LOYALTY
ON THE MOVE
TECHNOLOGY CAN MAKE IT EASIER TO GIVE CUSTOMERS WHAT THEY WANT, AND TO BUILD ROBUST LOYALTY PROGRAMMES. MANDY COLLINS LOOKS AT THE IMPACT OF MOBILE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL MEDIA ON LOYALTY AND REWARDS PROGRAMMES, AND HOW COMPANIES CAN MAKE IT WORK FOR THEM.
W ithout a strong mobile component, your rewards programme will be left behind – that’ s the word from those in the know. It’ s the way the world is going. Mobile phones are all pervasive – you can barely go anywhere without witnessing every other person intently focused on a small illuminated rectangle.
And then there is the recent phenomenon of Pokémon Go, which has demonstrated how effective gaming and gamification could be if well harnessed. Indeed, a growing number of astute businesses across the world are jumping on the Pokémon Go bandwagon and rewarding Pokémon hunters( or“ trainers”, as they’ re called)
with discounts and the like when they stop by and lift their heads from their phones long enough to purchase goods or services.
Mobile phones have long since ceased to be just phones. In fact, few people use them as phones at all. And with the advent of apps such as SnapScan and Zapper, payment by mobile phone is starting to gain ground.
“ Payments are already moving to mobile devices,” says David de Coning, chief executive of Crossgate Technologies.“ Over the next 20 years, we foresee that there will be no such thing as a card in your wallet – you will use your phone to pay for everything.
“ Phones are going to become trusted payment devices, just as cards currently are. Cards with chips have some pretty sophisticated technology, but you can’ t do more than pay with them. A mobile device, however, is really a super computer – it has enormous power. So alongside payments, brands are asking: what else can we do? You can make the whole experience more interactive.”
De Coning points out that phones can be tracked and traced. You can see the exact location of the device. So if you can speak to the device, you can send offers straight to it, in real time, to exactly where the customer is at that precise moment. It all depends on how you use the data that comes back to you from your loyalty and rewards programme.
“ Our view is that over time, big data will tell brands how their customers move around, which banks they use and so on,” he continues.“ We’ ll know more about customers because of
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