GiftCard Partners Blog

We talk a lot about employee engagement, but today let’s focus our attention on customer engagement (and as you may know, customer engagement and employee engagement correlate with each other).  The best companies know that acquiring new customers and customer retention are key to real sustainable growth, no matter what industry your company is in.  Jobs follow customers. Without your customers there would be no company. Over the last 5 years, gaining and retaining customer has been difficult and the customer base has changed dramatically.  Customers are more cautious about spending and demanding more in return. Over the next 30 years, roughly
$140 trillion in new customer spending will be up for grabs! The best companies set out to win their customers over for life. They also understand that customer engagement is not something that happens overnight. Each encounter with a customer has a chance to strengthen and even undermine a customer/company relationship. Strong customer engagement creates customers that spend more, visit more, and promote your company, all while resisting competitors and forgiving mistakes. The economic landscape has improved over the last year and companies can make significant progress in growing their customer base. Last year the greatest percentage of customers were fully engaged based on global data analysis – more than at any other point in the last 5 years.  Companies should focus on optimizing every customer interaction, create emotional connections with their customer, and constantly measure customer engagement (a good method is surveying customers either online or in-store). With meaningful data, companies can easily spot positive trends to build on and eliminate negative issues before they become problematic. Want more insight into your customers?  Download the State of the American Consumer:
Insight for Business Leaders from Gallup, Inc.
here!

Employee recognition is a great tool to engage and motivate employees. Ensuring that employee recognition programs are effective is the key to ensuring that the ROI desired when making the investment is met. Here are three tips for making sure your employee recognition program is on track, especially as summer peaks and employees lose focus amid vacations and nice weather.

When it comes to employee engagement the best companies strive to not only lead but also inspire their employees. They create a vision for their company that allows them to grow by valuing their employees and giving them a voice within the company. Here are some best practices that company leaders can use to help engage their employees:

As certain benefit costs shift from employer to employee, there are key benefits that will have a high impact on satisfaction improvements. Health and wellness benefits are expected from employees and they assume that employers are going to cover a significant portion of the costs, regardless of the rising cost of healthcare. Well employers are taking note, 45% are offering HSA's in 2014, compared to 33% in 2010. Other benefits like tuition support or a personal car subsidy benefit have been on the decline since 2010, down 13% and 17% respectively. These are benefits less expected by employees and therefore have a lower impact on employee benefit satisfaction. Health and wellness benefits have endured for employees as an expected benefit. Investing in preventative healthcare checks like blood pressure, cholesterol and BMI measurements for employees can allow employers to maintain health and wellness benefits without exceeding budgets. Implementing employee health and wellness benefit reward programs can also motivate employees towards health and wellness goals by using small spot rewards to encourage employees who have reached health and wellness milestones.
For more information on how to maintain the level of health and wellness benefits your employees expect, check out the latest SHRM Employee benefits report, and this article from Associations Now.

We can't say it enough, a successful wellness program can benefit both employees and companies in drastic ways. With reduced healthcare costs for both employee and company, more productivity at work, and less absenteeism, workplace wellness has been shown time and time again to be a smart investment in a time of rising healthcare costs. Here are 10 more tips for implementing a successful wellness program: 1.
Understanding your workforce: Reviewing items such as prior health insurance claims, health assessments, and employee surveys can help you to understand what concerns your employees have with their health. 2. 
Create a plan: All programs should have some kind of plan in place, start by developing a plan with both short and long term goals, along with a budget and expected outcomes. 3.
Include everyone: Make the plan available to all employees and their spouses/domestic partners. 4. 
Offer biometric screenings: Many employees do not know the current status of their health. Offering screenings during work time or during company health fairs allow more employees to participate in screenings. 5
. Select wellness leaders: Set up a wellness committee with wellness leaders to help drive wellness programs. Choose highly respected employees. 6.
Communication: Communicate your wellness program as much as possible with things like, company emails, flyers, and in-person meetings.  Employees can only participate if they know the details. 7.
Offer incentives: Gift cards, reduced premiums, cash bonuses and discounts on various health and wellness based incentives (i.e. gym memberships) will significantly increase employee participation. 8.
Provide employees with digital tools: Online, mobile, and tablet updates can help employees keep track of their health and healthcare costs. 9. 
Track results: Assess your wellness program on an annual basis. Assess both the costs benefits with your healthcare provider as well as evaluating employee participation. 10. 
Solicit Feedback: Remain flexible and listen to your employees. Your employees are your foundation for a solid wellness plan.