Supplier | Perkbox

Tags: Employee rewards, employee incentives, customer apology gifts, customer acquisition, reward and recognition

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You can’t have failed to miss Perkbox’s advertising campaigns. That familiar blue branding, the images of treats such as gummy sweets and cupcakes, and of course, the comments, likes and tags ons social media from hundreds of employees tagging in their boss, now aware that perks are a possibility – all they have to do is ask for them.

Perkbox have certainly put the concept of rewards and perks on the table for everyday workers unaware of engagement, rewards and incentives and the minutaea of the sector.

Perkbox recently ran a survey in association with OnePoll with 2000 demographically diverse employees to understand the state of workplace disengagement in the UK. It found that over 30% of employees felt a lack of reward and recognition for their work, and 36% of the UK’s workforce said they’re likely to leave their jobs within one year. It’s key research, but the really interesting thing about Pekbox is the brand itself, as we speak, a business who picked up £2.5 million in backing from publicly listed European VC Draper Esprit.

Takeovers

Perkbox recently announced the acquisition of London’s Loyalty Bay. Loyalty Bay offers SaaS-based automation of digital rewards.

While the movements and the figures behind the deal remain under wraps, experts opine that it was a hard cash operation, with the people supporting Loyalty Bay having exited. Back in 2015, it had raised $1 million in funding.

Loyalty Bay has been around since 2014, founded by Alex Farquhar and William Roberts. The firm’s data analytics and rewards delivery framework is primarily an ‘incentivization across touch-points model’ (spanning purchasing, up-selling, referrals, on-boarding, via digital rewards).

It also offers integration with current CRM and other feedback delivery mechanisms for effective personalization, and smarter customer targeting. Among its clients, it counts industry recognized names such as Compare the Market, The Financial Times, and Boundless.

Perkbox’s founder and CEO Saurav Chopra believes this is a key strategic move: “We are seeing a huge growth in reward spend from customers who want to reward employees for certain behaviour or performance. This is where we are plugging the Loyalty Bay digital reward technology into our core employee engagement product”.

Saurav goes on to explain how a rewards model is now a must-have, and cites hospitality customers like Nando’s and Le Pain Quotidien who offer several such recognitions – but manually tabulated and managed, with zero budgetary control.

Loyalty Bay’s tech-idea will now power Perkbox’s plan for employee rewards automation, tracking, and cost estimation. The SaaS approach will additionally refresh Perkbox’s other business arms, creating bespoke rewards or perks programs.

Saurav considers this to be a part of Perkbox’s growth extension blueprint, saying that the Loyalty Bay acquisition will push scalability for the company, supporting multiple use cases and extending their portfolio significantly.

Recognition

When LinkedIn released a report profiling the ‘25 most in-demand start-ups operating in the UK’, Perkbox sat in 2nd place, beaten only by bank Monzo.

In order to be eligible, companies must be at most 10 years old, have at least 100 employees, remain independent and privately held and have completed at least one round of venture-backed funding.

Working alongside CB Insights to pull a global list of nearly 25,000 eligible venture-backed companies, the social network has whittled it down to the top 25 that are making the biggest impact in the UK – an incredible achievement.

Growth

At the same time, it’s Sheffield base has grown at a rapid rate. The business premises, which employs 42 on Scotland Street, is looking for offices more than double the size, to accommodate 100 people. Operations manager Wayne Adams said the firm’s growth was due to targeting the SME market, offering perks young people wanted and clever tech. Perkbox claims to be the fastest growing employee benefits firm in the UK with 300,000 users at more than 30,000 companies.

What’s next for the brand? 

Perkbox has never been shy to state they have extensive plans to expand in the UK and internationally. Since its foundation in 2015, the company has more than quintupled its headcount – growing from 20 to 130 in just 20 months, a sure sign of solid growth and some plans for continued domination – one to watch!