GiftCard Partners Blog

You may find it easy to attract new customers with the lure of incentives, deals or promotions. BUT, are you keeping them after that? A recent Forbes article,
Warning: Is Your New Customer Coming Back? 4 Steps You Should Take Now, explains that spending all that effort and time bringing in new customers may be costing you a lot more than it would keeping an existing one- in some cases 6 to 7 times more! Of course attracting new customers is a crucial part of your loyalty program that should not be abandoned but a healthy balance between attracting the new and nurturing the current can spell success for your loyalty program as a whole. Recognizing your current customers in a unique way can give them that sense of ‘special’ treatment that encourages them to stick around: Try Saying Thanks - Sounds simple enough but it’s sometimes forgotten that a thank you goes a long way. Try sending a ‘Thank You for Your Loyalty’ email to customers who reach the one year mark, five year mark, etc. Customers don’t always need an incentive or reward for being loyal, just a little appreciation. Use holidays as a way to appreciate your current customers- Sending out gift cards to
The Children’s Place on Mother’s Day, gift cards to
1-800-Flowers on Valentine’s Day, or gift cards to
CVS/pharmacy on a customer’s birthday shows how much their loyalty means all year round. Take the time to take a special interest in your customer, it’s got its rewards. Check out Forbes,
Warning: Is Your New Customer Coming Back? 4 Steps You Should Take Now to get more ideas on keeping your customers close.

Undercover cooking talent and reality restaurant shows are on the top of Food Network, lifestyle networks and even major networks these days, and our client Boston Market is taking this opportunity to capture their service and operations issues in order to remain – THE BEST, while growing their brand.

Many employers look to employee loyalty as an expectation, rather than an organizational goal. However, for employees, loyalty is viewed as quite the opposite; something that an organization should earn through mutually beneficial working conditions and effort committed. Here a 5 keys to earning employee loyalty and retaining a more productive and sustainable workforce.

Everyone likes cash, but as a performance reward, it is impersonal and predictable. Giving employees personalized rewards can help your organization retain happy employees who know their organization cares about them and their individual interests. Richard Rosenblatt, Chairman and CEO at Demand Media goes to extended lengths to ensure his top performing employees receive personal rewards by spending a whole day with employees delivering reward experiences, such as a day with a personal shopper at an upscale department store for employees who like shopping and fashion. Rosenblatt explains the importance of delivering personalized rewards for top contributors because it shows that the organization takes a vested interest in employees, the way employees spend their time and energy investing in the organization they work for. This supportive environment keeps employees happy, satisfied, and contributing to your organization for longer. Reward personalization can be scaled down to a more streamlined system. Gift cards can serve as a great alternative to cash rewards, and can provide personalization to employees as well as a "trophy value" that cash bonuses cannot. Providing a choice of a diverse group of retailers for employees to choose their reward, as well as having one physical item to give employees makes gift cards a win/win choice for employee rewards. Being able to provide an AutoZone gift card to the auto enthusiast, and a Cheesecake Factory gift card to the restaurant enthusiast will allow your organization to deliver thoughtful rewards, while streamlining the reward system.

During this time of year employees are looking to maintain their New Year's Resolutions and it’s the perfect opportunity to implement an employee health and wellness program, saving your organization money for the rest of the year. A study cited by 
wellnessproposals.com showed that implementing a wellness program lowered sick leave by 28%, lowered the use of healthcare benefits by 26%, and lowered employee’s compensation claims by 30%. All of these indicators save your organization money, whether it means a smaller, more productive workforce, lower healthcare costs, or lower employee disability and compensation claims. Organizations that implement wellness programs also reduce personnel turnover costs because employees are healthier, happier, and feel supported by their employer which increases productivity and loyalty. Employee health and wellness programs can be very simple to implement. Using a carrot reward philosophy to incent employees to reach health goals, such as quitting smoking, losing a certain amount of weight, or lowering another disease indicating health metric such as blood pressure or cholesterol, is a great way to start. You can even set up inter-office competition for willing employees, allowing employees to compete to reach goals faster, and rewarding the winners. Rewards do not need to be large expensive gifts, rather they can be small rewards that show employees you care without burning all of your organization's newly saved capital. Small denomination gift cards that help employees improve health, such as gift cards to retailers like 
NutriSystem, 
GNC, or 
CVS/Pharmacy can be a great way to reward employees by helping them on their journey while helping your company's bottom line.