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Hunting down gifts to thank staff or clients can be a hassle; however an online solution could help time poor SMEs.
Rewarding your staff, customers or stakeholders with gifts or incentives can be a challenging process – especially when you’re busy and catering to different tastes and interests.
SMEs have many reasons to deliver gifts – acknowledging a job well done by a team member, thanking a supplier for loyalty, or rewarding a new customer for signing up for a product or service are just some.
Student Edge’s Head of Research Kevin Pickett uses gifts and prizes to incentivise 730,000 members nationwide to complete surveys or to enter competitions.
“We help them address a range of issues such as cost of living, student life, access to part-time work and career guidance,” says Pickett. “I head up the Insights division working with brands, universities, governments and other clients who need to understand the youth market.”
Pickett explains that the company used to physically send gift cards, which became laborious and costly.
“Previously we’d mail gift cards from Westfield, JB Hi Fi and Myer to members,” he says. “This incurred additional costs such as postage as well as substantial time costs in the labour intensive processes of purchasing and mailing.”
Pickett looked to an online solution, choosing to work with GiftPay, which offers members the ability to distribute gift cards via email. The dollar value can be used at multiple retail venues – for example a $100 prize could be split with $50 at Myer, $30 at JB Hi Fi and $20 to a charity.
“We’re saving on postage costs with no delay to the member, at only a face value cost to us (no admin fees) and with a trackable online interface ensuring none are lost in the mail,” says Pickett.
GiftPay Director Jeff Glazer says the company was founded from personal experience when it came to delivering multiple gifts as a business owner.
“It was taking our team days just to compile the list of our recipients, then to issue cheques, gift cards or debit cards, address and post the envelopes,” he says.
“After dispatching the cheques and gift cards by post, the team then still had to handle all the member inquiries and deal with the returned post. Members sometimes had to wait for a week to receive their rewards. That’s not a good user experience.”
He says the Giftpay system offers three options for businesses.
“One option is to use the self-service express web enabled tool, which is free. For high volume users, GiftPay software provides integration with any redemption, staff incentive or rewards website. A third is that we provide a file of URL’s with the secure digital gift codes embedded, so that a client can deliver the incentives directly from their own domain to their recipient’s emails.”
Glazer believes that issuing gifts can boost staff morale and performance, and be a helpful addition to retain the people you want. Done well, it can show respect to valued clients and customers.
From a consumer perspective, the flexibility of the eGift cards means recipients can choose whatever gift card they prefer, receive it via email and split up the value of their rewards, he says.
“We all love gifts!”
To learn more about GiftPay, visit www.giftpay.com or call +61 2 9409 8699.
As a special offer to SmartCompany readers, if you are a registered Business User of GiftPay, you may qualify for free credit of $20 allocated to your GiftPay account that will allow you to send a free gift card. This special offer is valid until close of business Friday 12 July, 2015.
To receive your free $20 credit, simply register your business on www.giftpay.com, mention this article when you contact Giftpay on sales@giftpay.com and Giftpay will add some credit to your account.
