In today’s vastly connected, incredibly competitive, and highly globalized society, businesses are very complex and have complicated needs. Their reward programs need to be just as complex. Online reward technology has reached a point in which it can do more than just enhance your organization’s performance by rewarding your customers and partners. It can also help you analyze performance metrics to set more relevant, specific goals and achieve better results year after year.

Steve Damerow, CEO of a reward program provider called Loyaltyworks, says, “You have to think of loyalty programs as living organisms. They have to evolve.” This is the philosophy behind Loyaltyworks’ powerful tracking and reporting technology. Program administrators not only have the power to distribute rewards and control the parameters of all promotions (i.e., who participates in each promotion and exactly what their goals are), they also have robust tracking and reporting tools at their service.

1: Increase sales by goal tracking.One of the most useful things about today’s online reward technology is its ability to automatically collect data submitted from sales claims. It’s a one-stop-shop for rewarding program participants and building a database of consumer information at the same time. When you have more information about consumers’ purchasing habits, you can market to them more effectively and set more strategic sales goals. For instance, you can set up promotions for particular products in the districts where those products are most popular. The longer you track your goals, the more detailed key performance indicators (KPIs) you can examine.

2: Increase product knowledge with training.One of your KPIs should be product knowledge among your sales team or sales channel. Monitor how your sales team and business partners are selling your products. Find out where their product knowledge can be improved and train them accordingly. The more educated and up to date they are on your products, the more confidence they will have selling them. With reward program technology, you can implement training curriculum and reward participants for taking surveys and answering quiz questions correctly. This will lead them to being more extensively educated about your company’s products and policies.

3: Create a better work environment with employee recognition.Much research from Harvard Business Review articles to studies of Google company culture—indicates that happier employees are more productive. When you create a positive, supportive work environment, your employees thrive. Therefore, an excellent work environment should become another of your KPIs. Praise your employees with words and rewards for their excellent. Create leader boards that recognize top performers. You can also use reward technology to set up a social media wall for employee recognition, so peers can acknowledge each other’s contributions and celebrate success together. The more your employees enjoy working with you and each other, the more they will help one another in reaching their potential.

Reward programs can be powerful motivators, but the potential of many programs is wasted because they aren’t properly implemented. Online reward programs can be powerful tools, so take advantage of that technology. Features like goal tracking, training, and employee recognition can help you identify KPIs and target specific pain points to boost your organization’s performance.