Coming Soon: Inovelli Rewards Program

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COMING SOON: Note - you were redirected here from the QR Code. We’re targeting end of February 2021 and we will backdate your order to include it in the rewards points. Stay tuned and thanks for your patience!

If you don’t already love us, hopefully this will push you over the edge lol!

We’ll be launching a rewards program likely at the end of September or early October (we are developing it right now and have paid for the service).

What we’d like is your input on ideas around how to earn points. I’ll outline the details below around how we believe it will work (subject to change) as well as ideas we have to earn points.

Initial Rewards Idea (We've Revised Below)

Initial Post - Updated Program at the Bottom

Program Goals:

  • Encourage Community Interaction (helps us cut down ticket load)
  • Education of our Products: installation, usage, etc (also helps us cut down ticket load as well as share what these products can do, which hopefully increases future purchasing and loyalty bc they’re flipping cool products)
  • Increase Brand Loyalty
  • Reach New Households (hopefully the word will be spread about the loyalty program and this will give people who are on the fence a reason to purchase or intrigue people who have never heard of us)
  • Direct traffic/sales to Inovelli.com (USA) or Aartech/Inovelli.ca (Canada) – our margins are way higher when products are purchased through our site, so we’re trying to persuade people to buy direct (or in Canada’s case, we want to make sure our partnership with Aartech is a good one)

Overview
This will work similar to Chase Rewards, Marriott, etc where you earn points and those points can be cashed in for product, services, merch, etc. There will be various Tiers as some things are easy to do, whereas others are harder. It will be tied directly into our website, so no separate sites to go to (yay).

Ideas to Earn Points
This is what we’ve come up with so far – we believe they should be possible as most of our platforms have open API’s, but we’ll see.

Tier 1 = Easiest Way to Earn Points

  • Like/Follow our Social Media Channels (YT, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc)
  • Purchase Products via Inovelli.com, Amazon.com, Aartech, etc (Note: points will be weighted differently on Amazon as we’d prefer to have people shop at our site)

Tier 2 = Moderately Easy Way to Earn Points

  • Read setup articles prior to installation (this will be an email sent to you prior to delivery) – this will apply only once per product.

Tier 3 = More Difficult Ways to Earn Points

  • Unboxing videos, review videos and allowing us to post them (or posting them yourself)
  • If you solve a forum topic (Note: we will monitor this and if there’s multiple solves, we can manually give points)
  • Post a, “How-To” write-up with screenshots and/or videos in our, “How-To” sections in each of the
  • Referral/Affiliate program (thanks @gibbor!)

I think this is pretty much all we’ve thought of so far, but we’re definitely open to as many ideas as you have.

NOTE: I know this question will come up so here goes lol – people who have purchased products before the rewards program rolls out will receive points for their past purchases (from Jan 1st, 2020 to present), but those points will expire within a certain period of time (TBD). All future points accumulated will not have an expiration date.

The reason prior points will expire is bc they were not accounted for in our prior profits and they are essentially an expense that are not reflected in our financials. However, we do want to reward those who have been loyal to us before the program started.

Looking forward to the discussion!

For reference, @Brianna_Inovelli will be leading this (I’m the backup) and has done an awesome job coordinating everything with the third party company.

Updated Rewards Program Based on Feedback

Thanks everyone for your inputs here – we have a discussion with the team tomorrow (Thursday, Sept 10) to see what all is possible. As always, this is subject to change!

Based on Feedback, here’s the latest:

There will be two parts, with the primary focus around the loyalty program and the secondary focus will be around community engagement.

Curious on your thoughts below.

Part 1: Loyalty Program

This will be tied to either Activities Completed or Purchases via Authorized Channels.

Activities Points:

Activity Points
Low Difficulty 50
Medium Difficulty 100
High Difficulty 150

Activities:

Low: 50 points

  1. Follow our twitter page
  2. Like our Facebook page
  3. Follow our Instagram page
  4. Subscribe to our YouTube channel
  5. Complete your profile (held in desk account profile)
  6. Customer birthday (held in desk account profile)
  7. Click on setup links does not complete quizlet (Knowledge Base – Desk)

Medium: 100 points

  1. Click on setup links and complete quizlet (Knowledge Base – Desk)
  2. Leave us a Google review
    a. 200 characters minimum
  3. Leave us a Website review (BigCommerce)
    a. 200 characters minimum
    b. Only clickable through product purchase emails to reduce fake reviews
  4. Recommend us on Facebook
  5. Referral Bonus
    a. All customers get 1 referral per month
    b. Assigned influencers receive unlimited referrals
  6. Surveys to the community
  7. Solve a question in the community
    a. When question is marked as solved the solver would receive points automatically

High: 150 points

  1. User Generated Content about our products
    a. Community Tips & Tricks
    b. YouTube video
    c. Facebook page post on customer’s personal page
Product Points MSRP Point Equivalent
Black Series On/Off 28 280
Black Series Dimmer 32 320
Red Series On/Off 35 350
Red Series Dimmer 39 390
Fan/Light 70 700
4-1 Sensor 35 350
RGBW 25 250
CCT 20 200
Paddles 4 40
Bypass 15 150
Black Series On/Off 10pk 250 2800*
Black Series Dimmer 10pk 290 3200*
Red Series On/Off 10pk 325 3500*
Red Series Dimmer 10pk 350 3900*

*Note: We are encouraging the purchase of 10pks and we’ll reward you as if you purchased 10x individual switches, even though you’ve spent less.

As of right now here’s how the points equate to USD dollars (NOTE: We will have a separate program for Canada which will equate CAD to points).

Earning Points
$1 = 10 Points (ie: a Black Series Dimmer’s MSRP = $32.00, so you will earn 320 Points).

Exchanging Points
$1 = .01 Points (ie: if you have 320 Points, you will have the equivalent of $3.20 USD – also, these points hold no cash value outside of trading them in for money off your order. In other words, we are not going to write you a check if you cash in your points lol).

In addition to cashing in points, you will have the ability to move up various Tiers. They are as follows (yes, lame names… we wanted to keep it similar to other loyalty programs as it’s more recognizable. However, we can be swayed):

Tiers Points Prizes Multiplier
Newb 0 - 2499 N/A 0.00
Silver 2500 - 7499 Sticker, Welcome Packet, Forum Badge 1.25
Gold 7500 - 24999 YETI Mug w/Inovelli logo, Gold Packet, Forum Badge 1.50
Platinum 25000 - 99999 Inovelli Polo (Nike), Platinum Packet, Forum Badge 1.75
Diamond 100000+ 3-Day trip to Inovelli HQ, Diamond Packet, Forum Badge 2.00
Part 2: Community Engagement

The second portion revolves around the community and overall engagement and thank you to @Melerann for the suggestion of breaking these apart.

We haven’t fully vetted this one out, but the every month we can run data from the community that shows the following:

  • Hearts Received
  • Hearts Given
  • Topics
  • Replies
  • Viewed
  • Read
  • Visits

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We can then come up with some sort of engagement metric and the top 5 will be put into a drawing for some sort of prize (swag, project named after them, etc). I’m looking into whether or not there’s more data that we can pull.

Questions for you all:

  • For situations where multiple people have solved something or people randomly tag onto a thread and have their problem solved (ie: [HOW-TO] Using the Z-Wave Association Tool in Hubitat - #47 by zavex) how should we score this? I’m going to try to split topics as best as I can, but sometimes it makes sense to keep related questions in the same thread.
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I’ve only been following Inovelli for a short while, but I was hoping you would come out with a rewards program. It makes me so happy that my order from last week will count for points.

Maybe another way to earn points is some sort of affiliate/referral system. It could even be a 4th tier if it is tied to actual sales.

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Excellent idea! I’m going to add it to the list :slight_smile:

It’s been something we’ve wanted to do for so long, and we’re super pumped to finally have the resources to bring it to fruition!

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Like @Eric_Inovelli said, we’re super excited for you all to have input in the projects we are rolling out. I think this rewards program in particular could be really cool! How about some free Inovelli gear at a certain number of points?

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That would take a lot of points. Inovelli gear is less expensive than most comparable Z-wave devices (and some Zigbee and WiFi devices :smile:), but it’s not a Big Mac either. Not that it wouldn’t work—a night at a Marriott isn’t cheap either—but it might be nice to have smaller things to redeem rewards for too (other than color paddles :wink: ).

Another thought: you have beta testing—both closed betas for new devices and open betas for firmware. For closed betas I could see “gold” (or whatever your upper teir is called; maybe “Red Series” :smile:) folks getting to the front of the beta tester queue. For both closed and especially open betas, perhaps points for bug reporting? More points for reproducible example and/or analysis (or whatever else helps the engineers fix the bug and/or the community work around it) than for a simple “I did this and it didn’t work” report…

With the second generation devices, I’m excited to see Inovelli focusing on what I see as your core competencies—really awesome switches—for which there is nothing comparable on the market. (Yeah, smart bulbs too, Illumin is pretty cool…) I can’t wait to see what comes out of R&D in the next year or so… And I think a program like this might help get the word out to new potential customers.

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Those are some great ideas! I’m excited to connect our rewards program to community engagement because I do think finding bugs or items that help our developers would be point worthy :slight_smile: Thanks for your input!

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@Eric_Inovelli @Brianna_Inovelli your thoughts about reaching new households with a rewards program got me thinking about my own case. My home automation journey really ought to be its own post, but for an anecdote, the money you spent on Amazon “sponsored” placement worked: before I got into Z-Wave I was buying Kasa switches, and Amazon kept suggesting Inovelli gear.

That was just the brand exposure, of course. What followed was more important: eventually I went to your website, read about what the switches could do, read about the company and its goals, and liked what I saw. I started to imagine how these switches would play out in my house, and realized that I had a few tricky use cases.

What finally won me over was the support: I thought about the most difficult use case in my house: a virtual three-way between lights on two different circuits, where two-way sync would be needed. I had some ideas about this and opened a ticket… and got a response the same day from @Eric_Inovelli basically saying that it was an interesting question and deferring to @EricM_Inovelli who had the complete answer within a couple of days. I don’t know how you folks manage such great support, with responses from the founders to customer inquiries, but I was impressed.

I still haven’t implemented that solution because the Red Series dimmers were out of stock, but I will soon. My first shipment of Red Series dimmers, unfortunately, needs to go towards replacing Black Series dimmers: for WAF reasons I need double-tap up to turn on the dimmer to 100%, like Maestro does, and that requires a Central Scene command (I wish it didn’t: see Post 4754). After that, my next shipment can go to the hallway that inspired my query and Inovelli’s great response…

I just saw that my first shipment of Red Series dimmers has been delivered. I’m so excited to install them this weekend! :grin::grin::grin:

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I can speak for Eric and myself when I say I’m happy to hear our Amazon sponsored posts worked! We hope people like you in our community will be able to welcome new members as they join through the rewards program. I continue to learn new things about our products from this community, we all know how special this space is. Let us know how setup goes, it sounds like a great weekend activity! :slight_smile:

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Can we get points for purchases made in the last couple months :pensive:

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@mraz.camren

NOTE: I know this question will come up so here goes lol – people who have purchased products before the rewards program rolls out will receive points for their past purchases (from Jan 1st, 2020 to present), but those points will expire within a certain period of time (TBD). All future points accumulated will not have an expiration date.

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What about offering points for creative usage ideas? It’s easy to say the product is great, but being able to show examples (think recipe book) may have more value.

Doing it “right” in my mind you would have a list on your website that could be filtered by hub and Inovelli device. Then the user would know this idea would work for their specific equipment.

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Love the concept!

I think points should be earned in the following tiered strategy:

Tier 1: Direct Purchases - Should probably be 75% weight or more because this directly impacts your bottom line.

  1. Self-Purchases (really appreciate purchases since 1/1, but even further back would be better. I think since V2 was released).
  2. Referred purchases (add a referral code system like Tesla OR by username on purchase form entry?) This could be added to checkout form.
  3. Leaving an approved review over 250 characters

Tier 2: Support/Community Involvement

  1. Marked as Solution posts
  2. Top 25% and Top 5% tiers counted ~monthly
  3. Beta software testing/bug discovery
  4. Clicked links to support articles.

Tier 3: Social Media

  1. Videos broadcasting company
  2. Social Media tagging (not sure how you would integrate?)
  3. Community joins from social media (via registration form)

Tiers could add up to “insider” rank
Insider

  1. First crack at beta testing registration
  2. Beta testing software
  3. Priority Support (some of us DO have issues still!)

Insiders should get 10% off products and merch always.

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It might be worth avoid this. It can devalue the reviews - even if they are actually legitimate. It may make people question if they were done for the “reward” or because they really feel that way about the product.

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Interesting idea.
I think the biggest concern, is that a financial reward will push some people to jump through the program hoops for the sake of the reward. IE post a lot of reviews that don’t really say much, answer a lot of forum questions with barely-acceptable answers, etc.

I do very much like the idea of an incentive for people who drive the community and create a lot of good content. I am just encouraging caution to avoid unexpected negative results.

This is especially true with an affiliate program- you don’t want to find Inovelli affiliate spam causing problems on other websites. And if half the recommendations online to buy Inovelli carry an affiliate link, that may end up reducing the brand’s credibility as it could be viewed like a MLM program.

I’m just saying- as you create the problem, be always thinking ‘how will a moron abuse this’.

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I didn’t say POSITIVE reward. I’m just saying that a more detailed review of WHY they did/did not like it is worth 10 reviews saying “Great Switch” or “Returned, didn’t work”.

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Your MVPs are contributing community developers. The people contributing firmware updaters that don’t make me want to throw my computer off the roof (thanks @bcopeland), the people writing web tools that makes writing notifications at all reasonable (thanks @nathanfiscus), the people that have contributed features to the drivers (thanks @npk22, jdmar3, etc). Contributing code, platform, scripts, glue should net you the most win. In my mind that’s the best contribution you can make as an enthusiast. You build the whole ecosystem. I wouldn’t be able to do any of my Inovelli->Hubitat->Google shenanigans right now without a bunch of user-contributed code filling in the gaps. I suspect a lot of us are in the same boat.

After that your most useful people are the ones who make the tutorials, FAQs, and reliably answer questions. Pet peeve, though: I hate seeing this summarized as “unboxing videos”. Those are for children, I want a summary of features and specs and an independent and unbiased review. Review videos with honest demonstrations of capabilities I am interested in, with the right technical details, are quite valuable to me.

I strongly support your idea to incentivize solving forum topics.

Since you have the sales records already, it would be nice to get retroactive points for purchases that were made through inovelli.com in the past.

You might consider tying the forum software’s Badges and Groups functionality in with the rewards program (in both directions).

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A post was split to a new topic: Country Specific Forum Ideas