cards can be used online or offline wherever Visa-branded cards are accepted. Employees are responsible for figuring and paying income tax on the value of the rewards.
The system is designed so that the retailer figures the total value of rewards before starting the incentive program, which may include contributions from manufacturers, says Jodi Kaiser Kerr, senior director of new business development for RealTime Media, King of Prussia, PA. CompUSA did not say whether the suppliers of its targeted products and services were contributing to the rewards.
Working with RealTime Media, a retailer sets the winning frequency for each reward value and presents participants with the odds of winning each reward value on the game’s web page. The odds of winning the smallest reward, $2, for example, usually is 100%, while the odds of winning the highest value, $250, might be 5%, or one of out of 20. Once funds for a particular game are exhausted, the retailer tells employees the program is terminated.
After rewards are won, RealTime Media contacts and directs Ecount, Conshoshoken, PA, to load the appropriate value onto the employee’s card. There is usually a delay of up to 14 days before funds are loaded to an employee`s card account to assure that a sale was not canceled or returned by the consumer, so that employees are only rewarded for net sales, Kerr says. RealTime Media will match its game information against final sales data compiled by the participating retailer before notifying Ecount to load value to a card, she adds.
RealTime Media, which hosts the game application on its own web servers, charges from $60,000 to $100,000 to set up and operate the online game, with the fee depending on the complexity of the installation, Kerr says. Individual programs are usually intended to run about a year. Since much of those fees are tied to the initial set-up, fees for subsequent game programs can be significantly reduced, she says.
The system is also designed to let employees log on to check the current value stored on their cards, and to let managers monitor the number of rewards going to employees.
Retailers are free to put their own logos and other designs on the stored-value cards, presenting them with an additional way to promote their brand as employees use the card in public places, says Gary Newcomb, executive vice president of corporate development for Ecount.
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