Ever thought about how a gift of experience could trump a cash incentive? Miglė Rakauskaitė from Tinggly joins us to shed light on the surprising results of a recent US survey they conducted. The findings? A staggering two-thirds of employees would rather receive an experience than cold hard cash. Miglė helps us unpack why this is and explores the shift in attitudes towards experience-based gifting especially in the wake of the pandemic. It's a discussion that reveals how experiences provide more joy and value compared to mundane things and encourages living life to the max.
But, how can companies tap into this trend and make employee recognition more memorable? Miglė shares insights on how Tinggly is revolutionising the gifting landscape. With their product designed for flexibility, global reach, and without an expiration date, it presents the unique ability to create lasting memories. We delve into how businesses can use this to their advantage by customizing and personalising gifts that resonate with their employees. And the bonus? Tinggly manages the logistics, shipping these bespoke collections worldwide. If you're curious about this evolving gifting culture, buckle up, because this is one eye-opening chat you'll want to tune in to.
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Ever thought about how a gift of experience could trump a cash incentive? Miglė Rakauskaitė from Tinggly joins us to shed light on the surprising results of a recent US survey they conducted. The findings? A staggering two-thirds of employees would rather receive an experience than cold hard cash. Miglė helps us unpack why this is and explores the shift in attitudes towards experience-based gifting especially in the wake of the pandemic. It's a discussion that reveals how experiences provide more joy and value compared to mundane things and encourages living life to the max.
But, how can companies tap into this trend and make employee recognition more memorable? Miglė shares insights on how Tinggly is revolutionising the gifting landscape. With their product designed for flexibility, global reach, and without an expiration date, it presents the unique ability to create lasting memories. We delve into how businesses can use this to their advantage by customizing and personalising gifts that resonate with their employees. And the bonus? Tinggly manages the logistics, shipping these bespoke collections worldwide. If you're curious about this evolving gifting culture, buckle up, because this is one eye-opening chat you'll want to tune in to.
Listen & Subscribe on your favorite platform
Apple | Spotify | Google | Amazon
Welcome to Recruiting Daly's Use Case Podcast, a show dedicated to the storytelling that happens or should happen when practitioners purchase technology. Each episode is designed to inspire new ways and ideas to make your business better as we speak with the brightest minds in recruitment and HR tech. That's what we do. Here's your host, William Tin Cup.
Speaker 2:Ladies and gentlemen, this is William Tin Cup and you are listening to the Use Case Podcast. Today we have Minglong from Tingli, and that's with 2Gs, by the way. So T-I-N-G-L-O-Y and we're going to be learning about the business case or use case for Tingli. So, while we do introductions, minglong, would you do us a favor and introduce yourself and Tingli?
Speaker 3:Yes, of course. Hello, everyone, really excited to be here. Thank you, william, for inviting us here. As you mentioned, my name is Migle and I'm representing Tingli Company today. I'm head of growth at Tingli and already spent three years with the company.
Speaker 3:And Tingli started a while ago actually seven years already but the first years were dedicating for developing the product and in recent years we started to build brand image and let to get to know our audience and let them know about Tingli. But the whole idea of Tingli was that one of our founders decided that he wanted to change that culture of gifting and he came up with the idea that during regular celebrations we tend to give each other stuff which does not create any additional happiness to us, does not create memories, doesn't have a long life feeling, and he wanted to change that. He wanted to create something meaningful, something that would connect people, and he came up with the idea that it's better to give each other experiences instead of old fashioned regular stuff, which usually doesn't give you any good. So this is how Tingli started and he wanted that those experiences would be handpicked and would be something extraordinary. So here we go today.
Speaker 3:Tingli is experienced gifting company. We are a global product. That means that the recipient can choose and do the experience in almost anywhere in the world. We sell bundle of experiences, so that means that the recipient has a full freedom to choose whatever they like to do. And maybe they prefer some soft kind of experiences like beer tasting, wine tasting, food tour or cooking class in Italy, or maybe they are more like adrenaline interested people and they would like to do some bungee jumping or just ski ride or something similar, and that oh yeah.
Speaker 2:No, what I love about this is fantastic. What I love about this is my wife and I, with our kids. Years ago, we decided not to do a lot of gifts Christmas and just do experiences. Yeah, they do get gifts, but we noticed, like in the first couple of years, there's just a bunch of gifts and then they burn through them and it's stuff that you can't take it with you. You're probably not going to remember it and you all have taken an idea like that. Like, instead of things like giving somebody a Starbucks gift card, which could be considered an experience, but really normally it's just a gift card to go get coffee and it's just a thing which is good rather than not getting anything right. So it's versus nothing. Okay, so I'd rather have the Starbucks gift card. But you're then saying there's no way of experiences Like the experience that you choose or that speaks to you.
Speaker 3:Exactly and we, all of the team and everyone associated with Thingley they actually believe the slogan they'll believe in and it says give stories, not stuff. We believe that experiences create stories, they create memories, they connect people, they bring you happiness and there is so much more value in just the regular stuff. And it's not easy because it's a cultural thing and it's not an easy thing to change, but it seems that in current years we see a major shift and especially after COVID-19, people really started to believe this and it seems that they want to spend more time with their loved ones, they want to spend their time wisely, they want to spend their time doing something meaningful. Yeah, so there's a bit of Thingley.
Speaker 2:Do you think COVID most of the people that have talked about COVID, or what people have learned from the pandemic is that people have reassessed life, they've reassessed work, they've reassessed marriages, they've reassessed all kinds of things in their life. Do you think that some of this is an outpouring of that, that I don't need a thing? I've been cooped up for three, two and a half years, whatever, and I want to experience life, because they've seen life be fleeting in a sense.
Speaker 3:I totally agree with this one and I think this is what is happening. It seems people want to live their lives now and they don't want to wait. I think everyone was very scared and they lost. Some of the families lost their loved ones, and it's a horrible thing and we always say there is not better timing than now.
Speaker 3:And that shift is happening right now and actually I'm very happy about it, not only because Thingley or completely separately as a person, I'm happy to see that people started to become conscious about what they do and how they spend their time, but they just want to improve it in a way. Yeah, but of course, we see a tendency and a shift in as a company as well, and we actually quite recently done a survey in the United States where we asked people about exactly about COVID-19, how they feel after COVID-19, what concerns they have and is there is any kind of shift in what they used to do and what they do now, and we got the results, which were shocking actually, and we were very pleased with that, because two thirds of the employees said that they would rather get an experience, get as an incentive over cash. So for us that was a very interesting finding, and we are very happy to see that the shift is happening already.
Speaker 2:So tell us a little bit about the buyer of these stories, not stuff. Who are we? Who's buying?
Speaker 3:All right. So we do have two sites. So we have B2C and B2B, let's say so. It's divided in two parts. So B2C is regular people who look for outstanding and extraordinary gift. It's actually usually women, because women tend to take care of gifts in their families and to buy those ones for their loved ones. But of course we have lots of men as our audience too and they tend to choose tingly on various occasions. Sometimes it's a Merry Christmas gift collection, sometimes it is happy birthday wishes, sometimes they choose wedding gift. Actually, our wedding gifts is one of the best sellers and it seems, especially on a wedding day, you want to give something for those people to remember, and they are usually going on a honeymoon and you can use tingly, as I said, locally or while traveling and while they are on a honeymoon.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we have various collections and those ones are dedicated for different occasions. And then there is B2B site. So we do a corporate gifting as well, and corporates and companies tend to choose us as an incentive for their employees. They want to create that connection and belonging feeling for their employees. Their employees would be happy and would spend more time with their loved ones or with their colleagues, and it really depends, but they tend to choose our gifts for retirement, gifts for recognition, for incentive, sometimes for prizes if they do some contest. Yeah, so it's a two-sided.
Speaker 2:I like that on the business side. So on the B2B side of things, is it the buyer being kind of total rewards? People that are historically looked at upon as the people that have bought not gifting platform but service awards and things like that, are those the folks that historically or historically, those are the folks that get the COMP benefits rewards, kind of total rewards? And some umbrella in the US. Again, it's different around the world, of course. Are those the folks, b2b-wise, that you're selling into? Is it more HR or is it operations, etc.
Speaker 3:It really depends, to be honest. But in the United States, yes, still, in most of the cases, it is HR People who are looking how to bring better benefits to the teams, to the employees, and they are looking for more creative ways. Sometimes we do have C-level managers or operational people who make the decision in that field, but in most of the cases it's HR.
Speaker 2:That's perfect. So tell me, I've always been curious about this. I know you get asked this a million different times in a week. But how does a company budget, or how do they assess what they should spend on their employees? And again, historically this has been on stuff, right, and you all are thinking more on how do we create experiences and stories, but it's still going to be a budget, still going to be a line item and Excel spreadsheet somewhere, right? So how do you guide people through the budgeting process?
Speaker 3:That's a very interesting question, to be honest, and I'm not really sure if I'm the best person to answer this, but through my experience with B2B cases and communication with HR people, yes, sometimes it's really hard to make. So, how much you're going to spend on your people and I always tell to explain them that you probably need to count how much it costs for you to renew one person, because if that person is going to leave that company, you will have to find another one. You have to do the training. You have to spend money while looking for them. It's going to take time until they're going to adjust, know the company and start to perform.
Speaker 3:And the turnovers are always the hardest part for any company in the world. And these days especially, it seems like money is not enough for the people. Of course it is very important, but it's not enough anymore. People looking for something bigger. They want to feel valid, they want to feel special and they want to have that special connection, connection with the company field belonging. So it's not I don't think it's as it used to be previously that it's all about making more money and getting a better career. Step. We see actually a different situation than people, especially now people prefer to work from home, they want to work remotely, they want to have more freedom. Sometimes even people look with their very good jobs and go to nowhere just because money is not enough anymore. They want something special. So I think companies have a hard time now with everything happening, and it's not an easy task to keep your employees happy and to keep them motivated and satisfied. And this is all. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I was just thinking about this is. It's funny because we think we've historically thought of recognition as a way of engaging people oh, you've done a wonderful job, here's this thing, here's this token, here's this gift, etc. And let's grown up through the years and some of those are pretty sophisticated, some of them are really nice gifts. Some of them might even be personalized to the person.
Speaker 2:This is different than that and it feels different than that, in the sense of this is actually a part of your retention strategy. So, looking at the lens of HR and the folks in total rewards, this is actually a different game. This is, yes, you're going to engage them and again acknowledge them from a recognition perspective, but you're going to give them something that they truly will remember like. You're creating a memory which is far more lasting, which I think there's more bang for the buck, if you will. So, for whatever your gifting budget was before, this is money better spent in creating memories and helping people create their own memories and memories that they want. So I guess that's something else that I really like about this strategy is they get to personalize. If it's bourbon tasting or whatever it is, they get to personalize it. I love that, if you don't mind, you did give a couple of examples at the beginning. I'd like to explore those without like company names or anything like that, but just like examples of like where you've seen people use this on the B2B side.
Speaker 2:And you just really like the examples of the experiences.
Speaker 3:All right. Yeah, we recently had quite a big order from one of the companies. Unfortunately, I cannot mention their name, but the company is operating worldwide and they have departments and headquarters. It is in the United States, but they have departments all over the world and for them it is pretty complicated and quite hard to manage all those people. It's very big company and they have lots of people working for them and those people have completely different needs. So if you're going to buy all of them the new mug let's say customized mug it might be a nice gift, but it's probably not going to create memories or, as we said, life lasting feeling.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And all of them are very different. So here comes the way we sell bundle of experiences. You can customize that collection. You can put your team's picture on on top of it. You can write your slogan instead of hours, if you prefer that Inside that collection. In most of the collections the recipient gets to choose from 400 till thousands and thousands experiences inside of it. That means someone working in Italy might prefer a pasta cooking class and someone I don't know working in in somewhere in Asia, let's say, they prefer to get a spa experience. It's especially hard then. Companies are big and then they have lots of people working for them and those people have different needs. So it's hard to come up with one gift unless that gift is that flexible and stingy.
Speaker 2:I love that. Okay, I would assume that when you show people, especially as head of growth, you show people a demo right Of software. What do you love to show people? Come ask you to pick your favorite thing in your software. I understand the difficulty of that, like when you just know when you get to this place in the software demo that your their eyes are going to light up because they've never seen anything like this.
Speaker 3:I think for people it's really important once they understand the benefit of what Tingly can bring. It's a global product. It has lots of flexibility, lots of choices for every taste. Let's say it doesn't have an expiration date and this was especially important during COVID or in general. You are not framed to do that experience in one year or in two years. You can do it whenever you like. So this is the part once people understand how flexible Tingly is and once they understand what benefit it brings as connecting people, creating memories, creating happiness in overall. It's really when the companies or the decision makers it seems like for them it's a shift in their heads. It seems like something they got to know, something really different. So I'm usually very happy about that part. I'm happy to tell them all the variations we can do and we generally do that from the idea that we want people just to be happy.
Speaker 2:I love that. Do they, especially compared to historical rewards and recognition software? Do they need Tingly to be tied to or integrated with any other systems that they have?
Speaker 3:Oh no. So no integration is needed. Basically, the company makes the order. They choose the specific collection they want. Sometimes we make to do customizations, let's say, if they say, okay so we have lots of people working in India, could you please make sure that everyone gets to choose lots of different experiences. So sometimes we even customize the collection in that way that we put more experiences in particular area and once they do, once they fully choose the collection they like, we make it fully customized and then we brand the box and then we ship that worldwide. The delivery options and the recipients in this case employees gets it and then they come to our website and you can not only buy Tingly collections on our website, but you can also redeem experiences on our website. So no additional integration is needed. It's pretty easy. We have a very good customer service. It always helps you with easy booking online and if you have any questions, they always here to help. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I love that Last question. It's about buying questions. The podcast is really trying to help practitioners understand what's out there hey, Tingly, the Tingly's of the world that are out there and also how to buy. So some of the things that I asked routinely is just like great buying questions. What do you love to on the B2B side, when you're talking to a prospect? What do you love to hear? What do you know?
Speaker 1:Okay, they get it.
Speaker 2:They understand what we do and they understand how this is different than things that they've potentially bought in the past, etc. So what are some great buying questions that you love?
Speaker 3:You mean asked by the corporate? Okay, interesting question. I'm not really sure if I have that one, but usually they already coming to the idea that I want something different for my employees. I want something different. I want for them to feel really appreciated and really valuable. I'm looking for that perfect solution and especially, as I mentioned, if you have a big company which is operated worldwide, they have different occasions and they just want to find that perfect solution.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're looking for something special because the same old things pre-COVID are going to work with employees and so they want something different and, again to your point, global, if they've got employees around the world, which now, because of remote work, most companies that pre-COVID didn't have employees around the world now do have employees around the world, which is great. But again, now that creates a different thing, because now recognition, in the way that we've historically looked at it, it was not just broken with stuff, it's also broken because we couldn't do this. So I can see them asking you we need something different, we need something to engage and retain, we want to make sure that we recognize people, but ultimately we want to create experiences.
Speaker 3:Exactly, I love it.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for your time. This has been wonderful. I absolutely love what you all do and it's needed. This is an a sometimes, often times you will see software that's searching for a problem. This is a real problem that people are having, especially in light of the great resignation quote unquote. So great work, wonderful business and thank you for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much, william, it was a pleasure.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and thanks for everyone listening to the use case podcast Until next time.