Gift Card Gaffes
I don't know about you, but I have at least 5 gift cards with under $2.00 on them. I also have multiple cards from the same store, which I can't combine. While the gift card industry is thriving, the user experience could certainly be improved. And the experience on the part of the retailer can be improved as well.
Today's lead 1to1 Weekly article discuss the opportunities retailers are losing to learn about customers, manage gift cards, and improve the overall experience. We wrote about it in 2005, and it seems that nothing has changed since then, except the fact that more stores offer them.
Some companies are starting to collect customer information when they buy gift cards. It's an easy way to learn a little more about your customers. How does your company gather customer insight in unique ways?
Today, gift cards are virtually another product that generates billion revenues for retailers, and it's good by itself. Capturing data on these cards may be ideal for your CRM practice, but like any good thing, it comes at a cost eating up a chunk off your gross margin. So, folks from Finance might reasonably say, "Why bother?" The ideal "data capturing" scenario happens if you have quite an established bottom-up CRM strategy like at Best Buy or an occasional compelling business case. Apart from gift cards and loyalty exchanges, there're many non-traditional ways to creatively append the customer file, e.g. from service calls.