Israel startup, Rise.ai, which offers AI-driven customer re-engagement solutions, is making its gift cards available for purchase on Facebook and Instagram.
This enables small and medium businesses and enterprises (SMBs/SMEs) to sell digital gift cards to their local community through Facebook and Instagram using the customers’ geo-location. This will enable businesses to reach new customers, increase traffic and maintain their activity.
To let SMBs take the time they need to sell gift cards online, or build a new online gift card store, Rise.ai offers a free trial for all new customers. The company’s platform was designed to manage all the re-engagement activity of brands, including gift cards, loyalty cards, rewards, and refunds.
An independent survey conducted by Rise.ai from March 13 to April 24, found that the percentage of stores offering digital gift cards to their customers grew 37% in comparison to the prior six weeks.
Since the COVID-19 crisis began, 58% of the surveyed businesses started to actively promote their gift card program, while 53.5% of the merchants send gift cards or store credit to their customer base to bring them back to the store. The responses for store credit customers grew 21% compared to the prior six weeks.
Rise.ai founder and CEO, Yair Miron (pictured) said, “The coronavirus pandemic requires businesses to sell and engage with merchants on more channels and to find more effective ways to prosper. Since COVID-19 started to affect the market, we see tremendous need for advanced digital gift cards and store credit solutions to fuel the growth of merchants.”
Miron added: “We are excited to offer brands and businesses all the necessary infrastructure for quickly creating their gift card program and give them immediate exposure on both Facebook and Instagram. There is no better candidate than Facebook to lead these efforts, and digital gift cards are a great tool to support these companies.”
Facebook Australia and New Zealand director of small business, Melinda Petrunoff commented, “Small businesses are the backbone of our community and economy—they’ve always been there for us, and now it’s time for us to be there for them. We hope these gift cards will be useful in providing much needed support for them during this crucial time and empower our community to discover and share new small businesses.”