Springbok poised to leap ahead
springbok is an African antelope characterized by keen vision and extraordinary speed and agility. True to its name, Springbok Services Inc. strives to deliver quick incentive, loyalty and private label gift card programs to market, while always keeping an eye on the future.
Since its founding in 1999, Springbok has been focused on the prepaid industry. The Englewood, Colo.-based company started out by implementing card programs for the small business market. It leveraged that experience to expand its offerings to larger corporate entities.
"We've never abandoned our original process and original reason for being in prepaid," said Mike Ross, Senior Vice President of National Sales for Springbok. "A lot of companies shift and change, but our focus has really never varied. We want to be very customized and very specific to our customers' needs."
The health care sector and the automotive industry are two markets Springbok services. For example, Springbok designs incentive cards that offer discounts to pharmacy customers, while also reminding them to purchase prescription drugs at the right frequency.
"The value of prepaid cards is that they can influence healthy behaviors," Ross said. "We also want to ensure that consumers are taking drugs how they should and when they should … and prepaid's a great avenue for that."
As for the automotive industry, Springbok provides card programs that help manufacturers and dealerships galvanize sales forces to move their products in addition to "incentivizing" potential car buyers with rebates.
"It certainly makes someone who has the discretionary funds to buy a car, but just is a little bit apprehensive at the moment, make them move off that dime," Ross said.
Under one roof
Ross said Springbok differentiates itself from the competition by controlling almost every aspect of prepaid programs. It functions as program manager, processor and incentive manager. It actually manufactures the physical cards at its production facility in Denver. The only hat it does not wear is card issuing bank.
Bringing most aspects of prepaid programs under "one roof" allows Springbok to be "much more proactive and service oriented," Ross said.
"When I have a meeting once a week and the head of [each department] is in that meeting and I'm talking about my program with x client, I've got everybody that I'd ever need to talk to right there at the meeting with me," he said. "Great ideas and great things can come of that when we're not dependent on other providers and trying to put a daisy chain together.
"It certainly helps when things go wrong. But, more importantly, it allows us to be on the cutting edge consistently, all the time because we control the whole process." #h2Step by step
In September 2008, Springbok rolled out private label gift cards to its corporate clients that function like open loop cards; the private-label cards are branded with particular corporate businesses but can be redeemed at retail and POS locations worldwide. (For more information, see "Springbok bounds into private label offering," Selling Prepaid E-Magazine, Sept. 4, 2008, issue 08:09:A.)
Dovetailing with that implementation, Springbok's recently launched Personalized Program Messaging - a system that delivers customized text messages to targeted recipients and is designed to compliment incentive cards.
For example, a car salesman sells a car. The salesman gets a text message from the car manufacturer congratulating him on the sale and rewarding him with $100 loaded onto the his private label incentive card.
"If you can impact the point at which the salesman sells the vehicle, receive his reward and reinforce it with messaging, what you've really done is reward the behavior that, ultimately, the manufacturer is trying to promote," Ross said.
Ross said the salesman might use that $100 to take his family out to dinner. And since the card can be used like an open loop gift card, he is not limited in restaurant selection. The manufacturer has rewarded the salesman for a job well done, reinforced behavior (selling cars) and given the salesman freedom of choice in how to spend that money. Up next for Springbok is the rollout of its Web-based Ascend Performance Elevation. The service, to be introduced before the end of 2008, is designed to help Springbok's clients manage their reward and incentive programs online.
In the first quarter of 2009, Springbok expects to launch Springboard (a proprietary card ordering and account management platform), followed by payroll (enFunds) and financial aid disbursement programs.
Ross said Springbok's announcements and new product rollouts have been coordinated to enhance Springbok's value proposition to its clients. Each new offering is designed to work with the system and products already in place and function with the services not yet launched.
"All of these [components] work with one another, so a payroll program can be involved with Springboard and Ascend and personalized messaging," Ross said. "So we were very strategic in the order by which we're going to market and what we're going to market with.
"We're jammin' for sure," Ross said.
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