© 2014. All Rights Reserved.

CUSTOMER LOVE GOES MOBILE

1 // CUSTOMER LOVE GOES MOBILE

The fight for sustainable customer relationships is moving to mobile devices, which means choosing the right mobile payment and loyalty platform for your brand is one of the most important decisions you will make. The number of options can be overwhelming. What follow are some considerations that can help you choose a mobile platform best aligned to your business.

2 // ANALYTICS

Look beyond the laundry list of data capture and reporting capabilities – consider which platform offers reporting that helps build strong relationships. Home Zip code data can influence local media choices. A look at time of purchase, tied to specific SKUs, can help with inventory control and product flow. Similarly, reports should be easy to access and reflect what the business needs to monitor, not what the system is capable of monitoring.

3 // COSTS

The fees a vendor charges, whether for processing payments or any other functions, shouldn’t destroy margins

4 // CUSTOMIZATION

The system should be able to reflect your brand. At a minimum, it should acknowledge your customers as yours, and not as (or as well as) participants in a third-party program.

5 // DATA

The data points captured by the system should be granular and relevant. Marketers should clearly define who has access to information captured by the system – especially if the system is part of a multi-vendor program and other merchants might have access to your data, even on an aggregated level.

6 // FACILITY

The point-of-sale system should be intuitive. A new employee should be able to pick it up easily, and not get flustered when dealing with a line of impatient customers.

7 // FLEXIBILITY

A vendor should be willing to provide access to the system away from the valuable space at the checkout counter, if appropriate to the business model.

8 // GEOGRAPHY

If appropriate to your business, the system should support maps and direction capabilities

9 // GRAPHICS

For some industries, such as floral, real estate, and travel, high-res images are essential. Systems should support these images as appropriate.

10 // INTEGRATION

The system should seamlessly tie in with inventory, marketing, advertising, financial, and other functions as desired.

11 // INTERFACE

The mobile experience is a speed experience, and the point-of-sale experience is even faster. The user interface should be easy to use for both customers and merchants, and should meet the marketer’s goals – purchase, order placement, information, or whatever else – with a minimum of clicks or scrolling. Always remember that the mobile experience is vastly different from the web experience.

12 // LOCATION

Even companies that don’t currently run location-based campaigns should have the option of quickly ramping up these types of efforts. The ability to awaken need in potential customers when they are near an establishment is one of the unique features of mobile marketing.

13 // LOYALTY

Mobile systems should reflect every aspect of preexisting loyalty programs, from points accumulation to redemption to account access. Third-party aggregators should effortlessly feed their information right into loyalty program data repositories – and any other systems deemed appropriate.

14 // MARKETING

The system should support the types of channels appropriate to the business, including email, SMS, and telephone. All relevant information (not just contact data) from it should flow effortlessly into the campaign management system, if that system is not part of the vendor’s offering.

15 // SECURITY

Whether PIN-enabled, biometric, or security coded, customer information – especially if it is tied to their money – must be secure. Few people can identify the underlying software vendor from the most publicized data breaches.

For a deeper look at mobile payment and loyalty marketing, read “Going Mobile” on

www.aimiainstitute.com

© 2014. All Rights Reserved.