Are prepaid gift cards wasteful? This year an estimated $3 billion dollars will be spent on rewards that are never claimed. Leif Baradoy is CEO of Kiind – an online service recently launched across the U.S. that allows businesses to send gift cards, but only pay when the recipient uses the gift.
As a result, businesses of any size can quickly send out trackable rewards over email to hundreds or thousands of employees.
Unnecessary spending on employee and customer engagement no longer has to be a cost of building great relationships, Baradoy told Loyalty 360. Businesses can set expiration dates on their reward offers. Should a reward go unclaimed, businesses are notified so they can offer an alternate reward if the employee is still at the company.
“Prepaid gift cards are wasteful,” Baradoy says. “They waste time, money, and energy. Kiind solves the problem of gift card waste by providing a smart, easy-to-use enterprise gift sending platform for professionals and organizations.”
Baradoy says that if a customer opts to use Kiind, he or she can select and send personalized email gift cards to his or her entire list quickly and easily.
“Even better, they do not pay for a gift until it is redeemed by their recipient,” he explains. “We remove the waste of unwanted or unused gifts while improving the gift-giving experience.”
Each gift is tracked and customers are notified when gifts have been redeemed.
“This provides an opportunity for follow-up and further engagement,” Baradoy says. “In turn, recipients feel appreciated, building stronger relationships between customers and their stakeholders.”
Baradoy offered an example of Zambri’s – a high-end restaurant in British Columbia, where Kiind is based. Zambri’s has been selling its gift cards on Kiind since 2012.
Here’s what Zambri’s does:
It has a newsletter sent out on a monthly or bi-monthly basis to about 3,000 people, and Zambri’s tracks which customers open and engage with it
Every couple of months, Zambri’s uses Kiind to surprise and delight customers who read the newsletter by sending a $10 gift card through Kiind that has to be used within a short time period (usually 4-6 weeks)
Zambri’s has executed four times and received an excellent 13%-17% engagement each time. “Part of this engagement is because people send the offer to their digital wallet and get location specific reminders of the promo when they are near the restaurant,” Baradoy says. “The customer who receives the gift loves it. Even those who don’t redeem feel acknowledged and nurtured by Zambri’s. Zambri’s is now advocating this sort of marketing to some of the other restaurants it works with in town.”
How does Kiind work?
After creating an account, the user can select one or more marketplace gifts. Gifts range from coffee at a local shop to products from Amazon.com. By selecting more than one gift, senders can give recipients a choice in their gift. Next, sending upload import or manually add their contact list. After writing a personal message and adding their own brand elements, the user can send the gift to as few or as many people as they'd like.
The recipient is sent the gift email.
With the ability to set campaign expiration dates, the gift offer can expire. However, recipients receive reminder emails to encourage redemption. The giver does not pay for the gift if it expires or is declined by the recipient.
The service launched in the U.S. in July and currently has about 100 vendors and is in 2,500 store fronts. Baradoy said Nike is one of Kiind’s clients.
“It’s a unique gifting experience,” he says. “We’re best because we are a digital gift card mall, but with a pay-later feature.”