GiftCard Partners Blog

As technology keeps expanding and growing, so do our payment systems. We're starting to see forward-thinking payment trends involving everything from mobile to loyalty rewards. Here are some of the latest movements in payment technology:
Mobile Capability With so many now owning smartphones, online shopping has seen a huge jump in mobile business. Because of this jump, companies are now placing a higher focus on mobile capability payments.  Plus, now the focus goes beyond smartphones as payment systems are also being developed and tested for tablet optimization as well.
Focus on Omniconsumers While mobile functionality is a very important factor for those in the payment industries, it's not only about mobile right now. Younger users are known for paying on a variety of different platforms, meaning the highest functioning payment systems will have to cater to a variety of different channels.
A Blur Between Physical and Online Shopping Consumers are not sold on only in-person or only online shopping. Many prefer to utilize both. That means that a majority of complaints that come from these double shoppers is centered around consistency between the products offered and product pricing. Smart companies are working to create consistency between off and online, especially when it comes to utilizing coupons and coupon codes.
Loyalty Rewards Loyalty rewards are becoming tremendously popular with consumers. Now, 73 percent of consumers carry loyalty rewards cards for their favorite businesses. And they don't keep it down to just one. One out of 10 customers carry six or more loyalty cards on any given day. This only goes to show the tremendous growth that the loyalty and reward businesses are seeing and will continue to see in years, and even months, to come.
For more information, read "The Ten Hottest Trends in Payments."

Loyalty is important for any organization. Churn creates a lull in productivity and drags down collective employee morale. Loyal employees means a happy workforce, a productive company and a healthy bottom line. Few organizations do employee loyalty or customer loyalty like American Express. Check out three of their top recommendations to maintain loyalty in your organization.

Employee incentives can be great when offered and given at the right cadence and the right size for the occasion. According to a new study by the  Association for Psychological Science's Minds for Business, people who had been promised a higher reward for completing a task and thus had heightened levels of dopamine in their blood, had more difficulty completing simple tasks. This definitely seems like a long shot with a lot of extrapolating. However, the same theory could apply to employee incentives. If employers offer too much in the way of incentives for employees, employees can be so blindly driven by the incentives that the quality of their work falters because they lose sight of organizational goals and get so focused on the incentives at hand. You can avoid this situation by offering small "spot" rewards that come as a surprise to employees and are not pre-announced. When employees don't expect a reward, they are driven by their goals and company missions, not a reward they never knew was coming. Keep it simple and small to keep your employee incentives effective.
To learn more about the study or how to keep your employee incentives in check, head over to Inc.com.

Whether they are being used to motivate a particular behavior, encourage engagement or foster loyalty, incentives are becoming more popular than ever.
InteliSpend, a prepaid solutions provider, released a handy little guide for breaking down incentives at the most basic level. Important takeaways include:

Workplace safety programs can save your company untold sums of money. The larger your workforce the more important it is to ensure the safety of your workplace. An innovative new wave in safety training is emerging that makes your workplace actively prepared for any situation that could arise. Using basic employee training in CPR, AED use and first aid can mitigate safety incidents by empowering employees to "take matters into their own hands." Employees who volunteer to be trained from the American Red Cross deserve recognition from their employers. While the skills are equally valuable to the employer and the employee, it is up to an employer to recognize employees who are willing to step up to make their workplace a better place. Rewards for employee recognition do not need to be large lavish vacations, or even days off. Employees who choose these types of added responsibilities should only need a pat on the back. Try small denomination gift cards from popular brands like
Crutchfield to help them spruce up their home,
Boston Market to treat employee's families to dinner or
Speedway to help them curb the rising cost of the fuel that likely helps them get to work in the morning. Dedicated employees will dedicate themselves to safety. Make sure you take the opportunity to say thank you.
For more information check out this article from Occupational Health and Safety.