Awardco is excited to talk about one of our features: External Recognition! Vendors, clients, customers, patients, or partners—can recognize the people inside your organization.

Awardco is at the forefront of this shift, pioneering a scalable, branded approach connecting employees with the people they serve daily. 

This feature provides another way to boost morale and extend recognition to your most valuable asset—your team.

What is external recognition in general terms? 

External recognition is recognition from customers, clients, patients, or other stakeholders, such as retail workers, nurses, mechanics, food service workers, customer service representatives, etc. 

Awardco’s External Recognition feature makes it easy for third parties to directly and digitally recognize your employees. It’s one of the best ways companies can implement external recognition to boost employee morale and engagement at scale.

External recognition vs. public recognition

It’s easy to confuse external recognition with public recognition, but they serve different purposes:

• External recognition comes directly from people outside your organization, customers, clients, partners, or visitors, who want to thank or celebrate your employees for their great work.

• Public recognition, on the other hand, is about visibility. It happens when achievements are shared broadly—across your organization, on social platforms, or even in the press. This is one of the most effective formats for public recognition in large organizations, especially if you’re looking to amplify great work to external audiences. 

These two often overlap. External recognition moments can become powerful public recognition stories. For example, when a customer’s appreciation post goes viral or is featured in your company’s newsletter. Together, they strengthen both employee morale and your employer brand.

External Recognition:

• Recognizer: Customers, clients, partners, visitors
• Purpose: Directly thank or celebrate customer-facing employees
• Overlap: Can become public recognition when shared internally

Public Recognition:

• Recognizer: Internal teams, leadership, managers
• Purpose: Highlight achievements for wide visibility
• Overlap: External Recognition stories can be amplified publicly

Who is External Recognition for?

In short, External Recognition is for any industry or organization with customer-facing employees. Industries that benefit most from public recognition and external feedback include:

• Healthcare
• Food service
• Entertainment
• Service industries
• Retail
• Automotive repair
• And so much more

How does Awardco’s External Recognition feature work?

After a customer, patient, or other visitor interacts with one of your employees, they can get on your Awardco platform to recognize that individual.

For example, if a patient visits the doctor and has a great experience with their nurse, they can scan the QR code on the back of the door and type a quick message thanking the nurse for their care.

Here’s an in-depth look at how this feature works from the admin side:

• Determine who is eligible for External Recognition based on roles, location, or other metadata.
• Create forms to prompt the type of recognition and feedback you want from outside parties.
• Determine which points, rewards, and budgets are attached to the program.
• Add approval flows to monitor the program’s content and reports.
• Make custom QR codes and employee URL links available where third parties will see them—all they have to do is scan or click to start recognizing.
• Celebrate your team and reinforce value by showcasing the amazing recognitions that come in.

Explore why HR admins find Awardco to be valuable

Launching a scalable External Recognition program

A successful External Recognition program isn’t just about collecting compliments—it’s about creating a structured system that amplifies appreciation across your organization. It should naturally evolve as your team grows.

Therefore, we encourage you to create a plan for launching a scalable External Recognition program that aligns with your branding. Achieving this is simple when you follow five steps:

1. Define goals and KPIs: Decide what success looks like: retention, morale, or customer NPS.
2. Align recognition with brand values: Ensure every recognition moment reflects your company’s culture and values.
3. Choose recognition channels: Use QR codes, personal links, and digital feeds to make recognition easy and visible.
4. Implement with Awardco: Automate workflows and integrations for seamless management.
5. Measure ROI: Track engagement, impact, and overall success using analytics.

Leveraging Awardco makes External Recognition programs easily scalable:

• Branded, global, and automated: Consistent experiences across teams and locations
• Flexible and compliant: Adaptable for any industry while meeting enterprise compliance requirements
• Smart and manageable: AI moderation and admin workflows make scaling effortless

Learn more about our External Recognition platform.

Intuitive capabilities of Awardco’s External Recognition

We’ve built this feature to be easy to use and expansive in capabilities. Below are some of the most notable.

Enhanced With AI

Awardco AI will automatically flag inappropriate or personally identifying information, streamlining approvals and maintaining security.

Segment By Location

Segment recognitions from third parties by location, which makes it simple to identify and disseminate any recognition, including ones not tied to a specific employee.

Admin Approval

Admins have full control to approve, decline, edit, or even add additional points or rewards to an external recognition before anyone else sees it.

Who Is External Recognition For?

In short, External Recognition is for any industry or organization with customer-facing employees. Some of these include:

• Healthcare
• Food service
• Entertainment
• Service industries
• Retail
• Automotive repair
• And so much more

How the External Recognition feature can come to life for your workforce

External Recognition can easily become part of your everyday operations and can empower your employees in the process. Here are five examples that illustrate how you can implement External Recognition.

1. External Recognition in Healthcare

A nervous patient goes to the hospital and is treated so well by their nurse that they feel more relaxed and confident that they’ll get the care they need. When they leave, they scan the QR code in the room, and type a message of gratitude to the nurse. The nurse, in turn, feels gratified that their efforts are being noticed.

2. External Recognition in Food Service

A waitress has a busy night serving full tables during the dinner rush. She does her best to maintain her friendly attitude, despite the stress. After her shift, she gets an SMS notification and sees that two families she served recognized her via the Awardco QR code at her table for her good attitude and friendly help.

3. External Recognition in Retail

An employee at a large grocery store gets asked to help someone find a specific item. They happily stop what they’re doing and direct the customer to what they need, and then get on with their day. Later, their manager pulls them aside to show them a recognition from a happy customer, thanking them for their help.

4. External Recognition in education

A student thanks their teacher for going the extra mile on a lesson or project. The student sends a note of thanks via a personalized link, and the teacher gets notified of the recognition through the Awardco platform. The instructor feels motivated to continue positively impacting the classroom.

Education company Southern Oregon Head Start is a great example of branded external recognition campaigns that have improved retention and recruitment. Thanks to External Recognition, the company decreased annual attrition by 82% and generated over 8X ROI. 

“If we retain a teacher, that’s 20 students we get to serve. Going from 45% turnover to 8% means we’ve kept 85-90 more staff. That’s an incredible impact on both our children and our budget.”

—Amber Lease, Human Resource Director, Southern Oregon Head Start

5. External Recognition in home services 

After a technician completes a job with care and professionalism, the homeowner scans a QR code to send a recognition message. The technician sees the acknowledgment immediately, boosting pride and encouraging consistent service excellence across the team.

Explore customer success stories.

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Why external recognition matters

Recognition is essential for every employee, whether they work behind a desk, in the field, or directly with customers. Yet for many organizations, building a culture of appreciation, especially across different roles and environments, has been a challenge.

Consider the facts. Research notes that frontline and deskless employees do not feel valued enough:

• 33% of frontline workers express that the lack of recognition and rewards is why they would leave their jobs. 55% express that they are not satisfied with their work experience.
• Only half of deskless employees receive recognition.

Awardco’s External Recognition feature fixes this. It injects your recognition program with a holistic lens, ensuring no good deed goes unnoticed. It expands appreciation beyond internal teams to include feedback and gratitude from customers, clients, and partners.

After all, as Gallup reports, one of the most memorable recognitions comes from a customer. 

Below are just some of the benefits you can expect from External Recognition:

• Boosts employee morale, engagement, and retention by showing them that their contributions are noticed and valued.
• Allows you to collect, organize, and share recognitions for employees who may not be recognized often otherwise.
• Gives admins and leaders more visibility into the health of your culture and the performance of your people.
• Improves stakeholder relationships by showing that your organization values customer feedback.
• Strengthen stakeholder relations by involving clients in the recognition process.

Comparing the ROI of external recognition vs. internal-only recognition

To understand the true impact of external recognition, it helps to compare it with internal-only approaches.

While internal-only recognition strengthens team bonds and boosts productivity, external recognition adds a holistic dimension. It brings appreciation full circle by including those your employees serve. It’s not simply validation but visible proof that their work matters. 

• Internal-only recognition: Enhances team cohesion, engagement, and reinforces positive behaviors and outcomes
• External recognition: Expands inclusivity, morale, and purpose through third-party validation, an invaluable extension to your recognition program

When team members see that their actions are actually making a difference, it’s a powerful source of motivation and fulfillment. After all, when nearly 70% of employees express “that their sense of purpose is defined by work,” you might as well do your part to deliver this. 

Supporting data:

• According to Gallup, employees who receive high-quality recognition are “45% less likely to have changed organizations two years later.”
• Those who receive recognition that satisfies at least one of the 5 pillars of quality recognition (expectations, authenticity, personalization, equity, or culture) are 2.9 times more likely to be engaged compared to team members who earn recognition that does not fall under any of those categories.

Awardco seamlessly integrates both internal and external recognition, enabling organizations to:

• Foster a culture of appreciation that resonates both within and outside the organization.
• Enhance engagement and retention through comprehensive recognition strategies.
• Strengthen employer branding by showcasing authentic customer endorsements.

Ask about External Recognition

This outside-in method of recognizing not only improves your internal culture and the employee experience—it also improves your organization’s relationship with customers, partners, and more. 

‍Schedule a demo to learn more about this feature or talk to your CSM to ask about the implementation process.