A member of the Chamber of Commerce Professionals group on Facebook wants to institute a Business Bingo game to provide additional interest to shop at member businesses. Each business would stamp or place a sticker on the card if the entrant made a purchase in their store. But how do you keep everyone honest? The chamber of commerce pros had a few ideas.
Keeping Business Bingo Honest
While you don’t want to think about it, whenever you’re running an incentive to award someone for a particular action you have to think about how someone could get around the system. In this case, if you have businesses stamp or place a sticker on the bingo card how do you keep people honest and not have them “punch” their own cards?
One chamber professional suggested giving each business a different type of stickers — one smiley faces, one stars, etc. The chamber did a similar week-long scavenger hunt and didn’t run into any fraud issues. For chambers that were worried about fraud, you could double check that each sticker was one of the kinds you gave that particular business.
Audrey Null from the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce ordered a variety of stamps from Oriental Trading Company. They were inexpensive and she didn’t have any problems with dishonesty.
The Wyoming County Chamber of Commerce had another solution to guard against fraud — requiring receipts.
With today’s graphic capabilities, it’s also easy enough and inexpensive to make your own stickers. One chamber professional shared that they made them for each business using the business logo. You could do this by obtaining the logo art and printing them off on label paper or any paper with adhesive backing.
Have you ever run a punch-card, bingo, or stamp program at your chamber? If so, share your insights about keeping everyone honest on the original thread in the Chamber of Commerce Professionals Group.
