Key takeaways:
When installers choose between brands, the decision doesn't happen all at once. Reliability filters the field first. Price filters it again. By the time an installer is standing at the merchant counter, most of the decision is already made, and what's left is usually a shortlist of products that are, in practice, equivalent.
That's where rewards come in.
Our research asked installers to rank what drives their brand choices. Reliability came first, with 72% ranked it their primary criterion. An unreliable product costs an installer their reputation, and no loyalty programme compensates for that. Price came second, ranked top by 39%. From there: manufacturer support and training, stock availability, then customer preference, peer recommendations, and brand habit ( influential, but rarely decisive on their own).
Rewards and loyalty programmes ranked eighth. But this lower ranking reflects when rewards enter the decision, not how much they influence it.
Jump ahead:
Rewards rank eighth because they rarely operate as a starting criterion. An installer doesn't open a catalogue and filter by "has a loyalty scheme." They filter by reliability, then price. Rewards only enter the calculation once those conditions are satisfied, and in a commoditised category, this is almost always the case.
It’s a sequential decision rather than a weighted one. The first two factors eliminate options, while everything below them operates in the space that remains. In mature, competitive categories, that remaining space is where most brands actually live: technically sound, competitively priced, and broadly interchangeable in the eyes of the installer standing at the merchant counter.
That's the reframe: rewards just need to show up at the moment the shortlist ties:
In other words, 52% of installers will pick your brand over a comparable competitor if you offer rewards. The question is whether your programme is good enough to be the tiebreaker, or frustrating enough to be the tiebreaker for someone else.
The commercial case for investing in installer rewards goes well beyond the initial product choice. Once a programme is embedded in how an installer works — as part of their purchasing routine, their margin thinking, their brand preference — removing it creates an active loss, not just a neutral absence of benefit.
These numbers describe a retention asymmetry that brand directors should take seriously. Winning an installer's trial is one objective; making them structurally reluctant to leave is another, and more valuable, one. Nearly half of installers would actively reduce spend with a manufacturer if its programme disappeared. That's a switching cost you have built and that your competitors haven't.
The 56% figure matters too. More than half of installers say they would put genuine effort into earning rewards they find valuable. That effort — paying attention to the programme, choosing one product over another to accumulate points, logging purchases — is also a form of engagement that compounds over time. The installer who is actively working your programme is not passively drifting toward a competitor.
The data on reward preferences is unambiguous, and the pattern it reveals should shape every decision a brand makes about programme design. Installers want things that serve their working life over novelty and mechanics designed to make a programme look exciting in a pitch deck.
Tools and equipment lead at 61%, which are rewards that go directly back into the business. Gift cards and cash follow. Points per purchase and cashback are the preferred earning mechanics, chosen by a clear majority over tiered status systems or instant-win formats. The "spin to win" school of loyalty design attracts just 4% as a preferred mechanic.
The message from installers is consistent: predictable, tangible, useful value wins. Complexity is a liability. If an installer can't quickly understand what they'll earn and how they'll earn it, the programme stops functioning as a tiebreaker and starts functioning as friction and friction, in a competitive category, is a gift to whoever is running a simpler programme next door.
Simplicity also signals respect. A programme designed around what installers actually value (tools, cash in hand, points that accumulate transparently) tells the installer that the brand has paid attention. That signal has its own loyalty effect, separate from the monetary value of the reward itself.
If your product is reliable and competitively priced, you have earned the right to compete. That is table stakes in a commoditised category: necessary, but nowhere near sufficient. The brands that stop at "reliable and affordable" are competing on the same two dimensions as every serious player in their market. They are, by definition, interchangeable.
The installers choosing between you and a functionally equivalent competitor are making a relationship decision. It’s happening often quickly, often at the merchant, and often based on what comes to mind first. Rewards are one of the few levers a manufacturer can pull that directly influences that moment.
The programme doesn't need to be elaborate, rather it needs to be valuable, predictable, and frictionless to use. A well-designed rewards scheme is a structural component of your competitive position, building switching costs with every purchase and compounding loyalty with every redemption.