Glossary

Employee engagement is a crucial indicator of how your employees feel about your workplace. Measuring and managing their involvement and enthusiasm will help you understand if your work environment and culture is encouraging — or discouraging — employees to dedicate themselves to company goals and values.

Disengaged employees do the bare minimum, leading to poor productivity, low customer satisfaction, and volatile profitability. Savvy organizations build in ways to actively engage with employees to keep them motivated and performing at a high level.

Boosting employee engagement requires a comprehensive approach that addresses the many factors that lead to employee satisfaction, and it all starts with a positive workplace culture.

READ MORE: Download our Employee Incentives Report from NAPCO Research

How Can My Company Foster a Positive Workplace Culture?

First and foremost, you can’t boost employee engagement if your company culture is dysfunctional. Feeling disrespected at work is a big reason that employees quit. To retain team members, your workplace culture should promote mutual respect among colleagues, have programs in place that prevent burnout, and be transparent about opportunities for growth. Sending a survey, which is a key employee engagement tool, will reveal what your employees think and how you can improve your work environment. You can also incorporate a few tried-and-true strategies to boost employee satisfaction.

Offer Training and Development

Learning opportunities are a widely requested perk that keeps employees from leaving for greener pastures. Older employees may appreciate tech training that helps them remain current on the job. Younger ones may be interested in tuition reimbursement to further their career. If you don’t have a huge budget, consider asking employee volunteers to run in-house training on industry topics. You can engage employees when you promote available opportunities for growth — and when you congratulate them for completing any courses, certifications, or trainings.

Create Plenty of Chances to Receive Rewards

Implementing a well-thought-out employee rewards program should be on your list of to-dos, too, if you want to boost employee engagement. Rewards enable your team to show appreciation to team members so they feel valued. A formalized rewards program also helps your management team prioritize recognition for their employees. Here are some ways you can use rewards to improve engagement:

  • Send an e-gift card to employees who meet or exceed performance goals or complete a large initiative, like a big client deliverable or year-end project.
  • Tell employees they can choose a digital reward at the end of the quarter as an appreciation gift.
  • Empower managers to recognize high-performing employees by sending rewards publicly at team meetings or via online channels like Microsoft Teams.

Commit to Improving Over Time

No matter where your company is on the employee engagement spectrum, it’s important to take the time to tweak your efforts so your organization is reaping as many benefits as possible. Sending regular surveys — and offering a reward for completing them — can help ensure you’re on the right track. When evaluating your engagement efforts, ask employees:

  • What motivates you at work?
  • What is your current level of job satisfaction?
  • Do you have a sense of purpose in your role?
  • Do you have a passion for the organization’s mission?
  • What is your experience or perception around career development opportunities?
  • How would you describe a good fit within the organizational culture?
  • Do you feel you and your peers are being recognized for your efforts?

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Quality over quantity is the mantra of many marketing departments. After all, marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) — potential customers deemed worthy of passing along to your sales team — are attractive for many reasons.

Not only is it easier to sell to leads who have shown an interest in your product or service, understanding your target market increases your chances of attracting them to your organization in the first place.

You can, of course, buy high-quality leads from a lead aggregator, but that’s not always in the budget. Not to mention the leads don’t always align perfectly with your business offering. Here are some better ways your marketing team can increase MQLs.

READ MORE: 15 Ideas for Using Rewards and Incentives to Optimize the Entire Customer Journey

Establish a Strong Content Strategy

Your first order of business should be to determine the type of customer you want to attract so you can begin establishing a relationship. Complete a buyer persona and outline the steps of the buyer journey, noting where you can engage with prospective buyers along the way.

Research the terms your buyers use to find solutions to their problems and incorporate those terms into your content. Pain points, industry trends, thought leadership — these are often good topics to cover when engaging potential buyers.

Create Content Across Multiple Channels

Next, you’ll want to use a multi-channel lead generation strategy for the industry-specific content you create. A combination of the following types of content is a good starting place.

  • Start a business blog, if you don’t already have one, and establish a regular cadence for blog posts.
  • Create free lead magnets — e-books, case studies, and the like — to capture prospects’ contact information and level of interest.
  • Use email marketing to qualify your leads and keep leads “warm.”
  • Post regularly on the social media channels your potential customers use the most.
  • Have your subject-matter experts host webinars on your MQLs’ area of interest.
  • Engage in forums and online communities to establish your identity as a leader in your industry.

Use Rewards to Increase Engagement and Referrals

As your leads move through the buyer journey, be sure to incorporate rewards for when they complete actions that move them along to the next part of the sales process. For example, incentivize them to attend a sales demo by offering them a digital gift card or prepaid card of their choice. The key is to pick a reward that matches the time and effort your MQLs spend on the task.

Referrals can also be a terrific source of MQLs, but it’s not enough to ask your current customers, prospects, or employees to make them. You need a well-thought-out incentive program to entice them to give you the high-quality lead you’re looking for. Again, your referral program should offer rewards that match the time and effort it takes to get the referral. Depending on the size of the product or service you’re selling, a referral reward could be for a substantial amount.

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Turning your customers into repeat buyers — and preventing them from switching to one of your competitors — is the key to company growth. Your support team must delight and appease customers at every touchpoint, especially those customers who have complaints about your product or service.

Whether you’re interacting with customers over the phone, online, or in person, a positive attitude and a willingness to make things right are critical to keeping them happy.

Here are some best practices for dealing with unhappy customers.

READ MORE: 8 Reasons Rewards Improve Your Customer Service

Practice Active Listening

Customers want to feel heard by the companies they give their business to. Your first step should be to listen to their complaint with the intent to understand. If the customer is angry, take time to focus on what they’re trying to communicate, not their tone of voice. To show a customer you’re really listening, repeat their complaint back to them, asking clarifying questions to be sure you understand.

Apologize for the Problem

According to HubSpot, 96% of regular customers say they would continue shopping with a business after a mistake if they received an apology. Make sure to be as specific as possible with your apology. Instead of saying, “I’m sorry this happened,” say “I’m sorry the product you wanted was unavailable.” Your apology shows customers that you truly care about their business. It also can help shift their mood from aggravated to pleased that you’re paying attention to their complaint.

Show Empathy and Remain Calm

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Show them you’ve been there yourself by saying something like, “I understand how frustrating this situation must be for you.” If they’re still upset, do your best to stay calm. You may even need to pause before you speak or type a response. When you’re interacting by chat or email, make sure to proofread what you’ve written to take out any possible negative connotations.

Build and Maintain Trust

This is your chance to show your customers that their business truly matters. Once they’ve given you all the information you need to resolve their problem, follow through on your promise to address the issue. Letting them know the steps you are taking to resolve the situation will help them see you as a real person instead of nameless corporation.

Reward Them for Their Trouble

“The customer is always right” is a service mainstay for a reason. When customers are unhappy, you can’t always make things right. But you can appease them with a reward to show them you value their business. Offer them a digital gift card of their choice. Be sure that the amount given matches the cost of the inconvenience they experienced. A $10 gift card for coffee might be a good choice for customers who were unable to get the promotional price on your website, while a $100 prepaid Visa or Mastercard may be more appropriate for customers who experienced a service outage during prime business hours.

Offer Instant Gratification, One Way or Another

Here’s your chance to delight your customers. Personalize and send the “We’re sorry” digital gift card to their email, letting them know they can redeem it right away. Even if you can’t resolve their issue immediately, sending a reward on the spot shows your commitment to making it right.

Follow Up to Make Sure the Issue Is Resolved

Ensure your relationship remains positive by following up after you’ve sent the reward. This is the ideal time to ask customers to fill out a survey or post a review of your customer complaint resolution capabilities. If you have a loyalty rewards program, you can slip in a reminder to keep these customers coming back to your business.

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These days, people expect to receive compensation for filling out surveys and participating in research. Market and academic researchers used to pay participants with cash or a check, but now digital payment is becoming the norm.

That’s partly because the pandemic fueled growth in online research methods, both for surveys and qualitative studies. Researchers may also prefer collecting data this way because it’s faster and easier than other data collection methods.

If your research participants are completing surveys or participating in focus groups or insights communities online, it makes sense that they will bank on receiving their payment online, too. After all, the payment is simply an incentive to participate in the research in the first place. Being paid quickly will motivate participants to take part — and build trust in your organization.

What Is the Best Way to Pay Research Participants?

Digital prepaid cards and gift cards are an ideal payment option because you can automate the delivery, offering instant gratification to your participants. Once they complete a survey or finish their feedback, they’ll receive an email notification telling them that their payment is ready. In addition, digital gift cards give choice and flexibility, can be delivered internationally for free, and are highly popular among recipients.

What Tools Can Help Me Pay Research Participants More Efficiently?

Because BHN Rewards integrates with over 20 popular survey and research platforms such as SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics and Krealinks, it will help you save time sending digital gift cards, freeing up your team to focus on more important research objectives and metrics.

For example, you can specify a reward value and let the platform auto-curate the selection of the digital gift cards your research participants can choose from, including automatically showing only the ones that will work in their country.

What Kind of Data Can Researchers Gather When Paying Participants?

As researchers know only too well, data is valuable. No matter what kind of research you’re conducting, incentivizing participation with digital prepaid cards and gift cards has been shown to improve the quantity and quality of your responses, which you can use to uncover more accurate, actionable insights.

Using an integrated platform to send digital gift cards to research participants can greatly simplify how you and your team:

  • Increase response rates.
  • Reward panelists for coming back.
  • Encourage focus group participation.
  • Reduce panelist churn.
  • Engage community members.

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There’s no question incentives are an effective way to encourage participation in surveys and research studies. Not only can incentives improve response rates, they are often the reason people are motivated to participate in your research in the first place. Determining how much of an incentive to pay research participants, however, can be tricky.

It boils down to determining how much a participant’s time is really worth. To do that, it’s a good idea to ask yourself the following questions.

What Is the Research Participant’s Level of Effort?

Simply put, the level of effort is the amount of time it takes someone to complete your survey or participate in your research study. An accurate estimate of time is critical — underestimating how long it will take to answer involved questions or failing to factor in things such as travel time, for example, will cost you. Participants who feel their time is not being fairly compensated will abandon your study, placing your research firmly back at square one.

What Kind of Research Participant Are You Trying to Attract?

The type of research participants you need is another important consideration. Does your research require high-level executives or college students? In terms of compensation, there’s a big difference between what amount those two audiences will find motivating. Ask yourself what your ideal participant’s time is worth. Then price your incentives accordingly.

What Type of Reward Works Best With the Amount Offered?

A $5 incentive to spend at Starbucks is quite different from a $5 incentive to spend at Nike. The Starbucks reward gets you a cup of coffee, which may encourage people to participate because it allows them to get a free treat. The Nike reward falls far short of covering a higher-priced, brand-name pair of shoes or a hoodie, so that’s likely to be a non-starter. Be sure to make your incentive compelling. If your budget is small, offer cash to spend at fast-food restaurants or on Amazon, so the money paid to research participants will feel actionable.

What Is the Value of the Research?

This is perhaps the most important question of all for researchers. Marketers who are hoping to entice qualified leads further down the funnel, for example, may want to offer a more substantial incentive. Potential SaaS customers who are asked to share their opinion on new product features or launches will expect to be decently compensated for their participation. Similarly, academic researchers in need of a specific group of participants — such as women who are over 35, have children under 3 years of age, and work full time in Washington state — will increase their chances of finding their target audience if the reward is more than adequate.

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Without thoughtful customer engagement, your company is in danger of losing customers to businesses who take better advantage of their customer interactions, whether that’s resolving issues quickly or rewarding them for their loyalty.

Anytime you interact with your customers, you have an opportunity. An opportunity to drive customer loyalty. An opportunity to affect cross-sales. An opportunity to differentiate your business from your competitors.

All of these opportunities add up to increased revenue. Especially these days, when consumers are more likely to understand the true value of their relationship with you.

What Are the Best Channels for Engaging Customers?

Today, there are more ways than ever to communicate with your customers. And every time you are communicating is a chance for more customer engagement.

Here are some of the top customer engagement channels:

  • Email (transactional, campaigns, rewards)
  • Social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram)
  • SMS/text messages
  • Feedback surveys
  • Blog posts
  • Online review sites
  • Customer communities and forums

What Are Some Examples of Good Customer Engagement?

  • Personalized customer feedback surveys. After providing a product or service is one of the best times to connect with your customers. They’re primed to engage with you. Personalize the survey experience by including their first name and adding images, content, or videos that will foster more engagement post-survey.
  • Meaningful milestone messages. When a customer reaches a milestone like their birthday or customer anniversary, mark the event with an email or in-app message. Let your creativity shine by building a memorable experience that makes your customers feel seen and heard. Spotify’s end-of-year wrap-up of listening habits is an excellent example of strong customer engagement.
  • Stellar customer support interactions. With the rise in automation, your customers will appreciate a human touch, especially when they need support. Personalizing the experience during onboarding, reaching out to inactive customers to resolve any issues, and regularly sending out customer feedback surveys will keep your customers engaged with your brand and support your retention efforts.

How Do Rewards Programs Support Strong Customer Engagement?

Marketers know that it’s more costly to acquire new customers than to retain current ones. Having a loyalty program with rewards is not only a crucial retention tool for many companies, it’s also an ideal place to up your customer engagement game.

Here are some strategies to implement:

  • Engage on social media. When customers post about rewards they’ve been gifted, follow the three rules of social media engagement: like, comment, and share.
  • Test your rewards. Find out what drives your customers to respond. Rotate your offers to test which kinds of rewards pull in the best results.
  • Run a promotion. Refer-a-Friend, Double Points, Support a Charity — these are all themes you can use to increase customer engagement and perhaps even attract new customers.

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A customer incentive is a reward that motivates your customer to take an action that benefits your brand. When your business is looking to increase online reviews, close a sale, cross-promote, build brand awareness, encourage repeat business, a customer incentive is the carrot you dangle to get results.

Discounts and allowances on the cost of a subscription, service, or product may be familiar incentives to some audiences, but today’s customers — whether they’re B2B, B2C, or traditional retail — increasingly respond well to receiving incentives as part of a loyalty program.

How Do You Choose the Right Customer Incentive?

Because customer incentives are designed to build loyalty, consider your customers’ demographics, purchase history, and personal preferences before deciding what kind of incentive to offer. The more data you can gather, the better educated guess you can make.

Digital gift cards and prepaid cards are more popular than ever for rewards programs, since they’re flexible and easy to send and redeem. But even beyond that, your choices can be tailored for your audience.

For example, younger customers may respond well to digital rewards for streaming or gaming platforms, while civic-minded consumers may respond more strongly to getting an opportunity to donate their reward to a charitable organization.

Here’s how to fine-tune your customer incentive choices for optimal results:

  • Offer options. Research consistently shows that reward recipients prefer getting to choose their reward, and especially like flexibility.
  • Ask for feedback. Find out how you can improve your program with a customer feedback survey.
  • Consider time spent. Be sure to give an incentive whose value matches the level of effort.

How Does Gamification Influence the Effectiveness of a Customer Incentive?

There’s no question that you can experience better results when your loyalty program generates excitement. A points-to-rewards program, themed campaigns, and social media shout-outs can help increase customer engagement, create a sense of community, and boost brand loyalty.

What’s the Best Way to Simplify Customer Incentive Management?

As your loyalty program grows, it’s important to scale intelligently. Look for a rewards platform that allows you to send campaigns to a global audience and streamlines tracking and delivery by connecting with other helpful marketing tools.

BHN Rewards, for example, is designed to integrate with more than 25 tools, including HubSpot, Marketo, and SurveyMonkey, as well as community platforms such as Krealinks. You can even specify a reward value and let the platform auto-curate the selection of digital gift cards, showing your recipients only the rewards that work in their country. The right platform can save your team time and effort, so optimizing your program’s retention and lead generation becomes seamless.

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Knowing how to engage your customers effectively is vital to your company’s success. Engaged customers spend more money, are more loyal, and are more likely to become advocates for your brand. To engage customers, it’s important to take a multichannel approach, since buyers have so many ways to interact with brands and prefer different channels. It’s also key to build a strategy that encompasses many engagement tactics, such as collecting and acting on feedback, prioritizing great customer service, and creating a loyalty or advocacy program.

What Does Engaging Customers Actually Mean?

Customer engagement refers to how businesses communicate and interact with their target market using various channels. Companies that do this effectively experience a host of benefits, including increased sales, better retention rates, and greater customer loyalty. It can also result in better brand recognition, thanks to more referrals and recommendations. Some suggestions for growing customer engagement include:

  • Increasing activity on social media platforms.
  • Soliciting and sharing customer reviews.
  • Listening to customer feedback and taking action.
  • Rewarding customer loyalty and advocacy.

Why Should We Increase Activity on Social Media Platforms to Boost Engagement?

It’s becoming increasingly clear that harnessing the power of social media can help grow businesses’ success. Social media offers many opportunities for interaction between brands and customers. Companies can use these platforms to promote deals and sales, showcase products, interact with customers, and more.

In addition, more customers are using social media channels to ask questions or raise issues with brands. When you incorporate these channels into your customer service options, you meet these users where they are to broaden your engagement.

What Are the Benefits of Using Online Reviews for Customer Engagement?

Soliciting and sharing online reviews is not only a great engagement activity for your existing customers, it also helps with your lead generation and sales among new customers. According to Statista, online shoppers in the U.S. expect a product to have at least 112 reviews before they would trust it. Younger consumers want even more: Ages 18-24 expect 203 reviews, ages 25-34 expect 159, and ages 35-44 expect 141.

How Can a Loyalty Program Help Engage Customers?

Every brand wants its customers to renew their contract or make repeat purchases, and loyalty or rewards programs are an effective strategy to get them to do just that. By offering rewards, you show customers that you appreciate their business and give them something of value to continue buying from you. PwC research shows that 30% of consumers cite loyalty program benefits as a top reason that they patronize a business regularly.

Loyalty programs can also help generate customer advocacy by rewarding actions such as submitting referrals, leaving online reviews, sharing social media posts, and participating in case studies.

What Kinds of Rewards and Tools Are Best for Loyalty Programs and Customer Engagement?

When setting up a loyalty program to engage customers, one of the first decisions is what kind of rewards you will offer. One thing is clear: Flexibility is key. Forty-three percent of consumers want to join a program that offers flexible rewards, according to PwC, while BHN research shows that 85% of consumers prefer a gift card over a specific gift. Digital gift cards and prepaid cards make an even more attractive option, since they can be delivered instantly, anywhere in the world, for free.

But even managing a loyalty program that offers digital gift cards can be a time-consuming ordeal, and you don’t want it to detract from other business-critical tasks. That’s why it’s also important to choose flexible, streamlined tools to help you. In particular, look for a digital rewards management platform that can work directly with the customer engagement software you already use. BHN Rewards, for example, offers out-of-the-box integrations with more than 25 marketing, community, and research tools, including Marketo, HubSpot, Krealinks, and Talkable. Those integrations allow you to set up specific triggers and criteria within your loyalty program so reward delivery happens automatically.

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Creating a great customer experience (CX) requires a well-thought-out, multi-touch strategy that builds confidence in your brand. You have to optimize every interaction with your customers, regardless of the channel. That includes their communications with your marketing, sales, and customer service teams and may encompass everything from getting issues resolved quickly to collecting valuable feedback to rewarding loyal customers.

What Does Customer Experience Mean?

There is a common misconception that customer experience and customer service are the same thing, but service is just one piece of the overall customer experience. The customer experience refers to how your customers view your company based on all their interactions with you and your brand throughout their buying journey. That means your marketing, onboarding, support, and retention strategies are all part of the customer experience.

When you create a great customer experience, you give your buyers a better impression of your company, which in turn helps boost loyalty and advocacy. And by generating loyalty and advocacy, you’ll increase repeat purchases, renewals, and new business. But just one bad experience can have the opposite effect. According to PwC’s 2022 Customer Loyalty Survey, the top two reasons that buyers cited for leaving a brand — by far — were bad experiences with products/services and with customer service.

How Do I Give Customers the Experience They Want?

There are a number of steps that businesses can take to make sure they’re creating the positive experience that their customers want, such as:

  • Understand your audience by conducting market research.
  • Collect customer feedback regularly and act on the results.
  • Offer personalized experiences wherever possible, even for online interactions.
  • Show empathy in customer service communications.
  • Reward repeat customers and brand advocates with a loyalty program.

How Do Loyalty Programs Help Improve the Customer Experience?

Customers have made it clear that they like loyalty and rewards programs, and a good one can make a big impact in improving their experiences. Eighty percent of customers surveyed say that a good loyalty program increases the chances that they will continue to use a business, according to Bond, a provider of CX solutions. In addition, BHN’s recent study, done in collaboration with Aberdeen Group, shows that using promotions that offer rewards are more effective than discounts, resulting in 92% higher profitability per customer.

Loyalty programs also help you continue to personalize the customer’s journey after the purchase. Four in five consumers are more likely to use a business that offers those kinds of personalized experiences, according to Epsilon. Whether you use instant rewards, a community, or a points-based program for customers, you can build it with the flexible options and customized content that people are looking for.  

What Kinds of Rewards and Tools Will Help Make My Loyalty Program Effective?

Making sure that your loyalty program is easy to run and maintain is key to its success. Fortunately, a platform like BHN Rewards allows for the integration of loyalty rewards into existing customer engagement, marketing automation, and community tools. Integrating rewards with the software you already use allows for automated delivery, creating a hands-off approach to rewarding loyalty.

Another important part of implementing an effective loyalty program is finding the right rewards to offer. Customers must find the reward appealing before they’ll join and utilize your program. BHN research shows that 81% of loyalty program members choose to redeem their points for prepaid cards and digital gift cards.  

In addition to their popularity, digital gift cards are an ideal loyalty program reward because they offer both sender and recipient a lot of flexibility, they are delivered instantly for free, they can be personalized to provide a better customer experience, and they can be easily tracked.

BHN Rewards offers an excellent selection of digital gift cards, prepaid cards, and e-donations to use in your loyalty program, all of which can be sent as instant rewards or redeemed as part of a points-to-rewards structure. Request a demo to learn more!

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Customer engagement is top of mind for good reason. Marketers know that the more you interact with your customers, the more opportunities you have to build your relationship. And strong relationships lead to higher retention rates, repeat business, and, ultimately, higher profits. To increase customer engagement, you must look for ways to interact with your customers across all possible touchpoints and then optimize those interactions.

What Are the Five Stages of Customer Engagement?

When deciding to purchase your product or service, the journey that customers go through is typically split into five stages: Awareness, Consideration, Purchase, Retention, Advocacy. Savvy organizations optimize their engagement with customers at every one of these stages, which make up what’s called the customer lifecycle.

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How Does Branding Increase Customer Engagement?

Making sure your communications are written in your brand’s voice from the get-go will help you keep your customers engaged throughout the customer lifecycle. In fact, a consistent, authentic brand voice ensures your customer engagement efforts are more memorable, which leads to more engagement.

What Channels Should We Use for Customer Engagement?

Anytime you need to communicate with customers, think about customer engagement. Taking a customer-centric approach in your communications is key. Making your customers feel seen and heard is what ultimately leads to high levels of customer satisfaction — and repeat engagement.

Here are some channels you can use for customer engagement:

  • Email (transactional, campaigns, rewards)
  • Social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram)
  • SMS/text messages
  • Feedback surveys
  • Blog posts
  • Online reviews
  • Communities and forums

How Often Should We Engage With Our Customers?

The answer to this depends on your audience, goals, and budget for each channel. In your email program, for example, you can ask your customers how often they like to receive messages from you. For social media, it’s a good idea to follow the best practices for each channel.

For feedback surveys and reviews, be sure to respond to comments as quickly as possible. Whenever you ask for customer feedback, no response at all can hurt future engagement and purchases, especially for those customers who report having bad experiences.

As you experiment, you’ll discover on which channels your customers prefer to engage with you. In general, older customers prefer phone and email, while younger ones prefer text and social media.

What Strategies Can Organizations Use to Improve Customer Engagement?

  • Expand customer service channels. Make sure you’re offering your customers more than one way to reach you. Chat, phone, email, and social media should all be on the table. If you’re investing in automation, be sure customers can still reach a live person by phone or email.
  • Personalize customer experiences. Customers expect you to know them. In today’s digital world, your organization needs to pay attention to every interaction. Use their name in emails and texts, share content with them based on what you know they like, and give them choices for their reward perks.
  • Incentivize customer engagement. A customer rewards or loyalty program is ideal for increasing engagement. It also helps your brand build brand advocacy to attract new customers. That’s because more than 70% of purchasers would be willing to recommend a brand with an excellent loyalty program, according to HubSpot.

What Tools Can Help Me Engage Customers More?

Building a customer rewards program that will improve your engagement and advocacy can be a large undertaking, but with the right tools, you can succeed and streamline, all at the same time. Many engagement programs can be initiated through the technology you already use, including your CRM or marketing automation systems like Marketo and HubSpot. A community platform such as Krealinks or Verint may also be useful. Then, by incorporating rewards directly into these initiatives, you can ramp up quickly and encourage ongoing participation.

The BHN Rewards platform can help with out-of-the-box integrations with more than 25 marketing, survey, and community platforms. This allows you to easily manage campaigns, automate reward delivery, and track the success of your customer engagement programs.

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Simply put, customer experience is how your customers view your company. From onboarding and support to growth and retention, the customer experience encompasses every single interaction across multiple platforms. Like a good user experience (UX), your customer experience should be seamless, delivering consistent, high-quality service at every touchpoint.

What Are the Benefits of Managing Customer Experience?

Today, your customers have more choices than ever before. In addition, every choice they make has become more complex. From text messages to customer portals to live support, there are many ways that they can interact with brands. A cohesive customer experience that simplifies processes and delights your customers shows your company cares — and is worth continuing to do business with. Similarly, a poor customer experience can cost you customers. In fact, in PwC’s 2022 Customer Loyalty Survey, bad experiences with products/services or with customer service were overwhelmingly the top two reasons cited for leaving a brand.

What Is Customer Experience Management?

Customer experience management entails monitoring how your company is being perceived and improving customer interactions with your business across all channels that may affect your customers’ opinion of you. Evaluating how you can improve customer experience across all touchpoints is a critical part of this role in your company.

 What Can I Do to Optimize the Customer Experience?

  • Collect feedback on your customer service. Customer service is the natural starting point for knowing how your customer experience is being perceived. Does your team resolve issues quickly? Are your customers treated with empathy? Is your communication professional and on brand? Asking these kinds of questions in a customer survey can help you find areas of your customer experience that need improvement.
  • Unify across departments. With the increase in automation, it’s even more critical to ensure that your company presents cohesive messaging across every channel. While collecting customer feedback is a good place to start, it’s ineffective unless you share the findings with the appropriate departments. Marketing or care teams can’t be the only departments concerned with feedback on the customer experience. Product development, operations, and sales must work together to deliver a better experience for your customers.
  • Personalize wherever possible. Customers expect you to know who they are, whether they’re calling, emailing, texting, instant messaging, or posting on social media. For example, they hate having to repeat their contact information or issue over and over. Anything you can do to speed up the recognition that they’re an existing customer, including using their name and referencing their specific concern, will make your customer experience more positive.

How Do Customer Engagement and Customer Experience Complement Each Other?

While both customer engagement and customer experience are important for attracting and retaining customers, they aren’t the same thing. Customer engagement includes interactions between a business and its customers, with the goal of strengthening your relationship. Emails, texts, and social media posts are examples of common customer engagement.

The customer experience is about the perception of your business across every single customer engagement interaction. In essence, it’s about how your customers feel about your brand when they engage with you.

How Does a Loyalty Program Affect Customer Experience?

Your customer loyalty program plays an important role in both customer engagement and the customer experience. Offering thoughtful rewards reinforces your image as a company that values their business, and it can also incentivize your customers to provide the feedback you need to improve customer experience. In addition, you can use customer rewards to capitalize on your great experience by encouraging actions of advocacy, such as submitting referrals, posting online reviews, participating in case studies, and more.

BHN Rewards is a digital rewards platform that can help you implement and manage your customer rewards. It integrates directly with customer management tools such as HubSpot and Marketo, as well as community platforms like Krealinks and Verint.

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Employee retention and motivation are significant issues that have become even more important and challenging for many companies today. Recruiting new staff is not only costly, it can also be difficult to find skilled candidates in a competitive market. It makes sense that more employers are pulling out all the stops to retain their existing team members. One important part of both retention and engagement is showing appreciation for your employees’ efforts and contributions. When they feel their employer cares and recognizes their hard work, they are more engaged, which in turn leads to greater productivity and loyalty.

Why Is It Important to Improve Employee Retention and Motivation?

By working to improve employees’ retention and motivation, companies can help their bottom line, reducing staff turnover and the associated recruitment and onboarding costs. It’s expensive to advertise for and train new team members only to have them leave the company within a few months. That is especially the case when your skilled workers then go to work for a competitor. Motivated employees are more likely to remain loyal to the company and stay in their roles longer. 

READ MORE: The Impact of Reward Systems on Employee Performance in 7 Statistics

Recruiting new skilled employees also becomes easier when companies take positive action to improve employee motivation. The company becomes more attractive to work for and will draw the right talent to apply for vacancies.

Taking action to boost employee motivation creates a more positive workplace culture as well, encouraging greater collaboration between colleagues and teams and improving customer relationships. It’s a domino effect that can have big benefits for a company’s overall success.

How Can I Improve Employee Retention?

When it comes to improving employee retention, there isn’t one single approach that will get you the results you want. You have to look at the entire employee experience and create a multifaceted strategy, starting with the onboarding process. Other opportunities for optimization include career development, benefits, feedback and review processes (both for and from the employees), and rewards and recognition.  

What Effect Do Rewards and Recognition Have on Employee Motivation and Retention?

Showing appreciation for your employees and recognizing their contributions can go a long way in improving motivation and retention. According to Blackhawk Network research, 90% of employees believe that recognition at work is important, and 83% say that receiving rewards makes them more productive and loyal. Reward programs that focus on your teams’ wellness can also be particularly effective. Most U.S. employees say that their employers’ well-being rewards and programs help them be as productive as possible (79%), help them avoid getting sick (79%), and are one of the reasons they stay at their job (75%), according to Statista.

What Is Involved in Creating a Program for Employee Recognition and Appreciation?

To implement a program for employee recognition and appreciation, start by defining what your goals are — in this case, boosting retention and motivation — and what behaviors you can encourage to achieve those goals. There are countless reward opportunities to consider, including doing a training session, earning a certification, completing a project, achieving a personal quota, and hitting a work milestone or anniversary.

You must also decide what kind of structure you want for your program, whether you will use instant rewards or a points-to-rewards system. Then, choose what the actual rewards will be. Your program can be effective only if the rewards it offers are attractive to your employees — they need to be something people want to work toward. Our 2022 Employee Incentives Report from NAPCO Research shows that employees like flexible rewards like gift cards and prepaid cards better than traditional options such as in-office perks and swag. Gift cards also offer great advantages for you as the employer, since they can be delivered digitally, instantly, and in varying denominations.

Lastly, it’s important to promote your employee rewards program so that your team members and managers know how to use it. The more the program is utilized, the more it helps create a culture of recognition, which promotes higher productivity, morale, engagement, and retention.

What Tools Can Help Me Manage an Employee Rewards Program to Improve Retention and Motivation?

By launching your employee rewards program with the right tools, you can minimize the administrative effort it takes to maintain while also empowering managers across the company to take advantage. To optimize the recipient experience, choose a platform that offers a wide selection of reward options, streamlines delivery, and allows for customization and personalization. For the human resources team or program manager, make sure you have enterprise-ready features that allow you to separate user permissions and budget groups, as well as detailed reporting capabilities so you can track the utilization and success of the program.

BHN Rewards is a robust platform for digital rewards management that can help you easily implement and maintain an employee rewards program. It also integrates directly with Microsoft Teams, so you can deliver rewards instantly via chat or during live meetings.

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When companies implement effective strategies for employee engagement, the benefits cascade to create a more positive work culture, increase productivity, reduce staff turnover, and attract top talent. That, in turn, improves everything from customer relationships to overall company profits and success.

What Does Employee Engagement Mean?

Employee engagement goes beyond the ideas of job satisfaction and happiness at work. It means that the company keeps employees fully absorbed in and enthusiastic about their work. Engaged workers are committed to their job and inspired to help further the organization’s interests and reputation. Morale, motivation, well-being, and loyalty are all part of employee engagement.

READ MORE: 3 Effective Employee Reward Program Ideas to Foster Engagement

What Are the Dangers of Having Disengaged Employees?

Several problems are associated with having a disengaged workforce, including:

  • Employees putting in less effort (or “quiet quitting”), reducing the team’s productivity and potentially damaging customer relationships. 
  • High turnover, which results in increased recruitment and onboarding costs and could lead to skilled team members defecting to your competitors.
  • Difficulty in recruiting more talented workers, since candidates are likely to judge or hear about the negative culture.

Combined, these issues can ultimately lead to the company taking a hit in overall revenue and profits.

What Are the Advantages of Having Engaged Employees? 

When employees are engaged, it has positive outcomes because they feel more connected to the mission of their employer and their work. Companies reap the benefits of that passion. According to Gallup, organizations that report high employee engagement also have, on average:

  • 18% higher sales productivity.
  • 23%​ higher profits.
  • 10% higher customer loyalty/engagement.
  • 43% lower turnover.
  • 81%​ lower absenteeism​.

How Can Companies Effectively Engage Employees?

There are many aspects of employee engagement that companies should focus on. One of the most important is a rewards and recognition program. Showing appreciation for your employees and making them feel valued is a key part of engagement. Consider these statistics:

  • 81% of employees say getting a gift card or prepaid card as a reward from their employer would motivate them to work harder, and 79% say it would make them want to stay longer with the company, according to Blackhawk Network research.
  • SurveyMonkey data shows that 82% of survey respondents consider recognition to be important to their happiness at work. 
  • Employees who feel appropriately recognized at work are 2.2 times more likely than others to say that their employer embraces innovative thinking and 2.6 times more likely to believe that promotions are fair.

A rewards program can also help you with other employee engagement strategies, such as:

  • Building wellness programs. Use rewards to encourage healthy behaviors. Among U.S. employees, 83% say their employers’ well-being rewards and programs enhance their overall employment experience.
  • Soliciting feedback. Hearing from — and actually listening to! — your employees is key to understanding how to improve their engagement. Offer rewards for employee survey completion to make sure you get a wide range of opinions and ideas, and not just responses from those who are very happy or unhappy.
  • Supporting career development and training. While employees often report that the opportunity to develop new professional skills is important to them, it’s sometimes easy to put off when other tasks take priority. Make sure you give team members the time to participate in training or industry events, and reward them for taking that initiative.

What Kinds of Rewards Are Effective for Employee Engagement?

All employees have different preferences, of course, but in general, there is a gap between the types of rewards employees want and what they most often receive. For your rewards to be effective at improving employee engagement, you must take into account what your workforce wants. Our 2022 Employee Incentives Report from NAPCO Research found that

90% of employees prefer to get gift cards or prepaid cards as rewards. Only 40% want in-office perks like social events and meals, but they’re offered by 58% of employers. Even fewer, 34%, want to be rewarded with apparel, yet 50% of employers give it.

In addition, employees aren’t always receiving recognition the way they want. Nearly half prefer to be recognized in a company event with others, but the most-used method cited by employers is a personalized card or email.

Why Is Using Digital Gift Cards as Rewards Beneficial for Employers? 

Not only are digital gift cards preferred by employees, they also offer many benefits for employers who use them as rewards. They can be delivered instantly, for free, by email or SMS to engage even remote and hybrid teams. They also give senders a lot of flexibility in regard to both type and value of reward, and there are options for international employees as well.

BHN Rewards offers an extensive range of digital gift cards that are ideal for increasing employee engagement, along with management tools that help you streamline and track your program.

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Employee recognition couldn’t be more critical for businesses, especially as retention and productivity become bigger challenges in the wake of the Great Resignation and “quiet quitting.” An effective recognition and rewards program is a win-win for both the employer and the employees. Surveys show that when employees get regular recognition, they are more likely to feel valued and be engaged. That leads to business benefits such as higher productivity and team members who stay longer in their positions.

What Does Effective Employee Recognition Look Like? 

Successful employee recognition programs include acknowledging and showing appreciation for your team members’ achievements, milestones, and efforts in the workplace. They also often incorporate rewards to make the recognition even more meaningful. 

Here are just a few of the most common opportunities for recognition: 

  • Work anniversaries. Marking these yearly milestones is a great way to encourage loyalty and recognize employees’ commitment.
  • Project completion. Launching major projects typically involves a lot of hard work from multiple team members, so recognizing that effort is not only just a nice gesture, it also helps boost staff morale and encourage greater productivity. It also promotes positive team dynamics and collaboration for future projects. 
  • Individual goal achievement. Most companies set some sort of objectives, quotas, or key performance indicators (KPIs) for their employees to strive for. Tracking those goals throughout the year and giving quarterly or monthly rewards for those who hit certain targets — rather than just relying on end-of-year awards — can be a constant motivator and keep employees engaged all year. 
  • Birthdays and personal events. Establishing and deepening connections with team members can also help your retention efforts, not to mention foster stronger relationships at work. To show you care about your team members as people, and not just as employees, recognize personal events such as celebrating birthdays, getting married, and becoming parents.

Does Employee Recognition Work to Boost Employee Engagement?

Employee recognition is one of the key drivers of employee engagement. In fact, according to Quantum Workplace, employees who believe their work will be properly recognized are 2.7 times more likely to feel highly engaged

When employees are engaged, many other benefits follow. Research from Gallup shows that organizations that report high employee engagement see, on average:

  • 81%​ lower absenteeism​.
  • 23%​ higher profits.
  • 18% higher sales productivity.
  • 10% higher customer loyalty/engagement.
  • 43% lower turnover.

In addition, according to Great Place to Work, when compared with employees who don’t feel appropriately recognized at work, those who do are:

  • 2.6 times more likely to think that promotions are fair.
  • 2.2 times more likely to say that their employer embraces innovative thinking.

Twice as likely to say people at their workplace are willing to go above and beyond.

How Do I Create a Culture of Employee Recognition in My Workplace?

If you want to reap the benefits of employee engagement, it’s not enough to offer occasional, inconsistent recognition. Managers really need to create a culture of recognition in the workplace and even within each team. Here are some tips to help: 

  • Start simple. Praising and thanking team members for their efforts in person or via email is a small but great step forward. Take it public during staff meetings or with an employee-of-the-month post on a bulletin board or team chat channel. 
  • Consider a points-based rewards system. Gamifying your employee recognition can help keep it fun, and a points-based model lets you reward a wide variety of accomplishments and moments. 
  • Choose rewards that employees really want. Using gift cards as on-the-spot rewards is a compelling motivator and offers flexibility for recipients. 
  • Get buy-in from executives. A culture of employee recognition needs to start from the top. If executives aren’t participating in the program at every level, it won’t be successful.
  • Recognize employees regularly. While annual reviews and bonuses are nice, you need to give frequent rewards to make it part of the culture.  

How Do I Recognize and Reward Remote and Hybrid Employees?

With such widespread adoption of a hybrid or remote-first workplace model, many aspects of the employee experience have changed, including recognition and rewards. It makes it that much more difficult for managers to create the culture that recognizes all employees — both in-office and remote — for their contributions in a way that improves the team’s morale, engagement, and retention as a whole.

By adding digital rewards to your employee recognition program, you can instantly and easily show appreciation for team members anywhere in the world. BHN Rewards not only offers a wide, global selection of digital gift cards, prepaid cards, and e-donations, it also integrates directly with Microsoft Teams so you can recognize employees on the spot during live virtual meetings, via personal chat messages, and in public team channels.

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The concept of customer engagement has evolved over recent years. It typically involves finding innovative ways of attracting and retaining customers. That often means cultivating a positive relationship between buyers and your company or brand, beyond a simple sales transaction. A consistent and intentional approach to building customer engagement can increase repeat purchases, loyalty, and advocacy.

Is There a Difference Between Customer Experience and Customer Engagement?

There is a common misconception that customer experience and customer engagement are the same, but there are some key differences. Both are important to a company’s success.

Customer engagement involves taking active, ongoing steps to make customers happy and strengthen your relationship with them. In contrast, customer experience refers more simply to how the customer experiences the buying process and how much they like or dislike the product and service.

What Are the Benefits of Effective Customer Engagement?

Effective customer engagement improves customer relationships, which results in many benefits for brands and sellers. Higher customer retention and loyalty and more repeat purchases lead to higher profits. Not to mention that your engaged customers are more likely to refer other buyers or recommend your brand to others, which boosts lead generation.

What Should I Do to Increase Customer Engagement?

Customer engagement can take many different forms. A few common actions that your company or brand can focus on include:

  • Effective and efficient customer service to deal with any questions or issues. Consider adding social media to your service dealings, as many customers now prefer to reach out to brands on that channel.
  • Prompt responses to online reviews, both positive and negative. This is important not only to engage with the customer who wrote the review, but also to show your commitment to future prospects who may see the review later.
  • A rewards or loyalty program. Three-quarters of consumers say they prefer companies that offer rewards. Customer rewards programs are also a great way to encourage advocacy, since over 70% of purchasers would be willing to recommend a brand with an excellent loyalty program.

What Customer Engagement Activities Can I Include as Part of a Rewards Program?

Implementing a rewards program is a smart place to start to increase customer engagement, because it can combine many aspects of engagement and encourage a number of different actions. Whether you decide to use instant rewards or a points-based structure, an effective program will keep customers engaged on an ongoing basis, even between purchases. Depending on whether your business is mostly B2C to B2B, the tasks you give rewards for may vary, but some common options include:

  • Making a follow-up purchase.
  • Posting about your brand or service on social media.
  • Writing an online review.
  • Participating in a case study.
  • Submitting a referral for a colleague or friend.
  • Responding to a customer feedback survey.
  • Answering other users’ questions in a community forum.

Not only will you delight your customers by giving them rewards, you will also reap the benefits of these actions, which can bring you more leads, boost sales, increase awareness of your brand, provide valuable feedback, and help you save on customer service costs.

What Kinds of Rewards Are Best for Loyalty Programs?

Digital gift cards are an ideal option for your customer rewards program for several reasons. First, research shows that rewards are more effective than discounts, and people prefer the flexibility of gift cards over physical gifts. They also offer a lot of flexibility for you as the sender, because they can be used in whatever structure you choose for your program, either delivered as instant rewards or redeemed for a certain number of points. They are available in multiple currencies, and there are options for customers all over the world. Plus, digital rewards are free to send and, with the right tools, can be integrated directly with the customer engagement software you already use. This allows for automatic delivery that reduces the ongoing maintenance time for your program.

BHN Rewards offers this convenience by integrating directly with many popular customer engagement and community tools, including HubSpot and Marketo. It also supports both instant rewards and points-to-rewards and has an extensive catalog of global reward options, including e-gift cards, virtual prepaid cards, and e-donations. Contact us to request a demo today!

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There are many qualities that a reward incentive should have to be effective for your research, marketing, or employee programs: ease of implementation, convenience, desirability, etc. But above all, the best quality of an effective reward incentive is flexibility for both the recipient and the sender. A versatile incentive program can be adapted for every recipient, whatever their preferences and location. It will also fit into any rewards strategy and budget. As a result, it has the best chance of helping your team achieve its goals.

What Are Reward Incentives?

Reward incentives are distributed by companies to encourage specific actions among a certain audience. Sometimes, companies provide them to employees to motivate them and encourage higher productivity. Others use rewards to keep their customers happy or to boost engagement and participation in their marketing campaigns. Here are some of the best reasons for using rewards or incentives: 

  • To motivate workers and boost their performance in the workplace. 
  • To show employee appreciation and recognize top performers.
  • To improve engagement with marketing campaigns and webinar attendance
  • To satisfy existing customers and retain their loyalty. 
  • To generate greater brand advocacy
  • To increase the number of responses received for a survey or questionnaire. 
  • To increase the number of participants for panels and focus groups.

Incentives can take several forms and be monetary or non-monetary. Examples include verbal or written thanks, physical gifts, gift cards, and exclusive access to events or features. 

Why Are Reward Incentives So Beneficial?

Reward incentives are effective in many different kinds of programs. When used for employees, rewards help by:

  • Producing a more positive workplace environment with better teamwork.
  • Increasing productivity, which in turn boosts customer satisfaction and increases revenue. 
  • Helping staff to feel recognized for their efforts and improving their morale and satisfaction in their roles. 
  • Reducing staff turnover and making recruitment easier. 

In research, the benefits of using incentives include: 

  • Receiving a larger number of feedback responses.
  • Receiving higher quality responses, since more people are likely to complete the survey accurately and fully.
  • Getting a more representative, reliable picture of customer satisfaction or needs to inform future efforts.

Marketers using rewards will see benefits such as: 

  • More satisfied customers returning to make future purchases.
  • More customers will likely become brand ambassadors, referring more new customers to the business. 
  • Higher engagement with campaigns, webinars, and more.

Why Is Flexibility So Important for Reward Incentives?

Flexibility is one of the most important elements of any reward. After all, reward incentives must accommodate all kinds of recipients, who have different interests and needs. They also often need to be appropriate and redeemable for people who live in different countries. On the sender side, marketing, research, and HR teams must have versatile rewards that can be used for a number of different campaigns and projects — and fit within budget requirements — so being able to adjust the type and value of reward is key.

Why Are Digital Gift Cards So Effective as Reward Incentives?

First, digital gift cards make great rewards because they have the desired flexibility in many ways, including:

  • They can be purchased in practically any value, depending on the task you’re incentivizing and your budget.
  • There are international options, such as virtual prepaid cards, that can be used in over 150 countries.
  • You can curate a selection of gift cards to tailor the rewards experience, or you can let your recipients choose their favorite.
  • They allow recipients to use the gift card to purchase whatever they want.

Digital gift cards also have a number of other advantages as reward incentives, including:

  • They’re free, fast, and convenient to deliver via email or SMS.
  • They can be sent instantly and automatically using an integrated rewards solution.
  • They are easier to track than physical gifts.

How Can I Implement Digital Reward Incentives Most Effectively?

A good rewards program should be easy and efficient to launch, which is why it’s better to use a streamlined digital rewards tool instead of spreadsheets and manual processes.

BHN Rewards offers an easy-to-use, integrated platform that can be incorporated seamlessly into your existing workflows and tools for marketing campaigns, research projects, and employee engagement programs. It also has over 300 reward options, including e-gift cards from top global brands in a number of currencies, virtual prepaid cards, and e-donations.

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For people who want to make a little extra money, surveys that offer rewards are an attractive option. However, is the promise of a reward simply for completing a survey too good to be true?

While a few dishonest websites might post fake surveys and offer rewards that don’t exist, in many cases, survey rewards are genuine. A lot of companies incentivize survey responses to help them meet their goals. When it comes to collecting customer feedback or doing market research, rewards are a highly effective way to encourage people to complete the survey.

What Are Survey Rewards?

Survey rewards are incentives that companies give to encourage participants to complete a survey. Companies that do regular surveys, especially research agencies, often offer points programs, where participants accrue points for each survey and can then redeem them for a reward, like a digital gift card. In other cases, especially one-off or less frequent surveys, rewards are distributed instantly as a cash payment or gift card.

READ MORE: Download our Survey Optimization Checklist to increase response rates!

Why Are Rewards Offered for Completing Surveys?

Attracting participants to complete surveys can be challenging — a simple email invitation may not be enough, especially for longer surveys. People today are busy and unlikely to take the time and effort required without proper compensation. And when there are too few respondents, the data won’t be representative and the resulting conclusions aren’t reliable.

By using survey rewards, you attract more participants, increase the rate of complete responses, and compensate them for their time. Not only does that mean you get the high-quality data you need, you also build goodwill and trust for your brand. When you provide an incentive for feedback, you’re telling participants that their opinions and time are valued.

How Can Companies Use Survey Rewards?

Many companies across a broad spectrum of industries distribute survey rewards as part of their marketing and research strategies. Such incentives are a great way to increase survey response rates. Companies can use surveys and the corresponding rewards for a number of different reasons, including:

  • Market research to get insights about their target audience and competitors.
  • Collecting feedback from their customers or users on products, service experiences, new features, etc.
  • Scientific or clinical studies for educational purposes.

What Kinds of Rewards Can Be Offered for Completing Surveys?

There are different reward options that companies can offer for completing surveys. Some of the top options include:

  • Monetary rewards. These small sums of money are paid directly to the survey participants.
  • Small physical prizes. These are often branded items from the company carrying out the survey.
  • Gift cards. These come in different values and currencies. They may be for one specific store or a choice of retailers, and they can be delivered as plastic cards or digital codes.
  • Sweepstakes entry. Each respondent gets a chance to win a larger prize, like a car or vacation, or a larger sum of money.
  • Valuable content. This can include resources such as paid subscriptions, digital courses, or e-books.
  • Discount codes or coupons. These can be for either the brand offering the survey or another company.

Although all these reward options have certain advantages, gift cards — and, in particular, digital gift cards — offer the most flexibility for both the recipient and the distributor. They also eliminate shipping costs and allow for automated delivery.

How Can Companies Make Sure Their Digital Survey Rewards Look Legitimate?

Of course, companies need to be sure that when they do use digital gift cards as rewards, they look legitimate when delivered. If consumers believe that the invitation or incentive offer are a scam, they’ll simply delete the email without responding. Or, if someone takes the survey but their reward email is flagged as spam, they won’t get it and will be upset.

Fortunately, there are several steps that companies can take to ensure their digital rewards appear legitimate and are highly deliverable. They include:

  • Sending rewards from your own trusted domain, not a spoofed address.
  • Customizing the delivery email with your company logo and branding.
  • Automating deliveries, so the respondent receives their reward immediately and associates it with completing the survey.

When companies follow these tips, they can ensure recipients that their incentive is real. This increases redemption rates and again builds trust with your audience. 

BHN Rewards not only provides trusted delivery and customizable reward emails and redemption pages, it also integrates directly with many top survey platforms, including Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, and Medallia, to help you streamline and automate survey rewards.

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Many companies considering investing in an employee rewards program ask if they really work. The answer: There’s clear evidence that they certainly do. A recognition and rewards strategy helps you get even more from your employees and promotes a good company culture.

Consider that:

These statistics show that employees want to be rewarded and recognized for their work and will be more engaged when they feel valued.

READ MORE: The Impact of Reward Systems on Employee Performance in 7 Statistics

What Are the Benefits of Employee Rewards Programs?

Many benefits come with implementing an employee rewards program, including:

  • Better employee engagement
  • Improved team morale
  • Higher workforce retention rates
  • Easier recruitment of top talent
  • Improved customer satisfaction
  • Higher productivity levels
  • A supportive, positive company culture 

Why Is It Important to Use Rewards to Motivate Employees?

Offering rewards and recognition helps motivate employees and leads to stronger performance. According to Blackhawk Network, 86% of workers feel more valued when receiving rewards, and 81% are motivated to work harder. The knowledge that they can receive a reward for their effort keeps workers on track and promotes a positive attitude. 

You can also use rewards to recognize team projects and accomplishments, not just individual contributions. By offering team rewards, you foster a collaborative environment.

The benefits of rewarding employees reaches beyond your team to impact customer satisfaction as well. With more positive and productive employees, customers receive better service, leading them to return again and again and give positive reviews of the company to others. In fact, companies that report high employee engagement see, on average, 10% better customer loyalty, according to Gallup.

Do Employee Rewards Help with Recruitment and Retention?

Recruitment and retention are two major issues facing many companies today across all industries. Finding — and keeping! — a suitably talented workforce can prove challenging as workplace expectations change. But having an effective employee rewards program is a perk that can help businesses attract top talent. According to Blackhawk Network research, 35% of survey respondents would seek new employment if the prospective employer offered better rewards and recognition.  

Not only can rewards help with recruiting new employees, they also help retain existing ones. Nearly 80% of workers want to stay longer with their employer if they receive gift card rewards, Blackhawk Network statistics show. And Gallup’s research on organizations with high employee engagement say they see 43% lower turnover. That means your employees’ talent stays within the organization, and there is no money wasted on training new team members. It also means they’re less likely to take their skills and experience to your competitors. 

Will an Employee Rewards Program Increase My Company’s Profits?

Evidence shows that employee rewards programs can increase company profits, since employees who feel recognized and valued are more engaged and productive. They are more likely to strive harder to reach their goals, and that motivation leads to higher-quality work and better results. Companies with engaged employees typically see 23% higher profits and 18% higher sales productivity, according to Gallup.  

What Kind of Rewards Should Be in a Staff Rewards Program?

Employee rewards programs can include a mix of both monetary and non-financial rewards.

Non-monetary rewards include thank-you cards, early dismissal, an extra day of leave, and employee awards. However, most recipients would rather get monetary rewards, such as gift cards. More than 80% of employees prefer receiving a gift card as a reward from their employers, according to Blackhawk Network. Digital gift cards are more convenient than handing out cash, since they can be delivered instantly via email, and with today’s economic pressures, they are a great way to show appreciation when you can’t afford to give out large bonuses

How to Choose the Right Rewards Program 

Choosing the right rewards tool to help you distribute digital gift cards to your employees is vital to the success of your program. The ideal rewards program: 

  • Is easy to use so all managers can be empowered to give rewards to their teams.
  • Offers lots of reward options, including international options for global teams. 
  • Works seamlessly with the tools your team already knows and uses every day.
  • Allows flexible delivery options via email, SMS, and communication tools like Microsoft Teams.

BHN Rewards extensive catalog of digital gift cards, virtual prepaid cards, and e-donations makes it a great option for employee rewards programs. It also integrates quickly and easily with Microsoft Teams, so you can send rewards via chat messages and even during live meetings. Get in contact now to discover more about how BHN Rewards can boost your employees engagement and retention.

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Expanding your company’s reach is crucial to your success, and creating a B2B referral program that rewards customers who submit names is a great way to do that. But what are the best incentives to use? Some popular choices include physical gifts, cash rewards, discounts, and product upgrades. However, according to Score’s State of Business Customer Referral Programs report, the most popular option is gift cards. Clients love to receive a gift card as a reward for referring another customer to your brand.

Do B2B Referral Programs Work? 

Using a referral program in a B2B environment is much different than B2C referrals, since there’s typically a longer sales cycle and multiple stakeholders in the buying process. That makes it even more important for B2B companies to take advantage of referral programs. Two-thirds of sales professionals report that leads that come from customer referrals are the highest-quality leads they get, according to HubSpot. Research has also shown that referrals have higher conversion rates and a higher lifetime value than other leads.

READ MORE: Tips for Building a Successful B2B Referral Program

Trends show that B2B referrals have become only more valuable in recent years. Nearly half of B2B technology vendors say customer referrals were their most successful marketing tactic during the pandemic, Statista reports.

However, for a B2B referral program to work, the rewards must be worthwhile, whether you’re offering them only for the existing customer or for both the referrer and the referred. Here are some examples of popular choices for incentives.

  • Physical gifts. Giving physical gifts, often branded with your logo, is one possible reward option. But it’s difficult to choose a gift that everyone will find useful and compelling, so it may not be appealing enough to work as an incentive to submit referrals. Also, shipping gifts can be time-consuming and expensive.
  • Cash. Cash rewards can be an enticing incentive for B2B referrals, but they also aren’t very personalized and are hard to distribute. Even worse, if any mailing addresses are incorrect or rewards are lost in the mail, you end up wasting your budget and angering customers.
  • Product upgrades. Another option is to offer a free upgrade to a premium or higher-level version of your product as a referral incentive. For instance, you can give away a one-year subscription. Hopefully, the customer will then continue paying for the paid version once their reward comes to an end. But this option makes sense only for certain businesses, plus you can offer only one reward for the first referral, so there’s no incentive to refer others.
  • Discounts. If you can’t or don’t want to offer the full upgrade for free, discounts are another option for referral programs. But recipients typically prefer to get a reward instead of a discount, especially when the product is not something that is purchased very often, like a software license that’s renewed only once a year. An instant reward can be sent and enjoyed immediately.
  • Charitable donations. Another referral reward option is a charitable donation. You can donate to a charity on the client’s behalf, but it’s even more personal if you use a rewards tool that lets them choose the organization they’d like to help. Offering a donation option boosts your brand image and helps you build up emotional connections with customers and leads. Donation rewards are also ideal for those who cannot receive a monetary reward or are uncomfortable with accepting one, such as government officials or doctors.
  • Gift cards. Gift cards are an excellent choice for referral rewards because they’re flexible, affordable, and popular among recipients. There are lots of choices to pick from, so you can find options to suit your market. You can also choose different values to suit your needs, and they come in different currencies for overseas clients, too. Digital gift cards in particular give the freedom of choice to the recipient, and they are also easy to send, receive, and use. 

BHN Rewards offers an impressive choice of gift cards that are perfect incentives for B2B referral programs. Check out our full catalog!

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It’s a question that many companies ask when they are looking for better insights in their research or feedback programs. Incentives are becoming increasingly popular as a way of boosting the number of people who respond to surveys. However, are incentives effective and efficient solutions? The answer, according to research, is a clear yes. In fact, evidence shows that offering an incentive of $10 results in 18% more returned surveys. It also increases the chances of a recipient returning their survey by as much as 30%. These statistics demonstrate that incentives certainly do increase survey response rates.

What Is the Typical Survey Response Rate?

There is no single figure to represent the typical survey response rate. Estimates typically range somewhere from 20% to 30%, but that can vary depending on many things, including:

  • The length of the survey. It’s common for longer surveys to go unfinished.
  • The types of questions asked. The more complex the questions, the less likely it is for the recipient to return the survey.
  • The invitation language. The more compelling the subject line and the more personal the email invitation, the more likely the recipient will respond.

READ MORE: The Average Survey Response Rate and How to Beat It

Why Is It So Important to Increase Survey Response Rates?

Anyone who has ever sent out a survey knows how hard it can be to get sufficient engagement. The statistics reveal how challenging it is just to get recipients to even read their emails, with an average open rate of just 18% for email campaigns. The average click-through rate is significantly lower at just 2.6%.

Even when recipients do click through to the survey, it’s not a given that they complete it. Abandon rates jump when a survey takes longer than seven or eight minutes to fill out.

But it’s important for researchers and marketers to make better response rates a priority. Without sufficient responses, your data may not show the entire picture accurately, meaning the insights you collect will be less reliable.

What Are Some Ways to Increase Response Rates?

There are a number of things you can do to boost survey response rates, many of which are simply survey best practices. These include:

  • Making surveys short and to the point.
  • Writing a compelling survey invitation email.
  • Making surveys interactive and fun.
  • Making surveys mobile-friendly.
  • Considering the demographics of the audience and tailoring the survey appropriately.

While all these things can help, they may not be enough on their own. When paired with offering incentives, though, they can be extremely effective.

How Can I Use Incentives Effectively to Increase My Survey Response Rate?

Clearly, using incentives can help to increase your survey response rate. But you need to understand how to use them effectively to maximize their benefits. Here are some top tips to make sure your survey incentives are successful:

  • Choose the right rewards for the demographic. The incentive must be appealing to the audience you are trying to reach. If it isn’t relevant or exciting to the survey invitees, the incentive won’t work.
  • Set the right value for your incentive. If the incentive isn’t enough to properly compensate respondents for their time and effort, it won’t do any good.
  • Consider offering incentives to only the first few respondents to create a sense of urgency. Giving the reward to the first 50 or 100 participants often makes survey invitees submit their responses faster in an effort to make the cut. This is also a great strategy if you have a limited incentives budget.
  • Choose rewards that are easy to claim. Using digital incentives are an ideal option for both you and your recipients, since they can be delivered instantly and for free. 
  • Implement an incentives management tool for a more streamlined process. A digital rewards management platform like BHN Rewards is an efficient way to manage incentives, automate distribution, and track the success of your program.

Find out more about how BHN Rewards’ incentives can boost your survey responses today.

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If you need to boost employee morale, build a more positive team culture, and improve retention rates — not to mention increase productivity and sales — learning how to create an employee rewards program can help. To get started, you need to be clear about which activities you’ll be rewarding by determining your ultimate goals for the program. Once you know which behaviors and actions you wish to see, you can choose activities to reward. Then, prioritize them so you can determine the value of each activity. Finally, it’s time to implement your rewards program and spread the word among your workforce.

Why Do I Need an Employee Rewards Program?

An employee rewards program is extremely beneficial for all kinds of businesses, especially given the recent trend of employee resignations and reshuffling. Many organizations have seen high staff turnover, and that, in turn, reduces productivity, hurts profits, and requires more time and money to recruit and train replacements. To combat this, it’s important for managers and business leaders to prioritize employee recognition and appreciation efforts. In fact, 65% of employees say that feeling recognized makes them less likely to look for another job. An effective rewards program can also boosts employee performance by 11.1%, according to research by Gartner. With these statistics in mind, it’s clear that an employee rewards program is a must-have for every business.

READ MORE: Why Employee Rewards Programs Are Key for a Positive Workplace Culture

What Should My Employee Rewards Program Achieve?

Every business has its own goals, which can vary significantly. However, whatever those goals may be, it’s possible to tailor a rewards program around them. A rewards program can:

  • Keep employees happy so they don’t leave the business.
  • Improve worker performance and productivity.
  • Create a strong culture of employee recognition.
  • Show that there’s something for employees to strive for at work.

Which Activities Should Be Rewarded?

There are various different employee behaviors, activities, and milestones that business leaders can reward in an effort to reach their goals. These include:

  • Effective team collaboration
  • Work anniversaries
  • Putting in exceptional effort
  • Mentoring another employee
  • Complex problem solving
  • Coming up with a creative business idea
  • Hitting individual key performance indicators (KPIs)

In addition, different departments may wish to incorporate role-specific activities into their rewards program. Here are some examples for each team:

  • The sales team could recognize reps who hit goals for number of sales calls made, outbound leads generated, or referrals collected. You could also add rewards for process-related achievements, such as keeping records up to date.
  • For the customer service team, the rewards program could call out those who get the highest feedback ratings or resolve client issues fastest.
  • Product managers and engineers could earn rewards for successfully launching a new product or feature or fixing a certain number of bugs.
  • In marketing, reaching conversion or lead generation goals, attracting a certain threshold of webinar attendees, or hitting a milestone number of social media followers could all be reasons for recognition.

These are just some examples of the possible activities and behaviors that companies can reward employees for. When employees receive such recognition, they feel appreciated and are likely to continue to strive for more rewards. That results in better success for everyone, from higher productivity and sales to a better customer experience.

How Do I Promote a Rewards Program? 

An employee rewards program cannot be successful unless you promote it properly throughout your organization. Fortunately, there are several things you can do to achieve this. You can:

  • Announce it in company and team meetings.
  • Add it to the company’s internal website.
  • Include it in every communication channel.
  • Post stories about it on social media.

By raising awareness across all of these channels, you can inspire excitement in your team. You also want promotion to come from company executives and team managers, who can create a culture of recognition when they lead by example.

What Kind of Incentives Do Employees Want?

Once you’ve determined the activities to reward, the question is what kind of reward you will give. The best rewards are thoughtful, personalized, flexible, and meaningful.

Rewards programs that offer gift cards and prepaid cards can fulfil all these criteria, and they’re what employees prefer. Eighty-six percent of people surveyed by Blackhawk Network said they would feel valued if they received such a reward. Gift cards and prepaid cards are popular with employees because they easy and quick to redeem and give the recipient a range of options to pick from. You can find a great range of gift cards and prepaid cards on BHN Rewards’ digital rewards management platform. Get in touch to learn more today.

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Incentive management refers to finding an effective and efficient way to distribute rewards and incentives to recipients, as well as track those rewards. While research has shown that incentives can help boost customer loyalty and engagement, they can be a significant administrative burden. Well-planned incentive management streamlines the reward distribution process, freeing up team members to do more business-critical tasks. A rewards management tool can make it easy, eliminating manual tasks and streamlining processes.

What Is a Rewards Management Platform?

A rewards management platform offers a convenient and streamlined solution for handling incentives distribution. Whether you are rewarding survey respondents, engaged customers, or high-performing employees, it can be time-consuming and tedious. 

By integrating with software tools you already use every day, an effective rewards management platform makes it simple to manage incentives. It allows you to set up rewards campaigns efficiently, select appropriate rewards, and set value limits. You can automate reward delivery or choose to review and approve recipients before sending out their rewards. 

A good rewards platform also simplifies the process of managing campaigns end-to-end through real-time reporting. By tackling all elements of the process, from curating appropriate digital gift card options to dealing with recipient queries, the right incentive management tool takes the hard work out of rewards.

How Does Automation Help With Incentive Management?

Automating the process of distributing incentives can save your team time. It makes it quicker, easier, and more efficient to manage your rewards program. By integrating rewards distribution directly into your existing survey, marketing, and community tools, you can conveniently automate the process. Integration options include frequently used software like Marketo, Hubspot, Qualtrics, and SurveyMonkey. You can also set triggers to deliver rewards automatically whenever a participant takes a specific action, such as submitting a referral, completing a survey, or registering for a newsletter. 

What Are the Benefits of Automated Incentive Management?

Automated incentive management offers a number of benefits, including:

  • The ability to run multiple campaigns simultaneously.
  • A curated selection of digital gift cards, prepaid cards, or e-donations for each campaign.
  • Streamlined rewarding for global recipients.
  • The opportunity to add company branding and messaging for a more personalized experience. 

Furthermore, an automated platform relieves the burden of administrative tasks. Without having to handle all aspects of rewards campaign management manually, team members are free to focus on more important tasks. Of course, that has benefits for the business, too, because it improves productivity and increases revenue.

Can a Rewards Management Platform Help Me With Tracking and Reporting?

Tracking rewards programs accurately is critical for many reasons. To comply with internal or external regulations and prove ROI, you likely need to know: 

  • Who is getting rewards.
  • Whether a recipient has claimed a reward.
  • Which reward each recipient chooses. 
  • What effect rewards had on the success of your survey or marketing program.

The right rewards management platform gives you complete visibility at a campaign, program, and recipient level. Again, this saves staff time and effort while revealing vital information. 

Do Rewards Management Platforms Offer Flexibility?

Flexibility is extremely important when it comes to incentive management. You need to tailor functionality for differing goals and needs. Some of the flexible options that a good rewards management platform can offer include:

  • Reward caps. Limit the number of rewards that are sent so you’ll never exceed your incentives budget.
  • Approval workflows. Review and approve recipients one by one or in bulk, so you can have final control over distribution. 
  • Anonymous survey support. Using decoupling and data masking, you can reward recipients without seeing their identifying details. 

All of these options make it more convenient and efficient to manage your incentive distribution. 

Which Is the Best Incentive Management Solution?

Finding the best incentive management solution for your business is essential. You need to choose a solution that is effective, efficient, and user-friendly. Not only that, but it must also be flexible enough to meet all your needs.

BHN Rewards is an excellent choice for all your incentive management needs. Its platform is cost-effective, streamlined, and user-friendly, among other benefits. Get in touch to find out more about how BHN Rewards can improve your incentive management processes today.

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Sales incentives programs have seen a lot of upheaval since the start of the pandemic, when the traditional incentive trips became impossible. The question remains, though, if it’s a worthwhile investment for companies to revamp such programs. A study from the Incentive Research Foundation shows it is, stating that a correctly built incentive program can boost performance by as much as 44%. Of course, the key words are “correctly built.” For sales incentives to offer maximum benefits, they must form part of a well-thought-out program — and that often doesn’t include team trips anymore. If companies research and deliver the right incentives in the right way, however, they can certainly see increased sales.

Why Are Sales Incentives Needed?

In the modern world, increasing sales can be a struggle. The statistics show just how hard engagement can be. For instance, recipients only open 23.9% of sales emails. Not only that, but on average, it takes 18 phone calls to connect with a buyer. That means it takes a lot of time and effort for a sales rep to even get in touch with a prospect, which can be very discouraging. The increased use of digital channels today only adds to the problem’s complexity, requiring engagement with prospects across multiple channels to close deals.

These difficulties make it important to motivate your sales team and prevent high staff turnover. By offering sales incentives, you not only show employees that their efforts are recognized and appreciated, you also boost the bottom line for the company.

READ MORE: Using Incentives to Boost Sales? Don’t Forget These 3 Non-Sales Teams

When Should Sales Reps Receive Incentives?

Most sales incentives programs reward employees after they close a deal or based on their revenue numbers. But this traditional approach can actually work against your team’s success.

Daily habits are essential for successful sales, and consistency is key to short sales cycles. Therefore, rewarding the completion of certain sales tasks makes sense. It can boost sales by up to 9% when compared with incentives offered only for sales results. Giving incentives to reward weekly or daily activities keeps teams engaged, productive, and connected. They’re especially useful for remote sales teams who often feel disengaged and overlooked. By rewarding a range of activities and achievements, along with closed deals, it’s possible to keep every team member motivated.

Which Activities Should Be Rewarded With Incentives?

By setting targets for your sales team based on their day-to-day actions, you help nurture good sales habits. To make it even more interesting, look for fun ways add gamification as an extra motivation to reach their goals. Some of the activity-based key performance indicators (KPIs) to reward include:

  • The number of sales calls made overall
  • The length of time spent on calls
  • The number of demonstrations given
  • The number of outbound leads added to the sales pipeline
  • The highest CRM (customer relationship management) usage
  • The completeness of CRM records
  • The number of client case studies executed
  • The accuracy of sales forecasts
  • The highest satisfaction ratings from new customers
  • The number of new proposals written
  • The number of referrals received

These are just a handful of the things that companies may wish to offer incentives for. All can help to boost productivity and increase employee satisfaction overall.

What Kind of Sales Incentives Are Most Effective?

Sales incentives can be effective only if business leaders choose the right rewards. Sales representatives won’t pull out all the stops unless they’re excited about the possibility of receiving the incentive. However, finding one reward that suits everyone can be a challenge. That’s where digital rewards come in.

Digital rewards are easy to send, receive, and use. Even better, they offer instant gratification for the recipient since they can be claimed instantly. And they’re effective: Ninety percent of top-performing companies use non-cash recognition and rewards such as gift cards as sales incentives.

With a digital reward, recipients have the freedom to choose what they want. There are countless options, including brand-specific gift cards, prepaid cards like Mastercard or Visa, and even e-donations.

An employee points rewards program is another excellent option. By giving sales reps points for achieving different goals or completing activities, companies keep them engaged long term. When they earn enough points, employees can exchange their points for a reward of their own choice. It’s an effective, ongoing way to motivate the whole workforce. A points program can also foster a healthy sense of competition between workers, which leads to even greater productivity. 

BHN Rewards offers a range of sales incentive options, both as instant rewards or as part of a points program. To discover more, get in touch today.

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Knowing how to compensate participants is essential for anyone conducting market or academic research. Incentives encourage participation by rewarding survey respondents and panelists for their time and effort. However, choosing the correct incentive can be challenging. Gift cards are an ideal option to compensate research participants because they are convenient to deliver, popular among recipients, and flexible in value and type.

Why Should I Compensate My Research Participants? 

Persuading people to participate in research can be challenging. That’s especially true if your research requires participants to make a major time commitment or if the tasks are very complicated. In such cases, compensating research participants is an excellent solution to help boost recruitment. It lets you attract the specific demographics you need, and it encourages participation in future projects, if needed, since you’ve given recipients a positive experience in the past.

READ MORE: 4 Considerations to Determine the Right Digital Reward Value

How Can I Avoid Abuse of Research Participant Compensation?

It is only natural to have concerns about research participants abusing your offer of compensation. Unfortunately, online research fraud is a problem that you may occasionally encounter. For example, some participants may try to take a survey several times to earn more rewards, or they may forward the survey link to other people who aren’t in your target group. This can skew your results and threaten the accuracy and usefulness of your data.

In other cases, participants are so keen to get their reward that they take the survey extremely quickly. They may not think sufficiently about the responses they give or even read the questions. Again, this affects the reliability of your data.

Fortunately, abuse of research participant compensation is quite rare. But you should certainly take steps to prevent it and protect your incentives budget, including:

  • Use individualized, one-time survey links. Distributing unique survey links for every invitation allows you to limit each participant to one response. Most survey platforms offer this capability. In the case of anonymous surveys that require you to redirect respondents to enter the delivery address for their reward, set it so the entered address must match the address where the survey invitation was sent.
  • Use built-in survey platform safeguards. Survey platforms offer a range of security features that you can implement to help protect yourself against fraud. Many tools can detect duplicate responses coming from a single device and prevent them. Also, thanks to cutting-edge machine learning and AI technologies, platforms can identify any respondent completing surveys too quickly. They can also implement Captcha technology in order to weed bots out. Choose whether to discard fraudulent submissions automatically, redirect them separately, or flag them for filtering and inspection. 
  • Use approval workflows to review respondents before sending rewards. Not only do survey tools offer platform safeguards, so do rewards management platforms like BHN Rewards. When using end-of-survey forms or collecting emails for reward delivery, tell recipients their reward will be subject to your approval. Many potential cheaters will be discouraged by this. When you turn an approval workflow on, a research team member can review and confirm every entry before sending the reward out. BHN Rewards also offers bulk approval capabilities that make it easy to approve and review multiple survey responses quickly. 

What Kind of Incentives Are the Best Option for Research Participants? 

There are several incentive types that you may offer to research participants. Digital gift cards are an excellent choice and are very popular among researchers because: 

  • They offer the benefit of easy and free delivery, even to international participants. 
  • It’s easy to find gift cards to suit a wide range of participants. With so many different brands, stores, and categories to choose from, there’s something for everyone. It’s also easy to choose different values to suit different needs. 
  • Recipients enjoy getting gift cards and appreciate being able to choose their own reward. 
  • When using a rewards management platform, it’s possible to simplify the process of distributing digital gift cards to participants. The platform integrates with existing systems and allows you to automate delivery by email. As a result, there’s no need for manual processes or spreadsheets, so you save time and effort.

BHN Rewards is a reliable supplier of digital gift cards for research incentives and offers a convenient, integrated rewards management platform.

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One problem faced by those doing academic or market research is how to recruit participants. Finding suitable participants can present significant challenges, and persuading those individuals to actually engage can be even more difficult. Fortunately, there are several ways to tackle recruitment. Leveraging the power of social media, tapping into established professional networks, and even crowdsourcing may help. However, offering incentives is often the best way to recruit suitable participants. With the right research incentive, it becomes much easier to encourage people to participate in your survey or project.

Why Is It So Difficult to Recruit Research Participants? 

It can be challenging to recruit research participants for several reasons. First, depending on the type and specificity of your research, finding people who meet the appropriate demographics can be difficult. In addition, it becomes even more challenging when you cannot use participants who have participated in your previous research programs. The amount of effort required from your participants has an effect as well. The more time-consuming and complex the research project is to complete, the harder it is to recruit participants. People don’t want to give up their valuable time to contribute to a project. That’s why using research incentives as compensation for their help proves to be so effective when it comes to recruiting participants. When you reward them for their time, they become more willing to participate.

What Structure Is Best for My Research Incentives? 

There are two main options for research incentive structures:

  • Points-to-rewards
  • One-off instant rewards

Both have their own advantages and disadvantages when recruiting and retaining research participants.

Points-to-rewards programs allow the participant to collect points for every action they complete. Once they’re at a certain threshold, they redeem the points to receive their chosen reward. This type of rewards structure is ideal for ongoing survey programs, research communities, and longitudinal studies. Since participants are rewarded for each task, they are motivated to stay engaged regularly over the long term.

Points-to-rewards programs have other benefits for researchers as well:

  • They give you more control over your budget, since you can set the point value for each task and the threshold that participants must reach before redeeming a reward.
  • They are adaptable and flexible as your research changes. You can add activities, adjust point expiration dates, and alter point values based on the level of effort for each action.

The alternative is to give instant rewards, which means a participant is sent an incentive immediately after completing the survey or other desired task. This type of incentive is best for one-off projects and user experience surveys. It also works well for programs requiring different respondents for every activity or survey, as well as research that need a more significant time commitment from participants.

Other benefits of instant rewards include:

  • They create a sense of urgency for participants who want the instant gratification of a reward sent to them immediately.
  • They are the most effective at recruiting participants for individual studies.

READ MORE: Compare Reward Structures With Our Cheat Sheet

What Type of Rewards Will Be Most Effective and Efficient?

Digital gift cards are highly effective and efficient rewards, for both researchers and their participants. They are popular with recipients and allow for easy and free delivery anywhere in the world. Regardless of whether you’re using points-to-rewards or instant rewards, you can use an integrated rewards management tool to automate the delivery of digital gift cards to save yourself effort and time. Even better, they allow for excellent flexibility, since there are so many different types and values choose from to suit the needs of your research.

Using digital gift cards as an incentive, you can tailor the options to suit your target audience. By considering the demographics of your target group, you can effectively choose the right incentives to make them more appealing.

How Do I Determine an Appropriate Value for My Incentives? 

Choosing the correct value for your incentives is imperative in recruiting participants for your research, since it has to be compelling enough to motivate them to join.

To get the value correct, you must consider a number of factors

  • The level of effort required from the participant to complete the project: The greater the effort, the higher the value of the reward should be.
  • The type of respondents you need to attract: If you need to attract high-level executives, for example, their time is more valuable, so the incentive should be greater.
  • The reward type: If you’re giving a digital gift card for a luxury brand, a low value will not be especially appealing. On the other hand, a lower-value incentive for a more affordable brand will still be seen as worthwhile.
  • The value of the feedback to you: One further consideration is the value of the respondent’s feedback. The more crucial the feedback, the higher the reward should be. In addition, the more difficult it is to attract suitable participants, the more effective a higher value reward will be.

What If I Need to Keep Survey Responses or Participants Anonymous? 

Anonymity is often essential when you are carrying out research. Fortunately, a tool like BHN Rewards is the ideal solution. It supports anonymous surveys by masking data and redirecting respondents to enter their email once the survey is complete, which separates the email address and recipient’s identity from their response. With the BHN Rewards platform, it’s simple to maintain confidentiality at all times. 

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Designing a sales incentive plan can be challenging, but the key lies in finding incentives that motivate employees. Attractive rewards form the heart of any sales incentive plan. You may wish to include different incentive levels for maintaining good sales habits, hitting individual goals, and reaching team targets. Your plan should also include the use of technology to streamline the awarding of incentives. A well-crafted sales incentive plan can boost your company’s profitability and productivity exponentially.

What Is a Sales Incentive Plan?

Sales incentive plans are an effective way of motivating and rewarding your sales team for achieving their goals. Under this type of plan, when your team reaches or exceeds their collective or individual goals, they receive a reward. You can use sales incentive plans on top of standard compensation or commission plans. Incentives may include both financial and non-financial rewards.

How Can Incentives Help Increase Sales? 

Incentives help increase sales by:

  • Motivating your staff to try harder to hit and exceed their sales targets. 
  • Boosting the productivity of your teams. 
  • Retaining more skilled team members with your company so you won’t lose them to your competitors.
  • Attracting experienced salespeople to your team. 

What Are the Challenges Involved in Building a Good Sales Incentive Plan? 

Although putting an effective sales incentive plan in place is highly beneficial, creating one isn’t always easy. First, incentives must be motivating enough to drive team members’ actions, but they can’t be so valuable that they threaten the profitability for your business. A more costly reward will obviously provide a bigger motivation for employees, but it might also negate the financial benefit for your company.

Furthermore, a sales incentive plan must have attainable targets for everyone to encourage workers to try harder. If one salesperson or team always comes out on top, that serves only to discourage other employees. You must design a plan that enables every team member to succeed to avoid frustration and alienation. 

Finally, the incentives plan must include incentives that appeal to the entire workforce, no matter how diverse their demographics. Choosing an equally appealing incentive for every team member is a significant challenge. 

Steps to Building a Sales Incentive Program

To overcome these challenges and create a good sales incentive plan, start by following these steps:

1. Motivate the Right Selling Behaviors. The first step to creating a good sales incentive plan is to motivate the right selling behaviors. It’s important to reward not only closed deals and revenue brought in, but also the activities that build good habits for future sales success. This also has the added benefit of giving even inexperienced salespeople achievable targets to earn incentives. That way, you can encourage every tier of your workforce. 

READ MORE: Nurture High Performance With B2B Sales Incentives for These 11 Key Activities

2. Find the Right Incentives. It couldn’t be more critical to ensure your incentives are appealing to a wide range of people. Your sales team almost certainly consists of a diverse range of people from different age groups and with different interests and preferences. That’s why gift cards are an ideal solution. They are available in a wide range of values and cover an enormous breadth of brands, product categories, and interests. 

3. Make Incentives Simple and Transparent. Once you’ve chosen your rewards, the next step is to ensure your program is easy for everyone to understand. If the incentive plan for your company is too complex, you won’t motivate your team. Salespeople need to know what they have to achieve to receive their reward, whether that’s hitting a certain target or collecting a certain number of points. Outline your incentives plan clearly and ensure that each team member understands the goals they must meet. 

4. Use the Latest Technology. It can be time-consuming to run a sales incentive plan. Using a rewards management platform like BHN Rewards is the perfect way to save time and improve accuracy. The BHN Rewards platform allows you to run multiple incentive programs simultaneously. It also integrates seamlessly with the existing software and platforms you already use in your business. With BHN Rewards’ cutting-edge technology, you can track every transaction and even get refunded for unused rewards. It’s never been easier to design, implement, and manage the most effective sales incentive plan.

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You may not realize how employee rewards can help customer retention. Yet evidence shows that happy and engaged employees help companies retain customers. Disengaged employees are less productive and optimistic, which can easily spill over into their interactions with customers. Satisfied employees, however, are more likely to try harder to please customers and drive better results. Employee rewards show how much the business values and appreciates its workers’ efforts. Employees love to receive rewards for their hard work, and that happiness feeds into customer interactions. In other words, employee rewards lead to better customer retention.

What Does Customer Retention Mean, and Why Does It Matter?  

Customer retention means that you keep existing customers returning to your business, as opposed to attracting new customers. To successfully retain customers, it’s vital to make sure they have a positive experience with your product or service, as well as their interactions with your team members, to prevent them from taking their business to your competitors.

Although winning over new customers to your brand is important, it’s essential to keep the ones you already have satisfied. Evidence shows that it costs five times more to acquire new customers than to retain existing ones. Keeping customers will not only boost your return on investment, but it can even bring in more new customers. Satisfied customers become ambassadors for your brand and share their positive experiences with their friends and colleagues.

What Is the Importance of Employee Rewards? 

Evidence shows that employees who receive rewards for their efforts feel appreciated. In turn, this makes them feel more positive about their job and motivates them to work harder. For example, sales incentives that reward team members for hitting their goals can boost sales by between 6% and 9%. A well-structured sales incentive program increases employee performance by almost 45%.

As an added advantage, employee rewards make employees less likely to seek out alternative employment or go to a rival organization. It’s essential to remember that retaining skilled team members is just as crucial as keeping customers. You don’t want your business rivals to benefit from the training and expertise your staff has learned from you, and training new employees for your own team will cost additional time and money.

Employee rewards can even attract talent to the company. If you offer employee rewards above and beyond those your business rivals offer, their workforce may seek roles with you. You can profit from their existing experience and skills. 

Satisfied Workers Build Stronger Customer Relationships 

Strong customer relationships are the cornerstone of any successful company. Engaged employees are far more likely to have positive attitudes and therefore offer great customer service. In turn, strong customer relationships encourage customers to make repeat purchases and remain loyal to the brand. As a result, it makes sense to keep your employees satisfied, so they want to keep customers satisfied, too.

Engaged Workers Boost the Brand’s Reputation 

All companies want to establish and maintain a good reputation for their brands. A brand with a good reputation will likely have a loyal customer and employee base. Great brands can better expand their customer base and reach new and lucrative markets. Happy employees also want to boost their company’s reputation and have a personal interest in helping the brand do well. Engaged employees will also go the extra mile to create a good impression of your business. That will persuade customers to remain with your brand in the long term. 

Appreciated Workers Make Customers Feel Valued 

Workers who feel valued make customers feel valued, and customers who feel valued remain loyal to your brand. It stands to reason that finding ways to show employees your appreciation offers multiple benefits when it comes to customer retention.

Engaged Workers Are Absent Less Often

Recent studies reveal that engaged workforces experience 41% fewer absences. Absences from sickness or other circumstances can disrupt everyday operations, especially when multiple team members are out, and customers can get neglected. If customers feel neglected, it may lead to a negative experience that will lead them to go to a rival brand. Therefore, using rewards to keep employees engaged in the workplace has many side benefits, including higher customer retention. 

What Kind of Employee Rewards Work Best? 

Employee rewards play a vital part in both staff and customer retention. However, there are many different options to choose from. Some of the most common include: 

  • Financial bonuses
  • Branded merchandise
  • Verbal praise
  • Team social events 

Another option is gift cards, which are a simple yet effective way to reward team members for their achievements. They come in a wide variety of categories and values to suit all needs. They are also easy to send, receive, and use. BHN Rewards offers an extensive catalog of digital gift cards, prepaid cards, and e-donations, which make ideal employee rewards to boost both team engagement and customer retention.

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Many businesses today use gift cards as a valuable incentive for prospects, customers, and employees alike. Although it’s possible to purchase gift cards individually for your campaigns and programs, that’s a time-consuming and impractical solution. The best way to get gift cards for your business is to implement a rewards management platform. By using a well-designed rewards tool, it becomes quicker and more convenient to incorporate gift cards into your business processes.

How Should Businesses Use Gift Card Rewards?

Businesses can use gift cards in a number of ways that help them grow and succeed, such as:

  • As thank-you gifts for suppliers and clients to show appreciation.
  • As customer rewards to encourage brand advocacy.
  • As incentives for employees to improve morale, productivity, and retention.

READ MORE: What Is a Business Gift Card?

Can Businesses Purchase Gift Cards Individually?

While it is possible for businesses to purchase gift cards individually, that is rarely an effective solution for marketing or employee programs, which usually have many recipients. Buying gift cards individually directly from the retailer is difficult in these situations because:

  • It is very time-consuming, especially if you want to offer gift cards from multiple brands.
  • It’s difficult to monitor spending among multiple websites and to track reward redemptions.
  • You can’t offer recipients a customized, branded, and flexible experience that lets them choose the reward they want.

What Are the Benefits of Using a Rewards Management Tool?

A more convenient alternative to purchasing separate gift cards is using a rewards management platform to send digital gift cards. The advantages include:

  • Convenience. It’s far simpler, quicker, and more straightforward to use a rewards management tool, where setup and delivery can be done all in one place.
  • Easy tracking and invoicing. With robust tracking and reporting capabilities, the right rewards tool let you stay on top of what gift card rewards have been sent, which ones have been claimed, and how many are available.
  • Cash back for unused rewards. A good rewards management tool like BHN Rewards offers 100% refunds for any unclaimed rewards, saving the business money.
  • Many reward choices in one place. With many options to pick from, a rewards management tool ensures recipients will find something they like. BHN Rewards’ catalog includes not only digital gift cards, but also prepaid cards and e-donations.
  • A customized experience. You can give recipients a personalized experience by adding the business’s own branding and message.
  • Integration with existing tools. Finding a rewards platform that connects seamlessly with the tools you already use makes it even more convenient to purchase and send gift card rewards.
  • Easy campaign management for multiple rewards programs. If a business operates several rewards campaigns simultaneously, it can be challenging to stay on top of everything. A rewards management tool allows various programs to run together without any confusion. It also lets you see tracking and reporting on both a campaign and overall program level.
  • Data security and compliance. With the right rewards management platform, you can be sure that both your company’s financial information and your recipients’ personal details are secure and protected.

How Does a Business Find the Right Gift Cards for Global Recipients?

Businesses often need gift cards for overseas recipients, whether they’re used as incentives for remote team members or international customers and prospects.

It can be difficult to buy gift cards for overseas recipients, since many brand-specific cards are redeemable only in the country where they were purchased. Currency conversion and, if you try to use physical gift cards, shipping costs can also be issues.

Fortunately, BHN Rewards can help by offering an impressive range of gift cards for overseas recipients. Its rewards management platform makes it possible to automatically curate lists of gift cards to suit recipients in different countries. Gift cards are also available in different currencies and values.

How Does the Process of Ordering Gift Cards Work?

Ordering gift cards via BHN Rewards is quick and straightforward. Once you set up a BHN Rewards account and get approved, you can create campaigns in minutes by selecting your reward value and options, adding your recipient list, and customizing the reward email and redemption page.

It’s also very simple for the recipient to use their gift card. They instantly receive an email containing a link that they click to redeem their reward.

If you want to use gift cards for your business to reward prospects, customers, and employees, BHN Rewards is the solution you need. The easy-to-use and enterprise-ready digital rewards platform helps you seamlessly add rewards to your campaigns and workflows.

Gift cards are excellent incentives for employees to boost productivity, maintain high performance, and stay with the company. Not only that, but gift cards are also great rewards for clients and customers. They’re a popular way to encourage repeat business and show appreciation, plus they can help increase engagement and advocacy, resulting in more leads and increased business. When businesses show clients and employees alike that they are appreciated, the company reaps the benefits. Their workforce becomes more loyal and hard-working, and they can retain and attract more customers.

How Do Gift Cards for Customers Benefit Businesses?

There are several ways in which giving gift cards as customer rewards helps boost businesses’ success, including:

  • It helps nurture your relationships and connections with your customers to help generate more brand ambassadors.
  • It encourages customers to be brand loyal and make repeat purchases.
  • It helps you attract more prospects by incentivizing them to try your product or service. 

READ MORE: The Most Versatile Business Gift Cards for Your Reward Programs

How Do Gift Cards for Employees Benefit Businesses?

Many companies today choose to give gift cards as employee incentives. This approach also helps businesses be successful by:

  • Encouraging workers to be more productive and thus generate more revenue for the business.
  • Boosting collaboration within and among teams.
  • Attracting top talent to the team, as many skilled workers want benefits on top of their salary.
  • Persuading experienced staff to remain loyal to the company, keeping their skills on board and cutting down on the need to recruit and train new employees. 

Are There Alternatives to Gift Cards for Employee Rewards?

There are alternatives to gift cards that some companies choose to use to reward employees. Some of the most common include:

  • Verbal or written praise
  • Branded products or merchandise
  • Social events and staff treats
  • Cash bonuses
  • Salary increases 

All of these options have advantages, but they come with drawbacks, too. For example, giving branded products is only an incentive if they are products the recipient wants and appreciates. Giving verbal praise is essential but may not be enough to persuade employees to stay if a competitor is offering other benefits. 

In many cases, gift cards represent the best option because:

  • They can show appreciation in a tangible but convenient way.
  • Recipients widely prefer getting gift cards.
  • They allow people to choose their preferred gift, unlike branded products.
  • They are versatile and easy to send instantly via email.
  • They come in various values and currencies to suit different needs and recipients in different countries. 
  • You can send them globally by email to remote workers or overseas clients and suppliers, without any shipping costs. 

What Are the Advantages of Offering Gift Card Rewards as Part of a Points Program?

A points-to-rewards program is a great way for businesses to offer incentives that keep customers or employees engaged over time. This type of program involves awarding points to participants for taking certain actions. Customers may get points for signing up for a newsletter, referring a friend, or making a purchase, for example. Employees could earn points by sharing social media content, successfully launching a project, or attending a training session. When a participant collects enough points to hit a pre-set threshold, they can exchange them for a gift card reward of their choice. 

BHN Rewards’ digital rewards management platform supports points-to-rewards programs with a host of features and benefits, including: 

  • Easy tracking and management of points so companies and recipients alike can stay on top of rewards. 
  • An entirely hands-off approach, with the option to automatically send rewards when participants reach the points threshold. That saves employees time as they don’t need to get involved with the rewarding process. 
  • Guaranteed full compliance with all data protection and security requirements. It can be challenging to ensure that both the company’s financial information and the recipients’ details are safe.
  • Curated lists for different recipients. You can build a custom collection of reward options, or you can use the Smart Global Choice feature, which detects each recipient’s location and automatically presents options available in their country and currency.
  • Out-of-the-box integration with leading marketing and survey platforms. Companies can enjoy a streamlined and seamless solution that fits easily into their existing workflows. 
  • Built-in analytics for better data gathering. When companies have information about points and rewards, they can make well-informed business decisions. 

The BHN Rewards platform also offers flexibility by supporting instant rewards as well. With an extensive catalog of hundreds of gift card options, it’s an ideal tool for your customer and employee programs.

As businesses everywhere are beginning to recognize, offering rewards really can create loyalty. They can help you not only build up a loyal following of customers, but also boost staff loyalty. Giving workers rewards for a job well done shows the company’s appreciation for their hard work. In turn, employees are less likely to look elsewhere for a new position. Meanwhile, offering customers incentives for making purchases or taking certain actions makes them more likely to buy from you again in the future.

Why Is Staff Loyalty So Important for Businesses?

Having a loyal workforce is something that is imperative for companies today. First, loyal workers are happier, and happy workers are more productive. They put more effort into their everyday tasks and achieve more in a shorter timeframe. Employee loyalty also reduces staff turnover, which has become a huge challenge for many companies. It is expensive and time-consuming to recruit and onboard new team members, so retaining the ones you have is best for the business. In addition, those loyal employees help you attract top talent when there is turnover.

When a company has a loyal workforce, it also creates a good impression of the business. Customers see that staff members are committed to the company, which in turn makes the company look more reliable and trustworthy.

READ MORE: 7 Reasons a Points-Based Loyalty Rewards Program Is So Effective

How Do Rewards Increase Employee Loyalty?

Giving rewards to employees can increase their loyalty. Companies can offer incentives for achieving a number of goals. These may include: 

  • Hitting or exceeding targets
  • Completing projects
  • Collaborating well on projects
  • Achieving a goal 
  • Going the extra mile for the business

Rewards boost employee loyalty by showing that the company appreciates its team’s efforts. That helps to improve employee morale and self-esteem. If workers feel good about themselves in the workplace, they are more likely to remain with that business.

Why Is Customer Loyalty So Important for Businesses?

While having a loyal workforce is essential, ensuring customer loyalty is equally vital. Attracting new customers is more expensive than retaining existing ones. Companies also benefit from more opportunities to upsell to a loyal customer base. Customers who have a strong relationship with the brand are more likely to buy more or upgrade. Not only that, but there is a greater chance of those customers spreading their positive opinions about the brand to others. As a result, it’s possible to increase the customer base exponentially.

Businesses also benefit from more opportunities to collect more relevant data from loyal customers. They can use these insights to inform marketing strategies that help the brand in the long term. 

How Do Rewards Increase Customer Loyalty?

Offering a loyalty program or giving gift cards as rewards for taking specific actions increases loyalty in several ways. Customers feel more valued and appreciated. That leads them to develop a stronger relationship and connection with the brand. They are also likely interact more with the brand in order to earn more rewards.

How Does a Customer Loyalty Program Work?

A customer loyalty program can work in one of two ways. Customers can receive instant rewards in the form of virtual gift cards, or they can receive points for taking action. Those points accumulate with each action the customer takes. Eventually, they can exchange their points for a reward of their choice. 

What Kind of Rewards Are Best for Boosting Staff Loyalty?

For employees, both monetary and non-monetary rewards have their place. Some popular rewards include:

  • Verbal or written praise
  • Physical gifts branded with the company logo
  • Staff activities such as social events and meals
  • One-off cash bonuses
  • Pay raises
  • Gift cards 

Gift cards are a great choice because:

  • They are versatile. They come in lots of different options to suit different tastes and preferences.
  • They come in different amounts and currencies to suit all needs.
  • Recipients prefer to get gift cards to spend on whatever they want.
  • They are easy to send via email and use online to make purchases.

How Do I Set Up a Rewards Program for My Customers or Employees?

BHN Rewards is on hand to meet all your rewarding needs. It offers both instant gift card rewards and points-to-rewards for loyalty programs and communities. Discover what BHN Rewards can do for your business to boost customer and employee loyalty.

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Buying Amazon gift cards individually from its site is time-consuming and inconvenient for business looking to use them for incentives and rewards. Rybbon.net makes it easy for companies to order and distribute Amazon gift cards and other rewards to customers, research participants, or employees. It even offers Amazon rewards for use in several different countries.

How Can Businesses Use Amazon Gift Cards?

Businesses can use Amazon gift cards for a wide variety of purposes. Some of the most common and effective include:

  • As employee rewards for a job well done.
  • As employee incentives to encourage team members to reach or exceed their targets.
  • As corporate “thank you” gifts for clients to show appreciation.
  • As part of a loyalty program for customers to encourage repeat business and brand advocacy.
  • As a way of increasing participation in market research and feedback programs.

Why Are Amazon Gift Cards a Good Choice for Businesses?

Although businesses have several options for gifting, Amazon gift cards are a great choice for a number of reasons, including:

  • They are available for all international versions of the Amazon site, so recipients can use them around the world. That makes them a suitable choice for businesses with employees, customers, or research participants overseas. 
  • They not only come in several currencies, but they also are available in just about any value. That makes it easy to select a suitable amount, depending on the purpose.
  • They give recipients many choices for what they can purchase, since Amazon is famous for its enormous product range, from books and music to clothing, homewares, and electronics.
  • They are very simple, safe, and quick to send. BHN Rewards lets businesses send Amazon gift cards instantly via email. That eliminates any costs for physical shipping. It also rules out any risk of theft in the mail. 
  • They are easy for recipients to use online with a code at checkout.
  • Amazon is a very reliable and well-known retailer that recipients will recognize and not hesitate to order from. 

Can Amazon Gift Cards Be Sent to Clients and Employees Overseas?

Amazon gift cards are convenient, but it’s crucial to note that Amazon.com gift cards can be redeemed only on the U.S. site. That is because each country where Amazon operates has its own gift cards. For example, the U.K. Amazon store uses Amazon.co.uk gift cards, while the Canadian Amazon store uses Amazon.ca gift cards.

If you give an Amazon.com gift card to a client or employee based overseas, they’ll be able to spend it only on Amazon.com in U.S. dollars. They won’t be able to use their gift card on their home version of the Amazon site. For example, a recipient in England cannot shop on the Amazon.co.uk site with their Amazon.com gift card.

That doesn’t mean a recipient overseas cannot use an Amazon.com gift card. There are some items available that can be shipped abroad, but shipping costs are higher and delivery takes longer. It also limits the selection, since only certain products have that option available. Therefore, it’s best to buy an Amazon gift card that’s valid for the recipient’s local version of the site.

How Can a Recipient Use an Amazon Gift Card?

Sending and receiving Amazon gift cards with BHN Rewards is simple and straightforward.

  • Once you have your BHN Rewards account set up, you can create a new campaign, either using BHN Rewards as a stand-alone application or integrating with one of more than 20 partner platforms.
  • Select the gift card(s) you want to offer recipients, as well as the value.
  • If needed, upload or enter the recipient list, including email addresses. If you are automating reward delivery with an integration partner, you will need to follow the steps to set up the appropriate triggers and conditions.
  • Customize your reward email and redemption page with your own branding, messaging, and logos, if you want.
  • Place your order to turn on your BHN Rewards campaign.
  • When your customers, employees, or research participants receive a reward via email, they will simply click to redeem their reward, select the gift card they want (if applicable), and get the digital code they can use to make their purchase, all in just minutes.

Where Can Businesses Purchase Amazon Gift Cards for Clients, Research Participants, or Employees?

BHN Rewards is the best choice when purchasing Amazon gift cards for clients, employees, or research participants. With a range of gift cards for different countries and in different values, you’re sure to find a suitable option. Contact us to find out more about how BHN Rewards can help you with your Amazon gift card needs, and check out the full selection of available rewards.

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Sales incentives rewards employees for meeting their targets, either for certain activities, such as number of demos presented, or for outcomes, such as revenue totals. They are essential to keep your teams motivated and productive and ultimately drive them to close more deals. These rewards also show workers that the company appreciates them and their contributions. Thus, both employees and employers benefit: The sales team receives attractive rewards, which motivates them to work harder for the company and help it thrive.

What Are Sales Incentives?

Sales incentives are rewards that employers give their sales teams to show appreciation. The recipient receives the incentive if they meet or exceed a certain goal. Sometimes, employers give sales incentives to individual sales team members. In other cases, an entire team may receive a reward.

A sales incentive can take numerous forms. However, they can be grouped into two main categories – monetary and non-monetary. Some of the most common rewards for sales teams include:

  • Public verbal praise. This may take place in a staff meeting or regular award event.
  • Written praise. The employer may send the recipient an email, letter, or card to recognize their efforts. They may also give written public praise in a company-wide newsletter or email. 
  • Physical gifts. Some employers choose to give a trophy, piece of swag, or other gift to recipients. 
  • Team events. Many employers choose to reward successful sales teams by hosting events to thank them. They may order food or take the team out for a meal, sponsor an office activity, or host a party or outing.
  • Financial bonuses. Some employers choose to reward their top sales professionals by giving them a cash bonus with their monthly pay. These bonuses act as a form of commission for successful sales.
  • Gift cards. Gift cards are a popular choice for sales incentives. They are easy to distribute and come in a range of values, making them a perfect choice for many circumstances.

READ MORE: What Are Good Sales Incentives?

Sales Incentives Motivate Workers

Motivating workers is extremely important for any business. There are three main reasons why a motivated workforce is so important:

  • The company remains competitive and earns more profit. 
  • Fewer employees leave the organization, which saves the company the money, time, and hassle of recruiting new team members.
  • Motivated workers are happy, and happy staff members are more productive. 

Sales Incentives Create More Loyalty

Companies need workers to be loyal to their brand. A dedicated workforce will reduce staff turnover while making employees more productive. When companies give rewards for effort and hard work, they show employees that you appreciate them. As a result, workers tend to work even harder, benefiting the organization in the long run. Even better, customers also benefit from a loyal workforce. Appreciated and happy workers go the extra mile for customers, which helps boost the brand’s reputation.

Sales Incentives Make Recruitment Easier 

Finding ways to attract top talent couldn’t be more important for companies today to stay competitive. Those that offer sales incentives find it easier to recruit talent to their team. Incentives are an attractive bonus that makes the company look progressive, staff-oriented, and good to work for.

Sales Incentives Promote Collaboration and Healthy Competition Among Teams

The best sales teams are the right balance of collaborative and competitive. Sales incentives for the best performing team help foster healthy competition between employees. However, incentives can also drive better collaboration among workers within a team. Therefore, they are a multifunctional tool that companies can use to their advantage.

Sales Incentives Foster More Ambitious Target Setting

All organizations benefit from ambitious targets and goal setting to help focus efforts effectively. Sales incentives help with reaching those goals and establishing the next objectives.

Top Tips for Designing Sales Incentive Programs

  • Plan incentives around what motivates specific teams.
  • Understand each individual’s strengths and weaknesses to set realistic targets.
  • Discuss with the company’s executives finance team to decide on appropriate budgets.
  • Keep the program simple for clarity.
  • Ensure that there are easily trackable benchmarks and metrics.

What Is The Best Sales Incentive?

There are many different types of sales incentives, and all have their advantages and disadvantages. Many organizations find that gift cards are the best sales incentive choice. They are versatile, since they come in different values and different types. Digital gift cards are also an ideal option for remote workers, because they don’t need to be shipped. BHN Rewards offers an extensive range of gift cards to give as sales incentives. Check out the selection here.

A loyalty program is offered by a business to attract new customers and retain existing ones. The structure of these initiatives varies based on the type of business and customers. Retailers’ loyalty programs, for instance, usually include discounts, rewards, or other incentives to encourage repeat purchases. Usually, the more frequently the customer shops with the brand and the more money they spend, the greater the reward.

For companies that sell to businesses rather than individual consumers, a loyalty program can similarly help encourage repeat purchases. But it can also take the form of a community that creates brand advocates and encourages engagement. In that case, instant rewards or points-to-rewards are used instead of discounts.

How Does a Loyalty Rewards Program Work?

The kind of incentives offered in a loyalty program can vary. Some examples include:

  • Early access to or advance notice about new products.
  • Enhanced services or free merchandise.
  • Special services such as expedited or free shipping.
  • Special discounts exclusively for members.
  • Monetary rewards such as gift cards and prepaid cards.
  • Points that recipients can collect and then exchange for gift cards or other items.

Customers typically join the program by registering their personal details. Depending on the type of program, they may receive a membership number, a portal login, or a rewards card, which is used to identify their purchases or actions.

READ MORE: How to Set Up a Loyalty Rewards Program

What Are the Advantages of Having a Loyalty Rewards Program?

There are numerous business advantages that come with implementing a loyalty rewards program. Some of the most common include:

  • Customer retention. Retaining customers is far cheaper than finding new ones.
  • More frequent and higher value purchases. Customers may buy more often and spend more to get the rewards.
  • Brand advocacy. Customers who are happy with their experience with the loyalty program are likely to become brand advocates. Not only will they spread the word about your products and services, they’ll also be a great resource for feedback and content. 
  • Differentiation from competitors. Offering the right kind of loyalty program can set you apart.
  • Long-term engagement. Customers stay engaged with the business for longer.
  • Customer referrals. In addition to advocating for your brand, loyal customers can refer friends and colleagues, creating new leads in your pipeline.

Do Discount-Based or Reward-Based Loyalty Programs Work Better?

Although some companies use a rewards program that offers discounts, research shows that might not be the most effective option. Aberdeen and Blackhawk Network found that reward-based promotions ꟷ which offer incentives in the form of gift cards or merchandise ꟷ are more beneficial for businesses than incentivizing customers with discounts.

Companies using reward-based programs see a 54% return on their marketing investment, compared with 49.7% for those using discount-based promotions. The report also reveals other annual performance improvements when using reward-based promotions, including average profit margins, annual revenues, customer lifetime values, and cross-selling and upselling values.

Which Structure of Loyalty Rewards Program Is Most Common?

Regardless of whether you offer rewards or discounts as part of your loyalty program, you can build it with several different structures. The most common is points-to-rewards, which lets customers collect points for certain activities or purchases and then, once they reach a pre-set threshold, redeem them for rewards. This type of program can also incorporate a tiered structure with different levels for customers based on their activity or overall spend.

How Do I Implement a Loyalty Rewards Program That Uses Points?

Points-to-rewards programs are very popular, but they can be a little complicated to set up. Start with these steps:

  • Define your mission and purpose. Think about what goals you have for the program and the target audience. This will help you focus on the broader mission as you figure out the details.
  • Decide the actions and values to reward. Prioritize the list of actions you want your customers to take. These may include referring a friend, making a purchase, or signing up for the newsletter. Then, based on your priorities and budget, map out how many points each activity will be worth.
  • Choose the rewards. Now, think about what kind of rewards you will offer to those customers who have collected enough points to redeem them. Loyalty program members will appreciate flexible rewards, such as gift cards or prepaid cards, and getting to choose the rewards they prefer.
  • Share and promote the program to boost enrollment. Customers may not sign up for the loyalty program right away. Make sure you give them many chances to register. Provide calls to action in several locations on the website. Include reminders to register in email newsletters. Post about the program and its rewards on social media.

BHN Rewards’ points-to-rewards solution, PointsJoy, can help simplify the setup and management of these types of loyalty programs. AutoRewards allow you to trigger the automatic delivery of a reward once a customer hits the pre-set points threshold. The Reward Gallery embeds a shopping-cart-like experience for members to redeem points when they want. BHN Rewards has robust reporting and tracking capabilities to give you 100% visibility into your loyalty rewards program.

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There are several steps to setting up a loyalty rewards program for your best customers. First, you have to decide which customer actions to reward. You then need to select a suitable range of rewards to offer. Once you’ve chosen rewards that customers will love, you need to create a buzz about signing up. Customers should feel excited about getting a reward for being loyal to your brand. Once your program is established, a customer rewards platform can help you set up and manage it seamlessly.

READ MORE: A Practical Guide to Building a Points Rewards Program

How Is Customer Loyalty Earned?

It isn’t easy to earn customer loyalty, and it has become even more difficult in recent years. Customers are more willing to switch to a rival brand or company if they have a bad experience or they find a better offer. That’s why building a loyal following is so important. You can earn customer loyalty in several ways, including:

  • Offering excellent customer service. Make sure customers can get in touch with your company when they need help. Frustrated customers won’t be loyal to your brand for long. Live chat functions, chatbots, and 24-hour phone and email support all prove beneficial when you want to deliver the best customer service possible.
  • Be consistent. Customers want to be sure they’ll have a great experience with your brand every time. They want to know what to expect from your company and not be disappointed.
  • Amplify the voice of the customer. Share good customer experiences with your followers and potential new clients. Gathering feedback and sharing positive testimonials helps to make your brand more trustworthy.
  • Reward customers. Long-term customers are valuable to your brand. Show them how much you appreciate them with a loyalty program.

What Are the Benefits of a Loyalty Program?

Customers want you to know that you value and appreciate their business. They also enjoy getting something for nothing. That’s where a loyalty program comes in. When you reward customers for staying loyal to your brand, they’re more likely to keep coming back. Statistics show that customers who join loyalty programs have a 75% greater chance of buying another product if they receive incentives.

Some of the advantages of loyalty programs include:

  • They set your brand apart from its competitors.
  • You’ll retain more customers.
  • Customers may spend more with your brand.
  • You’ll receive more referrals from existing customers.
  • They’re a cost-effective approach. Acquiring new customers is more expensive than retaining the ones you already have.
  • You can get more reviews and user-generated content to promote your business.

Which Customer Actions Should Be Rewarded Through a Loyalty Program?

Of course, your loyalty program will reward customers for purchasing from you. However, you can reward other customer actions, too. Some examples include:

  • Engaging with your brand’s mobile app.
  • Watching your product videos.
  • Sharing your content on social media.
  • Signing up for your newsletter or blog.
  • Referring a friend.

What Kind of Rewards Should I Offer?

Digital gift cards are a popular type of reward to offer through your loyalty program. There are many different approaches to take. You could opt for e-gift cards that recipients can use when shopping with specific brands, such as Walmart, Amazon, or Target. You could also choose a digital prepaid Mastercard or Visa, which your customers can use in a wide range of online or physical stores.

Other options include gift cards for activities or experiences, such as one for AMC Cinemas or Spafinder, for example. Dining e-gift cards are another popular choice, or you could offer e-gift cards to put toward travel. Hotels.com, Southwest Airlines, Delta, and Airbnb all offer digital gift cards that are popular with recipients.

You could even offer charitable donations as a reward option. There are many different possibilities for loyalty reward donations, including the Red Cross, World Food Program, and the American Cancer Society. Your customers will love to know you have donated to their favorite charities.

The best option is often to let your customers pick what kind of reward they want. With the right rewards management platform, you can curate a selection of e-gift cards, prepaid cards, and e-donations for them to choose from.

What Is an Appropriate Value for My Loyalty Rewards?

The amount you offer as a loyalty reward should align with the time, effort, and money spent. For example, completing a 20-minute survey is worth more than simply sharing a blog post on social media. That is why digital gift cards are a great idea. They come in a wide range of values to suit different needs. They even come in other currencies for use in different countries.

How Do I Manage a Loyalty Rewards Program?

The easiest way to manage a loyalty rewards program is to use a platform like the one offered by BHN Rewards. It is a leading provider of e-gift cards for marketing, research, and customer rewards. With an enormous variety of digital gift cards to choose from, BHN Rewards makes distributing loyalty rewards easy. The platform integrates seamlessly with many leading survey, marketing, and community platforms, so it works with the tools you already use. With options to personalize reward emails and redemption pages, you can ensure an outstanding rewarding experience for recipients. And BHN Rewards’ robust tracking and reporting capabilities help you monitor your success. You can find out more about what BHN Rewards has to offer by getting in touch today.

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3 Tips for Effective Incentives Management

Good sales incentives work to motivate sales teams to maximize their efforts and close more deals. When you are offering sales incentives, they need to be compelling enough to serve as motivation, so choose something that team members will value and appreciate Some of the best sales incentives are gift cards because there are countless types, they come in any denomination, and they’re a popular reward that will appeal to a broad spectrum of people.

READ MORE: Sales Strategy Reboot – Fresh Tactics to Close the Deal

Do Trips Still Make Good Sales Incentives?

A popular motivator for sales teams has traditionally been sales incentive trips. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and made travel more difficult, however, many companies had to stop these trips. That doesn’t mean that travel-related rewards are good sales incentives anymore

Even sales team members who spend a lot of time traveling as part of their job dream about their next recreational vacation. Giving gift cards for hotels or airlines are a great motivator and will encourage them to take time off and avoid burnout. Rewards for accommodation sites like Hotels.com and Airbnb give employees flexibility in choosing where to want to stay, both in regard to type of lodging and location. E-gift cards for an airline, such as Delta or Southwest, are another great sales incentive, especially for the highest-performing representatives.

Can Sales Incentives Boost Employee Well-Being?

Working in sales can be stressful. Trying to achieve targets is a high-pressure job, and it can take its toll on employees. Some of the best sales incentives, therefore, prioritize employee well-being. Here are three options:

  1. Many rewards that sales teams will appreciate also foster a healthy lifestyle. For example, an REI digital gift card encourages employees to get out of the office into the great outdoors. An Under Armour or Nike e-gift card lets workers invest in some gear for their workouts or favorite sports. A Topgolf digital gift card offers the perfect opportunity for a fun, active outing with friends or family. Since healthier employees are happier and more productive, it’s a win-win for your business!
  2. A Spafinder gift card is another way to encourage workers to show themselves some self-care. After working hard to maximize their sales, employees could benefit from taking some time to slow down and unwind. Just a little pampering helps high-performing sales agents feel appreciated, valued, and motivated to work hard in the future.
  3. When employees spend long hours in the office talking to customers and prospects, they may be taking mealtimes — skipping lunch or delaying dinner by staying late — to help them meet their sales goals. You can help boost employee well-being by offering sales incentives that promote healthier eating. For example, a Hello Fresh e-gift card can help busy workers make more nutritious and well-balanced meals for themselves. Digital rewards for restaurants with healthier options, such as Subway, can be good option for office lunches on busy days. Good nutrition and productivity go hand in hand, so it makes sense to offer this sales incentive.

Can Sales Incentives Help Promote the Company’s Values and Ethos?

Not all sales incentives have to be monetary rewards to the team members. More people than ever before want to work for a company with positive values and a charitable ethos. They want to give back, and they value an employer that shares those sentiments. Giving to good causes also raises the profile of your business and boosts your brand’s reputation.

One sales incentive option is to give to your team members the opportunity to donate their reward to a charitable cause. It’s possible to choose digital gift donations to organizations like the Red Cross, American Cancer Society, and National Park Foundation. Giving this kind of incentive choice shows employees that your business truly cares and wants to help its teams contribute to the greater good.

Do Prepaid Mastercards or Visa Cards Make Good Sales Incentives?

Giving prepaid digital Mastercards or Visa cards as sales incentives works very well, especially when you have international teams. These types of prepaid rewards can be used for a wide range of items both online and in physical stores. They also come in different currencies and can be used in over 150 countries.

Where Do I Find Good Sales Incentives?

BHN Rewards is a leading provider of digital gift cards that you can give your team as sales incentives. With its enormous range of options to choose from, there is sure to be something to motivate your sales team. The BHN Rewards platform also offers a delightful recipient experience and robust tracking and reporting. To find out more, get in touch with BHN Rewards now to see how it can help you with your sales incentives and employee reward programs.

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Find the Right Types of Employee Rewards and Programs to Promote Well-Being

There are several ways to reward employee performance. Companies can show their appreciation by giving verbal or written praise, offering perks like social activities, or giving monetary gifts. All can be effective, although employees especially appreciate receiving financial incentives for high performance at work.

Why Do Companies Reward Employee Performance?

There are many reasons for companies to reward their employees for their performance. They include:

  • Companies want to avoid a high staff turnover. Recruiting and training new employees is expensive. If businesses can create a positive working environment, staff are more likely to stay with the company. That will reduce recruitment and retention costs overall. It also ensures that talent stays with the company. As a result, the brand benefits from its workers’ experience and skill in the long term.
  • Recruiting the best talent is imperative in today’s competitive business world. Finding ways to encourage the most skilled candidates to apply for vacancies is critical. Offering employee rewards is a good way of achieving that goal. Rewards can help to create a positive workplace culture and an environment where employees are happy at work. Businesses with a reputation for their positive workplace environment are most likely to prove popular with applicants when vacancies arise.
  • Boosting customer satisfaction is very important for any business. Giving employee rewards for high performance keeps workers satisfied and feeling good about their workplace. A happy team works harder and has a more positive attitude. Thus, customers are more likely to get service that keeps them happy as well. As a result, the company’s reputation gets a boost, and the brand name becomes better known.
  • Companies want to maximize productivity to increase their revenue. Employees who receive rewards for performing well will try harder to impress and be more productive, which makes the business more profitable and successful.

Do Employee Performance Rewards Have to Be Financial?

Not necessarily. Written or verbal praise is important to show gratitude to your team members. Employees want to know that the company appreciates their hard work, which you can ensure with a simple thank-you note or even just a public mention in a meeting. However, non-financial rewards are only part of any good employee performance reward package.

Some companies offer perks to employees as a reward for their performance. Extra days off, social activities, or rewards like gym passes and free meals are popular choices. While these incentives are appealing in their own right, they have limitations. Not every employee can make use of the current employee reward programs your company may offer, especially with the increase in remote work.

For this reason, monetary incentives have a special place. They can boost staff performance even more and enhance productivity. Financial rewards are suitable for every worker in any location. Therefore, they are a catch-all solution to maintain high morale and work quality.

What Kind of Financial Rewards Can Employers Give Their Workforce?

There are several financial rewards employers can give their workforce. These include:

  • Pay raises
  • One-time bonuses
  • Gift cards

Pay raises and financial bonuses are obviously beneficial, but they can cause problems that lead to a negative environment. If only some people are rewarded, those who didn’t can become dissatisfied or jealous.

Gift cards, on the other hand, are a great solution. They offer a nice gesture to high-performing employees without changing the actual compensation package. Since they come in different amounts and types, they are also suitable for a wide variety of situations.

Why Give a Gift Card as an Employee Performance Reward?

There are many excellent reasons to give gift cards as employee performance rewards, including:

  • They are convenient, as the giver can send them instantly by email.
  • They come in different values and currencies.
  • They’re suitable for both remote and in-office workers.
  • They are available for many different brands and companies.
  • They allow the recipient to choose the right gift for them and create a memorable experience that they’ll enjoy.

What Kind of Gift Cards Make the Best Employee Performance Rewards?

BHN Rewards offers a wide range of digital gift cards to suit all kinds of companies and needs. You can choose from cards for specific brands like Amazon or Walmart. You can also opt for prepaid MasterCard or Visa cards. These give recipients much more flexibility in regard to where they spend their reward. BHN Rewards also makes it easy to purchase gift cards for companies overseas and in a range of currencies. With all these options, you are sure to find the perfect gift cards for your workforce.

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An employee reward is an incentive designed to motivate team members and show appreciation for a job well done.

Why Do Companies Offer Employee Rewards?

Companies want to improve the quality of the service they provide so they can be sure of their brand’s good reputation. They also want to ensure their employees’ satisfaction, since high morale leads to better productivity, which can help generate more money for the business. Finding an effective way to reach these goals is paramount for success. One option that business owners often turn to is giving employee rewards.

These days, we live in a highly competitive business climate, and many companies are jostling for consumers’ attention. Recruiting top talent is vital if a brand is to stand out from the crowd. By creating a positive workplace culture and a reputation for a good working environment, companies can attract more skilled workers. As a result, the team becomes stronger and more productive, giving the brand a competitive edge.

Companies also don’t want to lose their employees to rival brands. It costs money to recruit and train new workers. Therefore, it makes sense to retain the ones that they already have by keeping them satisfied in their positions.

Employees have a greater likelihood of remaining with an employer if they’re happy. They’re also more likely to do their best work. That is where showing appreciation comes in.

Everyone likes to receive praise when they do something well. When companies show their appreciation for their team members’ efforts, they retain those teams more easily and boost the productivity of their workforce. Employee rewards are a tangible way to show this appreciation.

Recognition and reward programs for employees positively impact employee motivation and engagement levels. When workers know their company will reward them for doing well, they’ll try harder to impress. As a result, customer service improves, employees are more productive, and profits increase.

The Benefits of Giving an Employee Reward

Employee rewards don’t just benefit the workers; they also benefit the employers by:

  • Making employees more motivated. They work harder and are more productive, boosting the business’s revenue. A more motivated and productive workforce also strengthens the reputation of the brand.
  • Reducing staff turnover. When employees feel appreciated for the hard work they do, they are less likely to leave the company. That reduces costs and hassle for the business, as they don’t need to advertise for and train new staff members.
  • Encouraging the most skilled and talented applicants to work for the company. Knowing that the company rewards its employees for their achievements can persuade top talent to apply for vacancies.
  • Making customers happier. If employees have a positive attitude about their jobs, they will give customers better service. Happy customers are loyal customers. That helps give the business an edge over its competitors.

What Forms Can an Employee Reward Take?

Employee rewards can be financial or non-financial. Non-financial rewards have their place in any business. They include:

  • Verbal praise
  • Written praise such as thank-you cards or notes
  • Public praise such as employee-of-the-month photos or certificates in the workplace
  • Extra time off
  • Staff appreciation events such as social activities
  • Perks like free meals

Financial rewards, which are particularly effective for motivating team members, include:

  • Salary increases
  • Spot bonuses
  • Gift cards

Although financial employee rewards are effective, they require some careful handling. Salary increases and bonuses are costly and therefore can be used only occasionally. Also, giving only certain employees raises or bonuses can create resentment among those who didn’t receive them.

Why Are Gift Cards Such a Good Choice for Employee Rewards?

Gift cards represent an ideal choice for employee rewards because:

  • They show appreciation without altering the official compensation package.
  • They are very versatile.
  • They allow the employee to choose the most suitable gift for themselves rather than having it chosen for them.
  • They are flexible and can fit different budgets and purposes.
  • They come in different types for a wide range of stores and brands.
  • They come in different currencies to suit overseas workers.
  • You can send them by email for convenience.
  • They are suitable for both onsite and remote employees.
  • They give employees a memorable experience that makes them feel more positive about their workplace.

BHN Rewards offers an excellent choice of gift cards for all types of workers and companies. Whether you’re looking for a prepaid Visa or Mastercard or a store gift card, BHN Rewards can help.

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You can buy an international prepaid Visa gift card online from Rybbon.net. Rybbon.net stocks a wide range of gift cards that are ideal for customer rewards or incentives. These prepaid cards are perfect for recipients overseas. Order your international prepaid Visa gift cards from the Rybbon.net website, enter the recipients’ details, and those gift cards will be on their way.

What Is the International Prepaid Visa Gift Card?

The international prepaid Visa gift card is a convenient gifting solution because it is very similar to a regular Visa card. The difference is that the sender loads money onto the card before they give it to the recipient. The recipient cannot spend more than this set amount, which makes the gift card ideal to send as rewards to customers, clients, and employees.

Where Can the International Prepaid Visa Gift Card Be Used?

The international prepaid Visa gift card is suitable for use in more than 150 countries worldwide. Recipients can use it online anywhere that accepts regular Visa cards.

Although international prepaid Visa gift cards can be used many places, some countries don’t accept them. These countries may include:

  • The Bahamas
  • Belarus
  • Barbados
  • Benin
  • Burundi
  • Burkina Faso
  • Cambodia
  • The Cayman Islands
  • Chad
  • The Central African Republic
  • Colombia
  • Congo (Brazzaville)
  • Comoros
  • The Democratic Republic of the Congo
  • The Dominican Republic
  • Cuba
  • Equatorial Guinea
  • Guinea
  • Eritrea
  • Guinea-Bissau
  • Iran
  • Haiti
  • Iraq
  • Lebanon
  • Laos
  • Lesotho
  • Libya
  • Liberia
  • Myanmar (Burma)
  • Madagascar
  • Nicaragua
  • Panama
  • North Korea
  • Somalia
  • Sudan
  • South Sudan
  • Syria
  • Uganda
  • Venezuela
  • Ukraine
  • Yemen
  • Zimbabwe

Remember, though, that there can be changes to the restricted countries list from time to time. It’s therefore important to check the most up-to-date list of countries in your BHN Rewards account before you purchase.

Why Is the International Prepaid Visa Gift Card Ideal for Overseas Clients?

The international prepaid Visa gift card is perfect for clients overseas for several reasons.

  • First, they are suitable for use in many different countries. You don’t need to find different kinds of gift cards for clients around the globe. You can simply choose one type of card to cover all of your gifting needs.
  • Second, recipients can use an international prepaid Visa gift card to buy items in their home currency, which is far more convenient for the recipient. They won’t need to think about complicated conversions; instead, they can buy the item in their usual currency. The card provider then converts that amount into the card’s original currency, saving complications and hassles.
  • Third, you can send an international prepaid Visa gift card by email so it won’t get lost in the mail. Cash or physical gift cards can easily get lost during transit. You can also rest assured that your recipient will get the gift card on time.

How Does the Recipient Use an International Prepaid Visa Gift Card?

Using an international prepaid Visa gift card is a straightforward process. It involves only a few simple steps:

  • The sender purchases the gift card and enters the recipient’s email address.
  • The recipient receives an email to tell them that they are receiving a gift card. The email contains a link to click that shows the recipient how to claim and register the prepaid card.
  • After the card registration process is complete, the recipient can use their gift card immediately. If they wish, they can also create a digital wallet, which allows them to keep their prepaid Visa card number secure and easy to access.

Do International Prepaid Visa Gift Cards Expire?

An international prepaid Visa card always comes with an expiration date. Some prepaid Visa cards expire six months after their issue date. Others are good for a year or more. Unless the recipient claims and registers the card, they cannot access the money. There is a period of three months for the recipient to register their card. If they fail to redeem their gift card within that time, it will expire.

What Are the Benefits of Choosing an International Prepaid Visa Gift Card?

There are numerous benefits of choosing an international prepaid Visa gift card for any recipient, including:

• They are convenient and quick to send via email.
• Gift cards give the recipient plenty of choices regarding what to purchase.
• They are available in a wide range of values to suit different requirements.
• There’s no risk of losing them, unlike physical plastic gift cards.
• Recipients love to receive a prepaid Visa gift card.

Why Should I Buy International Prepaid Visa Gift Cards From BHN Rewards?

BHN Rewards is a reliable and trustworthy supplier of gift cards. There is a good choice of international prepaid Visa cards in different currencies and values to pick from. In addition, you can benefit from excellent customer service, 100% refunds on unclaimed rewards, and no minimum purchase volume requirements. BHN Rewards’ platform also makes it simple to manage your reward distribution and track all delivered gift cards.

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Yes, it’s possible to buy digital Amazon gift cards. You can buy them online and send them via email to the recipient. In addition, digital Amazon gift cards are available for different Amazon sites worldwide, making these e-gift cards an excellent choice for recipients overseas.

How Do I Buy a Digital Amazon Gift Card?

It is easy to buy a digital Amazon gift card, even if you’re not tech-savvy. Just follow these easy steps:

  • Visit the BHN Rewards website and access your account.
  • Select the type and value of the Amazon gift card you want to buy.
  • Enter the details for the recipient, including their name and email address.
  • Make payment for the gift card.
  • The recipient will receive their gift card via email.

How Does the Recipient Use Their Digital Amazon Gift Card?

Again, the process of using a digital Amazon gift card is a breeze.

  • The recipient receives an email that tells them they have been sent a digital Amazon gift card.
  • They click on the button to accept the gift card.
  • They enter their details to register the card, if necessary. Then it’s ready for use.
  • They can create a digital wallet if they wish, which allows them to keep the card’s number secure at all times.
  • The recipient chooses an item they wish to purchase on Amazon.
  • They enter the number of the digital Amazon gift card at checkout.
  • Their item from Amazon is on its way to their home or office!

What Can You Buy With an Amazon Gift Card?

Amazon gift cards are helpful for purchasing an enormous range of items. One of the best things about an Amazon gift card is the sheer array of products that purchasers can pick from. Some categories of products that recipients can select include:

  • Books
  • Music
  • Movies
  • Clothing
  • Household items
  • Sports equipment
  • Leisure equipment
  • Appliances
  • Technology
  • Stationery
  • Kitchen items
  • Collectibles

Can I Use a Digital Amazon.com Gift Card on Another Version of the Site, Like Amazon.co.uk?

Unfortunately not. Only Amazon gift cards from a country’s specific version of the site are suitable for use on that site. That means if you receive an Amazon.com gift card, it can be used only on Amazon.com. If you receive an Amazon.co.uk gift card, it is good only on Amazon.co.uk.

It is possible to buy versions of the Amazon gift card for use on each unique site. For example, you can buy the U.K. version, which is perfect for British recipients. The U.K. version is suitable for use only on the British Amazon site. You can buy an Amazon gift card for any country where Amazon operates.

It’s important to note that you can still send an Amazon.com gift card to someone overseas. The only catch is that they have to buy an item from the Amazon.com store. They cannot use it to buy from their home country version of the site. If they buy an item from Amazon.com that’s eligible for overseas shipping and delivery to their country, there’s no problem. They will have a more limited selection, though, and pay more for shipping than local customers.

What Are the Benefits of a Digital Amazon Gift Card?

There are numerous benefits to buying a digital Amazon gift card for a recipient. Here are just a few:

  • They are convenient and quick to send. You can buy and send the gift cards off in minutes.
  • You send gift cards by email so they won’t get lost in the mail, like a physical card can.
  • They give the recipient a lot of choice about what to buy. Amazon sells an enormous selection of products across all categories. Recipients can choose anything that suits their preference.
  • Digital Amazon gift cards come in many currencies. Therefore, they are suitable for giving to people based overseas.
  • They also come in a range of values so you can select the amount that best suits your needs.

Are Digital Amazon Gift Cards a Good Choice for Customer Rewards?

Many businesses today are excited to give their customers rewards and incentives, so they remain competitive in today’s crowded marketplace. Companies want to show customers that they appreciate their business, which should increase brand loyalty. Digital Amazon gift cards represent an ideal solution for this purpose. They are suitable for customers living in different countries around the world. The gift cards also come in different values to show different levels of appreciation. Customers love to receive them thanks to the enormous choice of items they can select.

Digital Amazon gift cards from BHN Rewards are a great addition to any customer reward program. They are also an ideal choice for employers to give out as employee incentives and rewards. You can find out more about BHN Rewards’ impressive range of digital Amazon gift cards now.

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Sending a virtual gift card is quick and easy. The first step is to select the virtual gift card of your choice. After that, you choose an amount and enter the recipient’s name and email address. You can buy as many gift cards as you want, for multiple friends, family members, or clients. Once these steps are complete, just check out to enter your payment information. The recipient will receive their virtual gift card almost instantly.

What Will a Recipient Receive When I Send Them a Virtual Gift Card?

When you order a virtual gift card for somebody, you’ll want to know what the recipient actually gets. Here’s what your family, friends, or business clients can expect:

  1. First, the recipient will get an email to notify them that they’ve received a virtual gift card. It will also tell them how to claim it so it can be used.
  2. When the recipient claims the virtual gift card, they can activate and register it. To do this, they will typically need to enter their name and address.
  3. Finally, after registering, the recipient gets their virtual gift card number. They will get an activation code, along with an expiration date.
  4. At this point, they can use their card to make a transaction and purchase something of their choice.

Can I Send Virtual Gift Cards as a Reward or Incentive?

Virtual gift cards are an excellent choice for rewards or incentives. They can help give marketing campaigns a boost and allow businesses to engage more effectively with consumers and customers. Furthermore, they’re a great option to create more loyalty for your brand or incentivize staff to improve productivity.

What Kind of Virtual Gift Cards Can I Choose?

There are many excellent digital gift cards available to pick from. Many are for well-known brands and popular stores. Alternatively, you could select a virtual Visa or Mastercard gift card, which recipients can use at a wide range of retailers. Sometimes, recipients can even use them to purchase items in physical stores.

There are digital gift cards available to suit all preferences, including:

  • Clothing and fashion
  • Entertainment
  • Technology and gaming
  • Travel and hospitality
  • Dining in and out
  • Groceries
  • Books and music
  • Homewares
  • Sporting activities, clothing, and equipment
  • Gifts
  • Cosmetics

Can I Send a Virtual Gift Card to Someone Overseas?

Usually, a recipient can use a virtual gift card only in the country where it was purchased. However, you can purchase a virtual gift card for use in the recipient’s home country. BHN Rewards, formerly Rybbon, offers virtual gift cards for countries around the world, including the U.K., Australia, Germany, and Canada, among others. These virtual gift cards are in the recipient’s home currency. This means you can send and receive the gift cards in exactly the same way as a domestic virtual gift card. Start thinking about purchasing a virtual gift card from BHN Rewards today!

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People can use virtual Visa gift cards internationally in most countries across the globe. In fact, there are more than 150 countries where recipients can use a virtual Visa gift card without any problems. However, a few nations don’t accept virtual Visa gift cards. Therefore, it’s essential to check country restrictions before buying a Visa gift card for an international recipient. BHN Rewards offers customers in the U.S. and Canada more than 300 reward options, including prepaid cards, for recipients all over the world.

Looking to purchase gift cards for personal use? Check out GiftCards.com!

Which Countries Don’t Accept Visa Gift Cards?

Most countries will accept virtual Visa gift cards. However, certain nations don’t allow their use. These include:

  • Belarus
  • Burundi
  • Central African Republic
  • China
  • Côte d’Ivoire
  • Cuba
  • Democratic Republic of the Congo
  • Egypt
  • Eritrea
  • Ethiopia
  • Guinea
  • Guinea-Bissau
  • India
  • Iran
  • Iraq
  • Laos
  • Lebanon
  • Liberia
  • Libya
  • Mali
  • Myanmar (Burma)
  • Nicaragua
  • North Korea
  • Palestinian Territories
  • Russia
  • Somalia
  • South Africa
  • South Sudan
  • Sudan
  • Syria
  • Tunisia
  • Ukraine
  • Venezuela
  • Yemen
  • Zimbabwe

There are minor differences in using virtual Visa gift cards in different countries, so make sure you check the requirements before you purchase cards for a friend or business associate. Also remember that the list of restricted countries can change, so you’ll want to look at the most current list when you sign into your account at BHN Rewards, formerly Rybbon.

Do Virtual Visa Gift Cards Come in Different Currencies?

Virtual Visa prepaid gift cards come in two currencies:

  • U.S. dollars
  • Canadian dollars

They are, therefore, ideal for recipients in the United States and Canada. Although they don’t come in other currencies, recipients abroad can still use them to make purchases in their home countries. When they buy something in their local currency, the gift card will do the conversion according to the issuer’s policies.

How Do You Receive and Use Virtual Visa Gift Cards?

It’s easy for your recipients to redeem and use a virtual Visa gift card. After you’ve selected and paid for the gift card, the recipient will receive an email telling them about their reward. It will contain a link that they click to claim and register their gift card After they complete their gift card registration, they can immediately use their virtual Visa card number to make purchases. They can also choose to add it to a digital wallet so they can easily and securely access their virtual Visa.

Do Virtual Visa Gift Cards Expire?

A virtual Visa gift card will always have an expiration date. Some virtual Visa cards expire six months after the issue date, while others can be used for a year. It’s essential to check the expiration date on the gift card to ensure you use it in time. The recipient has three months to register their card and redeem their code.

BHN Rewards offers both virtual Visa and virtual Mastercard gift cards. These are excellent rewards and incentives for employees, customers, or research participants.

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You can buy prepaid Visa cards online and in some physical stores. You may even find that you can buy one over the telephone. Some credit unions and banks also sell them. Prepaid Visa cards come in two formats — physical cards and virtual cards. To get a virtual prepaid Visa card, you need to purchase it from an online retailer. You can buy a physical prepaid Visa card either online or in a physical store.

How Does a Prepaid Visa Card Work?

When you buy your prepaid Visa card, you need to load it — that is, put a certain amount of money on it. You may also need to pay a fee to the card supplier. Usually, the supplier adds the fee amount to the initial loaded amount on the card. 

Once you have loaded the Visa card, you can then use it. You can shop online or in brick-and-mortar stores if you have a physical card. If you have a virtual prepaid Visa card, you can shop online. You may also shop in some physical retail stores if you have Google Pay or Apple Pay on your smartphone.

How Does a Virtual Prepaid Visa Card Work?

If you receive a virtual prepaid Visa card, you should follow these steps: 

  • Open the email with the link to claim your card and register it.
  • Complete the registration process. You can then use your card immediately. 
  • You can create a digital wallet where you can access your card number easily and securely.

How to Choose a Prepaid Visa Card

Several suppliers provide prepaid Visa cards. You need to do your research before you buy. Here are some things to look out for: 

  • Check the fee structure for the card.
  • Make sure that the card has all the features you need.
  • Ensure that you’ve chosen a reputable supplier.

Prepaid Visa cards are a reliable choice as you can use them in any retailer, whether online or physical, that accepts Visa for payment. 

What Are the Benefits of Prepaid Visa Cards?

Prepaid Visa cards offer a host of benefits. These include: 

  • You cannot overspend by accident, since you can’t use more than the amount of money on the card. That makes it a safer choice than a credit card. 
  • You have flexibility to use your card. Virtually everywhere accepts Visa cards for payment, which gives you a lot of freedom when it comes to choosing where to shop and what to buy.
  • It’s safe to carry. If you carry a lot of cash with you, you could be putting yourself at risk. Cash is an attractive target for thieves. A prepaid Visa card is a far safer option when traveling. Registering the card gives you protection if you lose the card or someone steals it.
  • Reloading is simple. You can use some prepaid Visa cards multiple times. When you have spent the money initially loaded onto the card, you don’t need to throw it away. Instead, you can reload it with more money and use it again.
  • It provides payment security. A prepaid Visa card is an alternative and secure way to pay. If you’re wary of using a debit or credit card due to privacy reasons, a prepaid Visa card is ideal. It gives you extra protection and anonymity as it will reveal no personally identifiable information.

Do Virtual Prepaid Visa Cards Expire?

A virtual Visa prepaid card will have an expiration date that will depend on which card you choose. Some prepaid Visa cards expire six months after their issue date, while others expire a year or even more after the issue date. 

You need to be aware that you can’t access the card’s funds unless you have registered the card. You have three months to register the card and redeem its code. Once you have registered and redeemed the card, you have either six or 12 months to spend your balance.

Can I Buy a Prepaid Visa Card Online?

You can buy a prepaid Visa card online. BHN Rewards, formerly Rybbon, sells virtual prepaid Visa cards, which you can load with your chosen amount. BHN Rewards delivers these cards via email to the recipient. The recipient can then use the card to buy goods and services online or via a mobile wallet. You can use a virtual prepaid Visa card from BHN Rewards in America and 150 other countries globally. BHN Rewards’ prepaid Visa card an excellent choice for businesses who need incentives for clients and staff.

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E-gift cards work in a similar way to traditional physical gift cards but without an actual card. The giver buys the card online and loads it with money. The recipient then receives the e-gift card via email. The recipient claims and activates the card. They can then shop online and pay using the funds on the e-gift card.

What Are E-Gift Cards?

An e-gift card is a great way to thank customers, reward employees, boost survey response rates, or encourage participation in marketing programs. It is an electronic version of a standard gift card that comes preloaded with a set amount of money. The recipient can use the money on the virtual card to shop in the card provider’s store. They can buy the products of their choice and pay with the funds on the e-gift card. An e-gift card may be for a single store or retailer or for a group of stores. There are also Visa and Mastercard e-gift cards, which recipients can use at any store that accepts those payment formats. 

How Do You Send E-Gift Cards?

You send an e-gift card by buying it online and entering the recipient’s details. The recipient receives an email telling them they have been sent an e-gift card, which they then claim and activate. Delivery is virtually instantaneous, and the recipient can usually use the funds within minutes. 

You simply follow these steps to send e-gift cards:

  1. Choose which e-gift card you wish to send to the recipient. 
  2. Decide how much money you want to load onto the card.
  3. Enter the recipient’s details, including their name and email address.
  4. Pay for your e-gift card.
  5. The recipient receives an email that tells them they have been sent an e-gift card.
  6. The recipient follows the instructions in the email to claim and activate the card.
  7. The recipient gets an email with their e-gift card code.
  8. The recipient can browse the gift card provider’s website and choose what they would like to buy.
  9. The recipient can pay for the item using the code they received. 

Where Can a Recipient Spend Their E-Gift Card?

There are multiple locations where a recipient can spend an e-gift card. You can use some e-gift cards at only one specific retailer, such as Amazon. Other e-gift cards can be used at several different places, such as a group of restaurants all owned by the same company. More generic e-gift cards such as Visa and Mastercard prepaid cards can be used at any retailer that accepts those payment methods. 

How Do You Pay for an Item Online With E-Gift Cards?

When a recipient gets an e-gift card, they can pay for items online using the money on the card. All they need to do is choose an item they want to buy and put it into their shopping cart. At checkout, they enter the gift card number in the appropriate field on the payment screen. The company will subtract the payment from the e-gift card and send the recipient their item.

Can an E-Gift Card Be Used to Buy Items in Stores?

You can use some e-gift cards only for online purchases, while others are redeemable both online and in physical stores. You need to check the terms and conditions on the card. Some e-gift cards are for stores that only have online sales, and others are for stores with both brick-and-mortar and virtual outlets. If you receive a virtual Mastercard or Visa prepaid card, you can usually use these to buy items in physical stores. You need to add the e-gift card code to an online wallet like Apple Pay or Google Pay. You can then purchase items using the e-gift card in physical stores that accept those online wallets.

Where Can I Buy E-Gift Cards?

You can buy e-gift cards online from reputable providers like BHN Rewards, formerly Rybbon. All you need to do is visit the website and choose the e-gift card you want to buy. You can enter the information and make a payment. You can then send the e-gift card to the recipient.

BHN Rewards is a provider of e-gift cards for businesses. It makes it easier for companies to show appreciation to employees and clients by rewarding them with gift cards. BHN Rewards has a wide choice of popular e-gift cards for business owners to choose from. You can choose to load the cards with a range of values and with several popular currencies. This makes an e-gift card from BHN Rewards a perfect choice to reward people all over the world.

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Most gift cards can be used only in the country where they were issued. If you need to send a gift card to someone abroad, there are several options. You can buy a gift card from a retailer in their country. You can also opt for a virtual Visa or Mastercard prepaid card, which are accepted in many different countries internationally. BHN Rewards offers customers in the U.S. and Canada more than 300 reward options for recipients all over the world.

Looking to purchase gift cards for personal use? Check out GiftCards.com!

Can Amazon Gift Cards Be Used Internationally?

Amazon is a multinational company with a presence all over the globe. Many people believe that they can use an Amazon gift card internationally, but this may not be the case. Amazon has different websites for every country where it operates, and each site accepts gift cards only for that specific website. For example, you can’t use an Amazon.com gift card from the U.S. to buy make a purchase on the Canadian Amazon site. The buyer would need to use a gift card for Amazon.ca. 

Can I Buy a Gift Card for Someone Overseas?

It is possible to buy a gift card for a recipient overseas. You just need to choose a gift card that is accepted in the region where that person lives. If, for example, the recipient is in the United Kingdom, you need to buy a U.K. gift card. You can do this by shopping online. There are many options for international gift cards, so you’ll have plenty of choices.

READ MORE: 3 Things to Consider Before Rewarding With a Mastercard International Gift Card

Can I Buy a Gift Card in Different Currencies?

It’s possible to buy gift cards in different currencies, including:

  • U.S. dollars
  • Euros 
  • British pounds 
  • Canadian dollars
  • Australian dollars
  • Japanese yen
  • Chinese yuan
  • Brazilian real
  • Swedish krona
  • Polish zloty

When you buy gift cards for recipients who live abroad, make sure that it is in their local currency so they are able to redeem the value. 

How Do Visa and Mastercard Gift Cards Work Internationally?

It is easy to use Visa and Mastercard gift cards overseas. All you need to do is select the prepaid card of your choice and load it with money. If you opt for a virtual prepaid card, you will enter the recipient’s details, and that person will receive an email. They then claim and activate the card as usual. They can use the funds loaded onto the card to shop in any outlet that accepts Mastercard or Visa payments. When they pay for an item in their home currency, the card issuer converts the amount. Since many countries worldwide accept Visa and Mastercard, these cards are an excellent choice for overseas recipients. People around the world can shop in their home countries using a Visa or Mastercard gift card.

Are Visa and Mastercard Gift Cards Available in Different Currencies?

Visa and Mastercard prepaid gift cards are available in multiple currencies, including U.S. and Canadian dollars. But they can be used for purchases in many other currencies as well. All of these cards work in the same way. Purchases are made in the local currency and automatically converted to the currency of issue by the card issuer.

Can Prepaid Visa or Mastercard Gift Cards Be Used Anywhere Worldwide?

Virtual Visa cards work in more than 150 countries worldwide. There are, however, some countries where neither our virtual Mastercards nor Visas are accepted. These include: 

  • Belarus
  • Burundi
  • Central African Republic
  • China
  • Côte d’Ivoire
  • Cuba
  • Democratic Republic of the Congo
  • Egypt
  • Eritrea
  • Ethiopia
  • Guinea
  • Guinea-Bissau
  • India
  • Iran
  • Iraq
  • Laos
  • Lebanon
  • Liberia
  • Libya
  • Mali
  • Myanmar (Burma)
  • Nicaragua
  • North Korea
  • Palestinian Territories
  • Russia
  • Somalia
  • South Africa
  • South Sudan
  • Sudan
  • Syria
  • Tunisia
  • Ukraine
  • Venezuela
  • Yemen
  • Zimbabwe

The country restrictions may be different for different prepaid card types, and the list of restricted countries can change. Therefore, it’s best to research thoroughly before buying a gift card for an international recipient.

How Do I Spend a Gift Card Internationally?

Spending a gift card overseas involves following the same process as you would at home. Simply follow these steps:

  • Choose a gift card that the recipient can use in their home country.
  • Choose an amount to load onto the card. 
  • Enter the recipient’s name and email address.
  • The recipient will receive an email telling them that they have a gift card.
  • The recipient follows the instructions in the email to claim and activate their card.
  • The recipient visits a website to spend the gift card.
  • They select an item or items to purchase.
  • They enter the items into their basket.
  • They check out and enter the code from their gift card at the payment stage.

Where Can I Buy a Gift Card for International Use?

BHN Rewards, formerly Rybbon, sells gift cards that are suitable for global marketing, research, and employee programs. You can buy gift cards in a range of currencies for recipients around the world. You can also purchase prepaid Mastercard and Visa gift cards that international recipients can use. If you are distributing gift cards to recipients in multiple countries, BHN Rewards’ Smart Global Choice feature can detect each recipient’s location and automatically curate a list of rewards that are available in their country.

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A business gift card is a prepaid card that a company can load with a specific amount of money. Companies can give these cards to business partners, employees, or customers, who can then use the gift card to buy goods or services at retailers or merchants accepting that type of card. A business gift card can be either a physical or digital card.

What Can a Business Gift Card Be Used For?

Businesses can give preloaded gift cards as incentives or rewards, or to thank customers. The company can decide the value of the card before giving it to the recipient. Once you activate the card, it is ready for use immediately. The recipient can use it to pay for their choice of goods or services from participating merchants.

What Can a Business Gift Card Not Be Used For?

There are several things that a recipient cannot do with a business gift card:

  • Withdraw cash at an ATM.
  • Pay for subscriptions or recurring charges and bills.
  • Pay for orders worth more than the card’s balance, unless the merchant can offer “split tender.” 
  • Make reservations.
  • Pay a deposit for a hotel or car rental.
  • Exchange gift cards for money (unless required by the law).
  • Transfer the balance on the card.
  • Use it for illegal activity. 

What Form Can a Business Gift Card Take?

These days, business gift cards can come in both physical and digital forms. Traditionally, business gift cards came in a credit card-style format. A customer could use it in brick-and-mortar stores to pay for goods, just like a regular credit card. 

Today, though, digital business gift cards are becoming increasingly popular. More people shop online these days, so a digital gift card is more convenient. This type of gift card doesn’t have a physical form. Instead, it comes with just a card number that clients store in a digital wallet. The recipient can access their card number whenever they want to use it. They can then pay for the goods and services that they wish to buy using that number.

Can a Digital Business Gift Card Only Be Used Online?

Digital business gift cards allow the recipient to shop conveniently online. However, thanks to the prevalence of smartphones, clients can use gift cards for shopping in physical stores, too. 

Your customers can add some digital business cards to Google Pay, Apple Pay, or Samsung Pay on the recipient’s device. Once the client adds the digital gift card to a virtual wallet, the gift card can pay for goods and services in person. Since most retailers accept these payment options today, this opens up a wide range of purchasing opportunities for card recipients.

Which Currencies Are Business Gift Cards Available In?

Business gift cards are usually available in a range of popular currencies. The U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar, British pound, and euro are common currencies for business gift cards. There are many other options as well, including Japanese yen, Swedish krona, and Polish zloty. When the business purchases the gift cards, they make payment in their currency. The gift card company can convert the amount into the issuing currency. 

Are There Different Types of Business Gift Cards?

Business gift cards come in an array of options. Virtual Visa cards and virtual Mastercards are two popular options. These give recipients a lot of flexibility when it comes to spending their gift. Most other business gift cards are retailer-specific. For example, businesses can purchase Amazon, Apple, or Google Play gift cards for use with those individual online retailers. 

It’s also possible to buy business gift cards for specific physical retailers. Gift cards for restaurants and cinemas, as an example, can be used in-store instead of online. The recipient only needs to give the retailer their digital code to pay for their purchase. 

Clients can use some business gift cards either online or in stores. Walmart, Macy’s, Target, and Pottery Barn are all excellent examples of merchant gift cards. 

What Kinds of Goods and Services Can Business Gift Cards Pay For?

Customers or employees can use business gift cards to pay for a wide range of goods and services. Virtual Mastercard and Visa cards can pay for any item from a retailer that accepts those cards. Other gift cards are valid in only one specific store or several under the same corporate umbrella. 

Business gift cards are available to pay for everything from food and drink to cinema tickets and travel. Companies can choose the best options to suit their own needs when making their purchase.

Are you ready to choose the right business gift cards for your company to give to partners, employees, and customers? Then discover BHN Rewards’ impressive selection. With so many options to pick from, we’re sure you’ll find just what you’re looking for.

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It couldn’t be easier to send e-gift cards. All you need to do is enter the recipient’s email address when purchasing the e-gift card online. They will receive the reward directly in their inbox. They simply need to open the email, click on the link to claim their gift, and register it. Once your recipient registers the card, it is ready for use, and they can buy their chosen items.

The Benefits of E-Gift Cards

E-gift cards are a flexible and convenient gift solution. You can use them for online purchases, which opens up more shopping options than physical cards. You can also send e-gift cards instantly via email. There is no need for the recipient to wait for their reward to arrive in the mail before they can start shopping. You can use some e-gift cards in a range of online outlets, giving recipients even more choice. As a bonus, you can add e-gift cards to online wallets like Apple Pay or Google Pay. Using an online wallet means you can even shop in some physical stores using your e-gift card as payment.

Who Can Send E-Gift Cards?

Many individuals and companies send e-gift cards. They are a great reward for market research participants, high-performing employees, or valued customers. Because e-gift cards are delivered via email, they can be sent all over the world. 

How to Choose an E-Gift Card

There are plenty of different e-gift card options to pick from in a wide range of currencies. They also cover a wide range of retail and leisure opportunities. Some popular choices include e-gift cards for:

  • Cinemas
  • Restaurants
  • Online gaming
  • TV and movie streaming
  • Home décor
  • Books 
  • Music
  • Clothing
  • Travel
  • Food delivery services  

With so many options, it’s simple to find suitable choices for any recipient.

Choosing an Amount for an E-Gift Card

You can select the value of the e-gift card that you send to a recipient. Some e-gift cards are available in values of $5 or less. You can purchase others in values of as high as $2,000. You can also buy e-gift cards in different currencies. Some options include:

  • U.S. dollars
  • Australian dollars
  • Canadian dollars
  • British pounds
  • Euros
  • Rupees
  • Japanese yen 
  • Chinese yuan
  • Brazilian real
  • Polish zloty
  • Swedish krona

Because e-gift cards are available in multiple currencies, it is easy to send them to people all over the world in their local currency.

How to Ensure an E-Gift Card Goes to the Right Recipient

When you send an e-gift card to a recipient, you need to add their name in the order. It’s best to use their legal name instead of a nickname. Some online stores decline e-gift cards if the account name doesn’t match the user name on that site.

Of course, you also need to enter the recipient’s email address when you place the order. Take extra care to ensure you have entered the email address correctly so the card isn’t delivered to the wrong person. 

Once you have completed these steps, you send a payment for the e-gift card. Once the payment clears, the recipient receives an email containing their e-gift card.

What Must the Recipient Do to Use Their E-Gift Card?

The process for using an e-gift card is very simple. The recipient follows these easy steps:

  1. They receive an email that tells them they have been sent an e-gift card.
  2. They follows the instructions in the email to claim the e-gift card.
  3. The recipient activates their e-gift card. They may need to register it before using it.
  4. They get an email that lets them know their e-gift card number, expiration date (if applicable), and activation code.
  5. They can visit the website of the company that the e-gift card is for.
  6. The recipient can use their e-gift card to buy an item of their choice. 

Where Can I Buy an E-Gift Card?

BHN Rewards, formerly Rybbon, is an excellent choice for buying e-gift cards. Its digital rewards management platform helps businesses reward their clients and employees quickly and easily. There are many different e-gift card types to choose from, including a wide variety of stores and virtual Visa and Mastercard prepaid cards. You can buy e-gift cards for use in different countries and currencies. There are also a range of values to choose from. BHN Rewards makes it a breeze for businesses to offer incentives and show appreciation to customers and employees.

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