Imagine being able to offer your sales force dinner at one of six different restaurants in town as an incentive. Or being able to choose five specialty stores from which your employees can choose rewards as Employee of the Month. American Express Incentive Services has introduced a new stored value card that makes it easy for you to focus your rewards and incentives to a few merchants that you choose.
American Express Incentive Services (AEIS) holds the patent on a unique filtering process that allows users of its new licensed Primary Card to create "focused-use" cards. These focused-use cards can be used by employers and merchants as incentives that direct cardholder redemption to specific merchants.
Until the Primary Card, a stored value card that's welcome at multiple merchants, employers or merchants wanting to offer an incentive to employees or customers had the choice of either a single store gift card, that's only accepted by a single merchant, or a universal stored value card that's usable anywhere. The Primary Card allows users to customize a unique mix of merchants to which to direct their 'rewards'.
The Primary Card is designed to offer maximum value for incentive and promotional programs that need one card solution for multiple merchant options. Cardholders can use the card to purchase every day items, including home improvement supplies, electronics, software and clothing. The card is currently accepted at a select group of national merchants including BestBuy, Lowes', TJ Maxx and Staples. It can also be used to purchase restaurant gift cards for special incentives.
"The Primary Card is fun and memorable while still being practical," said Darryl Hutson, AEIS CEO. "It offers a unique and diverse combination of popular merchants themed around serving the cardholder's everyday needs. The card's merchant mix makes it an especially good fit for employee incentive programs, and it works for sales incentives and consumer promotions as well."
American Express Incentive Services has not widely licensed the process used to create the Primary Card, but starting in July, they will offer the licensing to other companies within the incentive industry. Those who license the patented technology will be able to create cards similar to the focused-use stored-value cards that AEIS has created. Some of those feature specific merchant categories, making it possible to create a 'home improvement' incentive card that can be used to purchase home improvement supplies from various merchants, for example. In addition, AEIS will offer merchants who choose not to license the patented process the option of reselling their own proprietary cards.
"This process," says Hutson, "allows a company to play on a theme, such as a home goods or dining out card... Because we'd like to see this type of card proliferate, we think it's the right time to release the patent to a larger market."
For more information on the Primary Card or AEIS' patented filtering process, please call (888) 453-0150 or visit www.aeis.com.
