GiftCard Partners Blog

Employees' satisfaction with their recognition is not truly measured by the company, but by the employee.  And, although it is easy for companies to simply give employees recognition by giving a raise, employees are not satisfied with this outcome.  Employees want more; they want to feel as though their employer cares about what they want for their efforts, not what the company is willing to give.  The top five reward satisfaction points based on a recent poll were:

Don’t dismiss those hard earned reward points, pass them on!

Readers of this blog are likely power-users of their own loyalty programs. We work in the incentive, loyalty, or gift card industries; so we know how they work and we know how valuable these points are.. But did you know that they are valuable enough to pass along in your will? Although rules vary from program to program, many major airline rewards programs allow loyalty program participants to share their accrued points with fellow program members. That’s what is in it for YOU; what’s in it for YOUR Company’s loyalty program? “The biggest incentive is continued customer loyalty. By allowing these types of transfers, companies would either (1) gain new customers to make up for those they have lost or (2) cement customer loyalty to their programs by showing customers just how much they care about their continued business.” says
Payments.com in their article
Card and Airline Rewards: ‘Till Death Do Us Part (Or Not).
Check out the article for a list of airline and credit card programs that participate in passing along of rewards when you pass-on. If you are a loyalty program power user or you are administering a loyalty program, you’ll likely be interested in Gerry Beyer’s (Texas Tech University School of Law) insights from the new report,
“Rewards from the Grave,” which he co-authored with Mikela Bryant of the "Estate Planning and Community Property Law Journal."    

We all see businesses tightening their belts.  They are cutting back on staff gatherings, even scaling back the services offered within the office (such as fancy coffee machines and extraneous office supplies), but through these tough and uncertain times do not cut your employee recognition program! The formal recognition of positive employee behavior is essential to the success of your business and the satisfaction of your employees.  According to research done by HospitalityNet employee job satisfaction decreases significantly as recognition programs are scaled back or eliminated.  If you do not recognize your employees hard work, they will not recognize the positive parts of their participation in your company.  Check out the staggering numbers in the table below, another fantastic piece of research from HospitalityNet:

This proves that you must recognize your employees, because during these uncertain economic times you want to be able to rely on your employees.  Without them, your business cannot run and be successful, but with a happy, grateful workforce your company can grow and flourish, regardless of the economic climate.  Recognition can be as big as a seasonal staff gathering, and as small as offering a gift card to a retailer an employee shops at frequently.  Whatever it is, make sure your recognition programs do not get cut, it may put your business at significant risk.  
For more information on the importance of employee recognition and the research from HospitalityNet click here.

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!

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