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customer story
How does external recognition work?
External recognition extends appreciation beyond employees to the customers, fans, and community members who experience an organization's work firsthand. See how the Utah Jazz lets fans publicly recognize staff during games via video board shout-outs.
How It Works
What is External Recognition?
Provide customer-facing roles with customer-sourced compliments.
Administrative Flexibility
External recognition made easy
Awardco makes it easy to source and display recognitions from satisfied customers.
Outside parties scan an employee’s personalized code to recognize them instantly for the entire organization to see.
Add simple approval flows and optional points to celebrate standout employees to make sure no good work goes unnoticed.
Only From Awardco
Where External Recognition works
After receiving outstanding care, a patient’s family scans the nurse’s QR code and shares a meaningful message—instantly visible on Awardco to all employees—inspiring better care everywhere.
After great service, diners scan a QR code and leave recognition for their server. Their manager adds points, and it’s posted for the team to celebrate, encouraging continued spectacular service.
A simple thank you from a student shows a teacher their extra effort mattered. Recognition that deepens connection and fuels engagement from student and teacher builds a better world for everyone.
A grateful customer scans a QR code to recognize a cashier’s friendly service. It’s instant, visible, and celebrated company-wide, which builds a culture of customer service that will set you apart.
After a technician finishes a job with care and professionalism, the homeowner scans a QR code to send recognition. The shoutout is instantly visible across the company, boosting pride and inspiring service excellence in every home.
Testimonials
What our customers say
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Who can submit an External Recognition?
External Recognition is designed for people outside an organization who want to recognize an employee or team member. Depending on the use case, submitters may include patients, family members, customers, partners, visitors, students, residents, or other members of the community.
Organizations can use External Recognition to make it easier for people who interact with frontline and service teams to recognize employees for outstanding work.
Is External Recognition a review or feedback form, or is it specifically for recognizing employees?
External Recognition is primarily designed to recognize employees—not to replace a formal review, complaint, survey, or Net Promoter Score process.
Organizations can configure the experience with prompts that help an external person describe what the employee did well. If an organization also needs to collect broader feedback, it can link to or place the recognition experience alongside an existing survey or customer-feedback workflow.
Can someone submit recognition without an Awardco account or login?
Yes. External submitters can typically use a public link or QR code without creating an Awardco account or signing in.
Organizations can place these links and codes in locations such as signage, surveys, discharge materials, email communications, badges, posters, or other customer-facing touchpoints. The goal is to make recognition easy for people who do not use the organization’s internal systems.
How does the submitter identify the correct employee?
Organizations can choose the approach that best fits their environment.
A general link or QR code can allow the submitter to search for or enter an employee’s name, department, location, or other identifying information. Organizations can also provide personal links or QR codes that take the submitter directly to a specific employee’s recognition form.
Employee-directory data and configured search fields can help route recognition accurately, especially when multiple employees have similar names. The available options depend on the organization’s setup and the employee data provided to Awardco.
Can we use one general QR code, or does every employee need a personal QR code?
Both approaches may be available.
A general QR code or link can work well for broad distribution across locations, signage, surveys, or shared customer touchpoints. Personal links or QR codes can take a submitter directly to a specific employee, which can reduce confusion and make recognition easier to attribute.
Organizations can choose a combination of general, department-specific, location-specific, or employee-specific links based on how they want to distribute External Recognition.
What happens after someone submits a recognition?
Organizations can configure an approval process so designated reviewers can review submissions before they are shared with employees or displayed in a recognition feed.
Approvers may be able to determine whether a recognition is public or private, route it to the appropriate manager or review group, and decide whether it should result in an award or points. Notifications to recipients and reviewers can also be configured based on the organization’s workflow.
Whether the external submitter receives a confirmation or follow-up notification depends on the organization’s configuration.
Can External Recognition protect privacy and moderate sensitive content?
Yes. Organizations can configure External Recognition around their privacy, compliance, and moderation requirements.
Common controls include anonymous submissions, configurable questions, approval before publication, public or private visibility, and routing to designated reviewers. For healthcare and other privacy-sensitive use cases, organizations may also use safeguards designed to identify and remove sensitive information before a submission is shared.
The specific controls and review process depend on the organization’s configuration, policies, and applicable requirements.
Can External Recognition connect to our existing surveys, employee directory, HRIS, or other workflows—and how is it priced?
External Recognition can be linked from existing customer or patient-survey workflows, and organizations may use employee-directory or HRIS data to help identify eligible employees and route submissions.
Organizations can also connect the experience to broader recognition and employee-engagement processes, such as internal awards or manager review workflows. The available integration method depends on the organization’s systems and implementation requirements.
Pricing, minimums, program limits, and packaging depend on the organization’s employee population, use cases, and desired scope. Awardco can confirm the applicable package and implementation requirements during the evaluation process.
