GiftCard Partners Blog

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.

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.

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.

In today's dynamic workplace, organizations are increasingly recognizing the pivotal role of professional development in fostering employee engagement and retention. Professional development encompasses various initiatives aimed at enhancing employees' skills, knowledge, and career growth. Let's explore how investing in professional growth development programs can significantly impact employee engagement and retention.

We wrote last week about the Innovation Project held at Harvard late last week. The Innovation Project brings together the innovating leaders in the payments and commerce space for a summit that is packed with content and collaboration. Now, we don't like to brag, but our COO was on the winning team for the second straight year. She didn't do it alone however, her team brought together innovative leaders from across the industry. The winning team was a collaborative effort between