GiftCard Partners Blog

This is the final week of GiftCard Partners’ summer 2011 gift card usage survey. Participate by answering all the questions (maximum of 5) and submit your corporate program, consumer promotion, fundraising, or loyalty program gift card usage success story and you’ll be eligible for our drawing for TWO $50 gift cards. Your choices include: -   
The Children's Place -   
Brinker (1 card for 4 great restaurants: Chili's, The Macaroni Grill, On The Border and Maggiano’s Little Italy) -   
Charming Shoppes (1 card for 3 great fashion retailers: Fashion Bug, Lane Bryant and Catherine's) -   
CVS/pharmacy This survey closes on Friday August 15th, 2011.
Click here to participate!

I recently posted a response and opposing side to a story called “The Myth of Work Life Balance”, which stated that there was no such thing as this balance, that this idea is a pathetic chase and unattainable. Of course, I scathed out my side, practically offended that a woman would advocate “giving up” our journey to work-life balance; it doesn’t exist. Honestly, I’ve felt a bit unsettled that my attempt at debunking this myth was just one mom’s personal story and perspective and not representative enough of others’ truths. However, my company meeting gives us proof otherwise.

Every once in a while I’ve got to blog a gift card feel-good story. In Indiana, the Worth County Development Authority is offering students in the county a $75.00 gift card to help with pricey back to school expenses. The non-profit organization is donating more than 1,300 gift cards, that’s more than $100,000 worth. Back to school can be a stressful and expensive time for families; it’s nice to see this creative use of gift cards. Watch the video below:  

Call Center and retail employees have long shared several unique employee motivation challenges. Managers of both professions suffer from high turnover, training issues for primarily entry-level jobs, team morale issues, and a need to infuse the workplace with creative incentives. Call centers and retail environments share these challenges and you might think the commonalities end there…but WHO is filling these positions? “Generation-Y”.
When thinking of incentives for Gen-Y, you must choose flexible, sought after rewards for excellent teamwork, meeting individual and team goals, and meeting and exceeding training objectives. Gift cards have earned the highly coveted “best employee incentive” spot amongst rewards and incentives, as the employee is empowered to select what they want in the end. This generation requires choice, to select what they consider to be cool or needed. What are some other unique employee solutions for this generation? Check out
5 tips for training your Gen Y call center or retail sales employees and let us know what challenges you are finding when training and motivating your employees.

This is an interesting topic for our clients (retailers) to follow. When we sell our merchant client’s gift cards into the B2B sector, our client’s wish that they could “know” who the gift card users are. The customer who selects a merchant gift card as reward for doing a great job or through their credit card loyalty program are in fact consumers and therefore, potential brand advocates, and incremental new customers of the future. The consumer who redeems for a gift card is one