GiftCard Partners Blog

The incentives industry is thriving with 84% of U.S. businesses now using non-cash rewards to recognize and motivate their key audiences. Non-cash rewards come in many forms: from award points, gift cards, incentive travel, to merchandise, and more. In 2015, businesses spent $90 billion for these rewards and sales and employees are the largest audiences targeted when it comes to these non-cash rewards.

Over 3,300 U.S. consumers over the age of 18 were surveyed for this year’s
Consumer Insights Study from
First Data. The Consumer Insights study provides a comprehensive gift card insights on consumer usage. This year’s study shows how vital gift card programs are to a retailer’s marketing strategy. The popularity of online shopping and usage of mobile wallets have been embraced by consumers, as the desire grows for faster and more personalized shopping experiences.

The care that a patient receives directly after leaving the hospital is critical to keeping hospital readmission rates low. It is estimated that nearly 20% of patients are readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of being discharged and about 75% of those readmissions are preventable. There are various factors as to why hospital readmission occur. Most often patients are not seeing their Primary Care Physician while they are in the hospital and their PCP is only receiving a summary of treatment instead of a complete diagnosis with follow-up care recommendations. Low-income readmissions can potentially lose hospitals money with the odds being higher that another hospital bill will go unpaid. In 2015, The Affordable Care Act has mandated a financial penalty of up to 3% for institutions that have not complied with standards for reducing readmission rates. Incentives can play a huge role in reducing readmission rates. They allow you to reward patients for taking small steps that make a big difference between a healthy recovery and another trip to the ER, whether it be following up with their Primary Care Physicians or adhering to their prescription medication. Download our free white paper Reducing Readmission Rates through Incentives and Education to learn more on how to use incentives to reduce that 20% readmissions rate. Learn more about:

Employee enagement is on the rise around the world, and this is great news for employers everywhere. Engaged employees give their all to their organizations and break records for productivity and employee loyalty. Here are some quick facts from the newly released Aon Hewitt study on employee engagement that surveyed more than 6,000 organizations in 155 countries.

In
Monday’s blog we discussed the #10 trend taken from Incentive Research Foundation’s
2014 Trends in Engagement, Incentives, and Recognition report, the popularity of non-cash rewards as sales incentives. Today we want to focus on another trend taken from the study, the shift in employee engagement and how businesses are shouting, “Show me the
results!” These
results include things like brand authenticity, effective change management and efficient cross-company collaboration. The report goes on to explain, “Engagement as an aspiration measure is shifting focus and becoming a way to drive better outcomes.” Those direct outcomes are not only being recognized and measured, but strategically rewarded in an effort to secure a successful program for the long haul. Check out more on this trend and the other 9 topping the list for
2014 here.