Gift Giving Made Easy

What incentive award is widely accepted, easy for participants to use, simple for a supervisor to manage and comes in several denominations? Time’s up. The answer: gift certificates. Whether you offer them in plastic, paper or virtual form, the tried-and-true gift certificate provides motivation with speed, flexibility and cost-effectiveness. Here are some reasons for the growing popularity of this incentive industry’s staple, as cited by Catherine Carson, Internet-development director, at Incentive Solutions in Atlanta, GA.:

The fit is good. Just ask any manager with incentive-program experience. There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all incentive award. But recipients of gift certificates have the freedom to choose the reward they want, which can deliver a huge motivational wallop. “Anyone who has coordinated a motivation program knows the diverse range of human buttons to be pushed, and almost no award can motivate all your intended recipients. The variety of reward options offered by gift-certificate cards are tremendous, and your incentive program recipients will love the autonomy of award self-selection.”

The gratification is immediate. Certificates and gift cards – the plastic version of the familiar paper certificate – are welcome not only in brick-and-mortar merchant locations but also on the Internet at certain retail Web sites. No wonder these rewards are finding a place in more and more incentive programs.

The program set-up is fast. Gift-certificate campaigns often can be created with a short turnaround time, “giving businesses a fast motivation tool that is extremely cost effective and is among the most versatile and successful among incentive-program options.”

The price is right. Few incentive campaigns offer the easy, hassle-free management of a gift certificate program because there are usually no monthly service fees and no administration or hidden charges.

Visit Incentive Solutions on the Web at www.incentivesolutions.com.