This article is aimed at edtech suppliers. However, Heads of departments and others might find it interesting as a way of considering what kind of incentives offered by companies to buy their product or service would be considered acceptable.

How do you attract new customers, and keep existing ones coming back? One approach is to offer customer incentives.

Everyone likes to have an incentive dangled in front of them, but you can’t just use any old “ethical bribe” — it needs to be appropriate. I was once offered discounts on buying a suite of computers for my school if I persuaded my colleagues to take out an insurance policy! This was both inappropriate and, let’s be honest, sleazy. Apart from anything else, what would trying to persuade my colleagues to take out a new insurance policy have done for my reputation? And where would it put me if they lost money as a result?

But even if the insurance policy was so good it would have sold itself, that incentive was inappropriate for one very simple reason. The school was buying the computers, and therefore it should have been the school (or an organisation it sponsored) that benefitted from any incentives rather than individual members of staff.

What kind of “ethical bribes” might you offer potential customers? 

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