It’s time to virtually eliminate physical gift cards and FREE RENT!
Relying on physical gift cards or rent concessions are no longer required for a successful property incentive program. There are several reasons that this legacy incentive model is not successful. One of the main reasons for giving an incentive to someone is to influence their behavior to align with your goals. A successful incentive or reward needs to not only provide value but also provide a high level of engagement. Why is engagement such an important component in giving an incentive? The answer is that the higher the level of engagement the more likely the person will repeat the behavior; send a referral or submit a positive review.
Why do legacy gift cards and concessions not work? There are several reasons why:
- Rent concessions have been the standard incentive tool for years. The problem with rent concessions are that not only does it devalue the asset but provides no tangible or physical engagement experience. Free rent is a ‘paper incentive’ with the recipient never really holding anything in their hand or connecting in a personal manner. The incentive is ‘invisible’ and also considered a commodity.
- Physical gift cards present a slurry of operational, customer service and engagement challenges. Purchasing gift cards is time consuming and expensive. Management personnel have far more important things to do on a daily basis than order gift cards.
Distributing the gift cards is even more of a challenge. Lack of control, gift cards going to the wrong person, losing them are all issues with gift cards. Typically, people lose them and never even use them (huge revenue for that industry) which negates any engagement experience at all. With short expirations and regular customer service issues, gift cards can do you much more harm than good.
INCENTCO technology provides a state-of-the-art incentive solution that requires almost no labor or IT resources; has financial controls and approval mechanisms; can be completely automated and enables the recipient to choose their own reward AND when they want it. They can redeem points in real-time for virtual gift codes to purchase whatever they want via a familiar consumer transaction. No waiting for gift cards, no customer service issues and a high level of engagement because the incentive is personal. The perfect incentive solution.
