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The Runa Insider is a monthly webinar series where we share updates and demo new products & features to ensure you make the most of Runa.
Our April 2023 webinar introduced Runa's new and improved Payout Link. Watch the show for:
- A demo of the new Runa Payout Link (05:42)
- Plans for the future (14:00)
- Runa’s new payout types (14:30)
Related Links
► Read the full transcript of this webinar below.
► Runa Network Changelog: Stay up-to-date on new gift card brands and payout types to the Runa Network.
► Check out the blog on the New & Improved Runa Payout Link.
Transcript
Ellie Hermon (00:00)
I think we'll get started. So thank you everyone for joining this April edition of The Runa Insider webinar. We're really happy that you could join us today. So just to run over a quick agenda, the topic that we're going to be discussing is the Runa Payout Link. I'll be talking about that. My name's Ellie Hermon, and I'm a Senior Product Marketing Manager here at Runa, and I'm joined by Seun Efuwape, who is a Senior Product Manager and looks after the Payout Link experience. So we'll talk a little bit more about it, how it works, why we think it's important, and why our customers love it.
We'll show you a demo of how it works as well as the recipient experience so you can see what it looks like from their point of view, and then we'll discuss the network in terms of what products are available through the Payout Link now and what we're building through the rest of the year.
(00:50)
So a quick reminder and welcome back to Runa. For those of you joining since March, this might be the first time that you've come into contact with Runa. We recently relaunched from WeGift at the end of March. So we're building on the foundations of WeGift to become Runa, and we now offer a full digital value infrastructure providing everything you need in order to build flexible, embedded payout reward and incentive experiences. We're building on top of the WeGift network providing a wider range of different digital payout types, so not only gift cards but also prepaid cards, subscriptions, donations, cryptocurrencies and more. And we'll dig into some of those a little bit later on.
(01:38)
What is the Runa Payout Link?
If you've been with us for a while, you may be familiar with the select link and the Payout Link is a new and improved version of this. What it lets you do is send an open balance to your recipients that they can then choose to redeem however and wherever they want, anywhere on the Runa Network as soon as they're sent it. So balance can be spent all in one place or split across different brands and payout types depending on your preferences. And at the moment our network contains over 1300 different product types and payout types across 30 countries and 18 currencies. As I mentioned, we're always building on top of that. So this will continue to grow, which means the Payout Link offers even more flexibility and options for where people can redeem.
(02:29)
So how does it work?
So it's very straightforward as you'll see in the demo later, but businesses just need to deposit money with Runa via bank transfer. They then set up the payout or payouts choosing the amounts or the amount that they want to spend. You then have the option to customize the network of where that can be redeemed. So you can keep it open and it can be spent anywhere on the network or you could exclude competitors, for example, or you could come up with a category, maybe you want it to be spent on education. So you would only include payout options that offer that kind of experience, whether that be book vouchers or training courses or training apps. So you do have that flexibility or you can just keep it totally open. You then just hit send and it sends immediately via email or you can copy the link and send through any channel of your choice.
(03:29)
In our experience, recipients love receiving value through the Payout Link.
And why is that? That's because they have the freedom to choose what they really want, and they can pretty much spend it like cash. We've done a recent study that showed that 55% of participants in our study said that flexibility of redemption is one of the most important things to them when it comes to receiving any sort of reward or incentive. As I mentioned, we are building this out to be as cash-like as possible and we see that behavior in the redemption patterns. In fact, 98.3% of Runa payouts are redeemed within 30 days of being sent. And in the UK, that can be spent across 88% of the top 50 retailers, and in the US, it can be spent across 63% of the top 100 retailers in the US. So really, there are a lot of options as to where recipients can use it, and what we've seen is that they really appreciate that flexibility to choose rather than being sent a specific gift card for one specific brand.
(04:39)
So what does this mean for you?
It means you can really keep your recipients really happy with this unprecedented flexibility and send them something that's really meaningful to them and that will actually have an impact and keep them engaged, keep them coming back to your business, whatever your business goals may be. It allows you to expand your reach globally without having to shop around for multiple different options if you can give everyone access, if you can give your recipients access to all of these different payout types all in one place. You also have the opportunity in some cases to monetize your payouts through discounts and, as I mentioned, driving back office efficiencies by one single link that gives access to all this whole network. So without further ado, I'll hand it over to Seun who will show a demo of how it works. So I'll stop sharing my screen, Seun, and I think you can jump in.
Seun Efuwape (05:42)
Hello. I hope I'm sharing now, but I'm pleased to meet you all, I'm excited to show you more of our Payout Link. We pretty much think this is a pretty exciting solution. So today, I'll be talking to you about how you can send a Payout Link to recipients and also showing how recipients can spend digital value in the Payout Link you send to them across multiple products on our network. Payout Links, again, as Ellie said, is all about choice.
Our research shows us that a lot of recipients are seeking more flexibility on what to spend the digital value you send them on and the Payout Link basically solves that problem.
(06:27)
The Runa Payout Link Demo
And so we'll be showing you how you do it. Just a bit of a caveat, some of you might have a different experience in one that shows today, so you might be ordering via the API, but basically, it's largely pretty similar in terms of experience in going forward for yourselves. So I'll just show you how you create an order in Runa. So you basically come in here into Runa, and let's say we're going to create a payout to me or maybe Ellie, you basically come in here and then pick on an individual... Oops, sorry about this. Just logged me out. Thank you, sandbox. Here we go. One sec. Sorry about this.
(07:23)
Right. We're back in, I do apologize for that. So we're creating an order, and effectively, you can come and create an individual payout. And let's say, hey, we're feeling really generous and we want to send this recipient $1,000 in terms of digital value. So the good thing about Payout Links is they're like cashing your wallet.
So effectively you are sending this recipient cash to basically spend across the different products across our network so they have the option to choose where they want to spend it, when they want to spend it effectively. So in this case, we're going to send it $1,000. You can then choose what product assets or, basically, products you want the recipients to redeem against.
(08:07)
So let's say you want to choose all 482 products we have in the United States right now. You select that, you confirm. And effectively, one good thing we also have in here, I wouldn't cover it much, we also have some customization. So if you, for example, you're with an HR rewards platform, you want to say thank you to your employees for basically a good job or you say happy birthday, then you can customize that message and make it more personalized. So we have that kind of experience there.
(08:38)
Continuing this, and as Ellie mentioned earlier, you have different ways in which you can send the Payout Link to customers by email, or if you just want to control that within your own environment in terms of how they receive the links, that's absolutely fine also. We give you that flexibility. So let's assume we send them via email. We come in here, and let's say I'm sending to myself because I'm greedy now. I wish it was actually real money. So I did myself in there. Let's save and close, and effectively, take me to my checkout experience now. So I'm sending this Seun $1,000 to spend, so I'm just going to pay it out.
(09:26)
And sorry about... This is the sandbox. Production is a lot quicker, but Sandbox, as you know, is just a testing environment. So in this scenario, the recipient, we get an email saying, "Hey, Seun, you've been sent some digital value of 1,000 pounds. You can spend them across all our digital assets within WeGift, I'm sorry, Runa." So let's go to view the order. I'm just going to copy the link, but the recipient would get the link in their email. So let's now try and open the link. So the recipient gets that email, they opened the link in their email and they would now get into our Payout Link here. So they'll say, for example, we've chosen Little Fish Solutions, which is our test company today. And then you've got $1,000 of value sent to yourself, and they can spend it across all our gift cards, subscriptions, or donations.
(10:22)
And it tells you how long basically the digital value expires. You can customize this. So if you wanted to expire after 90 days, or a year, or two years, that's down to you in terms of what you sent to the recipient. So we get started here. And as you see over here, you see the value, $1,000, which you decide to send to the recipient to spend.
(10:46)
Now let's take an example and we think like, hey, let's say, Ellie as the recipient here, she was to go to, let's say, well, Airbnb, we're going to Texas and we're going to find this tent here, and it's going to cost us what, $96 or $99 a night. Okay, cool. What you can then do is go back to the payout and think, "I'm going to put Airbnb, and I'm going to spend," say what? Let's say it was $250. "I'm going to add that to my basket." And effectively, they add those values to the basket there and they confirm. And once it's confirmed effectively, that now goes into their asset list.
So effectively, they have Airbnb as an asset there, which they can always go back to. And effectively, if they want to spend it, they go into Airbnb and they can just redeem that online against this holiday in Texas, in this nice tent somewhere in the middle of nowhere and have a good time there basically.
(11:49)
Let's imagine that I thought... Actually, by the way, we're now on some items we need to get on Amazon, they can basically go in there instead... Okay, we need to get some stuff from Amazon and maybe that's $100 we want to spend there, add that to the basket. And potentially, while they're at it, they thought, "Okay, hey, we also have subscriptions in here."
And for example, you could see that they might think, "Okay, our Home Chef subscription is coming to an end." They can come in here and say, "Okay, you know what, we're going to put $50 towards that." That's absolutely fine. That adds that into the basket. And they thought, "You know what? We're being generous today. We need to make some donations to charity."
And they can come to CharityChoice, for example, and they can start to spend another, let's say, $50 in that area, add that in there. And then they can go, "Okay, cool, we're going to check out now."
(12:37)
And then when they do checkout, they have a store of all their digital values in the Payout Links, so they can always go back to it and see a history of it or what they spent on it. So as you can see, they have Airbnb, Amazon, CharityChoice, and Home Chef in there, and you can always go back to... Back click on this link. So there's a store of that information always that it can always go back to. And so if we go back here, you can see that all those different products are in there. And basically, at the end of the day, here, it's all about choice for the recipients.
As you can see, they've been able to spend it across gift cards, across donations, across subscriptions as they wish to. So they're not being forced to pick one product. They have a variety of products they can choose from and spend that value you're sending to them basically. And that's what the Payout Link does.
(13:30)
I hope this has been really helpful, but we're really excited about the Payout Link, and we know that recipients are telling us already that they like this, and we hope that you also like it. I'll hand over to you now, Ellie, to carry on.
Ellie Hermon (13:55)
The Runa Partnership Roadmap
Sorry about the technical difficulties. Thank you, Seun, so much for that demo. So we just have a few minutes left, but I just wanted to flag, as we mentioned, we are constantly building out our network, adding new gift card brands and new payout types. So we are really excited about all that we've got coming this year. As you can see, this high level roadmap here just outlines how many different products we're adding by different regions to different countries and that includes gift cards, subscriptions, product specific codes, and we'll have more coming as well.
(14:28)
In order to [inaudible 00:14:30] all of this, we have created a network changelog where you can really easily stay up to date with which products are being added to each region. And if there is something specific that you're looking for, you can always let us know through support or through your account manager and we can see what we can do to bring that into our network.
(14:53)
Questions about The Runa Network
We have about three minutes remaining, so if you have any questions you can post them into the chat, and Seun and I will do our best to answer them. So I see a couple coming through already. So a question about approval.
"Does it mean that all gift cards are already pre-approved?"
No, it doesn't. Some of the gift cards will still be subject to approval, but you'll only send the ones to your recipients that they will have access to. So it will never be a blocker in that experience. You have your hand up, but I don't know if that's-
Seun Efuwape (15:33)
Yeah. So good thing to really hear about this is that 95% of our products are pretty much so will be going through an automated approval or be approved for the 5% other ones like Ellie says you'll need approval for.
But largely, most of our network will be stuff that is either pre-approved or will be automatic approvals based on your criteria and if you meet the criteria for that product.
Ellie Hermon (15:58):
Thanks, Seun. Another question:
"Did the charity options get added to a charity gift card for charity shops or do you send the money directly to the charity?"
Seun Efuwape (16:13)
Do you want me to take that one?
Ellie Hermon (16:15)
Yes, please.
Seun Efuwape (16:16)
Yeah. So that is added to a charity gift card at the moment. We are working in the background on how we can get this directly to the charity. It is something we have on our agenda, and we'll update you when we get close to that. But for now, we just go straight to the gift card.
Ellie Hermon (16:36)
So you mean kind of a direct charitable donation rather than something to be spent at a charity shop?
Seun Efuwape (16:41)
Yeah.
Ellie Hermon (16:42)
Yeah. Well, those are all the questions that we have at the moment submitted, but please do follow up if you have anything else. Otherwise, I think we're at time. So thank you very much for joining. We really hope you found it useful. As a reminder, we'll be having these short 20-minute webinars on the third Thursday of every month, focusing on different products or different kinds of industry news of interest. So we're looking forward to seeing you on Thursday next month. So thanks for joining. Bye.
