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Deborah Merkin

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Deborah Merkin, CEO and Founder of GiftCard Partners™, Inc. and Engage2Reward™ LLC, brings two decades of experience to the forefront of the gift card industry. Armed with a BS from University of Massachusetts Amherst and an MBA from Babson College, Deborah's career spans technology startups and corporate giants, including AT&T Capital and Staples. A pioneer in establishing and shaping lucrative new distribution channels, Deborah’s expertise grew through consultancy roles with Linens’N Things and CVS®. This journey marked her entrance into the gift card and incentives industry and ultimately laid the foundation for the conception of GiftCard Partners. A Certified Women Owned Business, GiftCard Partners was founded in 2005 and has received the prestigious Best and Brightest Company to Work For® Award for 10 years nationally. With a focus on assertiveness and balanced steadiness, Deborah continues to drive innovation and growth in the dynamic world of gift cards. Beyond her professional success, Deborah is deeply involved in community service, recently joining the board of JBBBS.org and previously serving on the board of JFSMW.org for 5 years.
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Recent Posts

Maintain Loyalty Through Self Checkups

Every organization wants to maintain loyal customers and employees. How a business goes about this large task can vary in tact and effectiveness. Organizations of all kinds spend untold amounts of money on loyalty program implementation for both customers and employees. However, many organizations don't spend the time learning the loyalty they lose, or fail to maintain. Organizations get so caught up in trying to activate loyalty programs that they often fail to check up on them and ensure that they maintain the captive audience they seek to create. Making even small adjustments can significantly improve a customer or employee's experience. For instance, Virgin Atlantic implemented a system to allow passengers to order food and beverages from screens at their seats. This improved a customers (often miserable) flying experience, and made the flight attendant's job easier. Less sweeping up and down the seats to see if anyone needs anything makes the employee and the (potentially) loyal customer coming back for a more serene flying experience. Virgin tested the program and uses the data from the engagement to measure loyalty and quality of customer experience. Are you doing everything you can to measure your customer and employee experiences?

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Boston Market Takes On a Health-Conscious Menu

For the last several years, Boston Market has worked to create a menu that boasts more nutritious selections while still offering the same great taste. In a campaign committed to reducing sodium levels by 20% in their menu items, they removed salt shakers from their tables in 2012. While the sodium levels dropped in menu staples, 26% in mashed potatoes, 20% in stuffing, gravy by 50% and cornbread by 30%, sales have not.* The holiday sales this year increased 17%.

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Walk-In Health Care Clinics, like CVS/pharmacy's MinuteClinic, on the Rise

It's no secret, people get sick and when battling a painful sore throat or ear infection waiting is NOT an option. Hence the growing popularity of walk-in health care clinics. CVS/pharmacy, the largest retail clinic operator in the Washington area, has more than 800 clinics nationwide, with plans to add more that 150 additional clinics by the end of 2014.
So what's the driving force? Several factors come into play fueling the trend of these walk-in health care clinics, one of which is the Affordable Care Act...sound familiar, you may have heard of it? With millions now being provided insurance through Medicaid, private plans or under their parents plans until age 26, getting in to see your primary care doctor quickly will be more difficult. This, along with a number of other factors, has allowed the perfect forum for retail clinics, like MinuteClinic, to take center stage. The clinics are staffed by nursed practitioners and physicians assistants and can treat anything from pink eye to strep throat, to sinus infections and minor injuries. Gift cards are even available at all 800 MinuteClinic locations and discounts are available on volume purchases. Learn more about buying MinuteClinic gift cards and giving the gift of health
here. Read more from The Washington Post about the growing trend of health care clinics
here.

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Using Gift Cards to Prompt Consumer Behavior

Gift cards are a great incentive to get employees to perform a certain behavior at a certain time, aligning your customers to advance your business goals. A great example of gift card use for mutual consumer and retailer benefit is currently being displayed by Microsoft with relation to the phase out of Windows XP. Microsoft will cease providing support and updates for the operating system next week, so the software giant is providing gift cards to any consumers who purchases a laptop running Windows 8.1 and can prove they previously had a computer running Windows XP. The gift card is good for laptops over $599 and also include a limited amount of tech support. Windows needs consumers to phase out use of Windows XP to prevent security issues for their customers. And if you're running a computer with Windows XP, chances are you could use a new laptop. The leverage gift cards provide solve both issues, while still offering consumers a choice in which product they upgrade to and giving them a wide time range to take advantage of the offer. How could you use gift cards to leverage your consumers' behavior?
For more information on the Microsoft offer or to learn how to use gift cards to prompt consumer behavior check out this article from Incentive Magazine.

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Employee Motivation Can't Work Without Employee Engagement

A new whitepaper is out from marketing services agency P&MM and it proves a lot of what we have previously based employee motivation initiatives on: you can't motivate employees who aren't engaged. Engaging employees is the first step toward motivation them. Engage employees in their every day work by providing employees with professional development, training and the occasional fun organization activity.

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