GiftCard Partners Blog

Normally work-from-home policies are tight at small and large companies alike. But would a winter like this one be enough to change employers' minds? At GiftCard Partners, we all work from home every day, and while we understand that doesn't work for everyone, here's a compelling case for a work-from-home policy that allows employees flexibility and employers increased productivity. Here's a weather-related take on employees working from home:

We are two weeks away from the 2014 All Payments Expo that will take place at The Mirage in Las Vegas this year. As regular attendees of the event, the GiftCard Partners team is looking forward to seeing both new and returning faces in the payments industry and speaking with new loyalty, incentive and payment companies who can use gift cards as part of their reward complement. The APEX brings together Alternative Financial Services, Emerging Payments, Omnichannel Retail Strategies and Prepaid all in one location to focus on areas of growth and convergence in payments. Check out more on the APEX
here.

No matter what technology develops or how fast marketing trends change, finding and maintaining loyal customers can be boiled down to three different kinds of triggers. Triggering certain aspects of your consumers' psyche can actually help you retain loyal, high value customers. Behavioral Triggers: These are like a simple if/then scenario. An organization sets rules and once a consumer takes an action that fulfills a rule or requirements the organization gives them something back. For instance: once you spend $100 you get a credit for 20% off your next purchase. This works because consumers view the behavior as "working towards a reward." They spend more to reach the requirement for the reward. Emotional Triggers: These triggers play to your consumers' emotions. A discount or gift credit for a birthday, or the anniversary of that person's participation in the program are common. Consumers maintain loyalty when they feel that the organization really cares for them and personalizes their shopping experience. Transactional Triggers: These could go one of two ways. It could be a "surprise" reward that randomly appears on the consumer's account at POS, or it could be a preloaded gift card sent to the consumer through the mail, or more likely email for later use. This brings consumers back because they were either surprised with a discount, or they receive a reward and are brought back to the store to use it. Likely, a blend of all three, given today's technology are a loyalty marketer's best bet. A combination of hitting a consumer's heart, mind and wallet will keep consumers coming back for more.
Additional information about consumer loyalty and payments can be found in this blog post on PYMNTS.com.