LOYALITY CARDS

PROPOSAL FOR
SMART CARD BASED LOYALTY CARDS

INTRODUCTION

More and more companies are nowadays paying greater attention to various innovative customer relationship management (CRM) programmes. Investment in technologies that improve levels of customer intimacy and satisfaction are key to the growth of any type of business in the modern world. Loyalty cards are one of the attractive CRM strategies to acquire and retain customers for a business group. The Loyalty programmes offer reductions, gifts and freebies to customers by judging their buying activity.

The Personalized smart loyalty card ushers in the next generation of loyalty programs. With loyalty point and customer data loaded in their memory, these cards can be used to better judge the buying activities and buying tastes of the customer. Also, such cards do not depend on a back-end or an elaborate network to operate. This also makes the loyalty program outlet neutral and hence operable across locations, across programs and across outlets.

Smart Cards

Smartcards are credit card sized plastic cards that embed a microcontroller chip and memory into them. Smart cards can store various types of data like personal information, cash balance etc. and these data can be read using special instruments called card readers. Typically, the card readers will be connected to a PC. The data read by the reader is passed to the computer for further analysis and processing.

Two different flavours of Smart Cards are available – Contact and Contact less. In Contact type, you need to insert or swipe the card to the reader for reading/writing. Contact less smart card works on wireless technology and just showing it in front of the reader is enough to read the card.

Smart Loyalty Cards - How It Works

Relevant personal details of the potential customer such as name, place etc. are collected and fed in to PC.
These information are then stored into a smartcard based loyalty card using the PC, Card reader and special software
The company issues the smart card based loyalty card to the customer when he does a purchase from the shop/retail outlet
For every purchase made by the customer there after, a relevant entry is stored onto the card at the time of billing
So the loyalty card will have relevant personal as well as buying details such as points that has been acquired by the customer
When the customer approaches any of the outlets of the company, he/she will present the card to the sales manager. Just by reading the card, the manager will get all the relevant information of the customer on his PC screen.
The software in the PC analyzes the data in the smart card and determines the reductions and other benefits that has to be offered to the customer depending on the points acquired by the customer
Since all buying history and accumulated points are recorded in the loyalty card itself, any branch or retail outlet of the company can serve the customer with out the need of any type of networks

Main Attractions

Efficient way to identify potential customers and to analyze their buying habits and tastes
Flexibility to change loyalty programs easily
Investments in acquiring and maintaining 24-hour network connectivity is avoided
Flexibility to offer various loyalty programs on the same card, multiple partitions on the card allow data to be kept secure from each other
Cost-effective, efficient and uses state of the art technology
Efficient and user friendly software
Customized reports to analyze various influential factors like buying habits of the customers

How It Will Improve Your Business

Customer acquisition is improved by differentiating your services from competitors
With loyalty cards in their wallets, your customers are more likely to choose your company the next time they make a purchase
Based on past purchasing behavior, personalized electronic coupon or loyalty programs help improve customer retention and spending.
Customers can be informed about new arrivals on their interested products/ brands.
Acknowledge frequent visits and award points to your customers according to their level of spending in your business.
Smart card technology can benefit both of you: Offer your customers product discounts and points toward merchandise, and record valuable data about their buying preferences at the same time.

Smart Loyalty Cards allow the customer to walk in to any of the outlets/branches of the company any where in the world and make purchases

Components of Loyalty Card System

Hardware

Card readers
Smart Cards
PCs

Software:

A custom made software to read and write the loyalty cards
The software also provide various types of reports to analyze the buying activities and trends

Additional Features

The loyalty card can be easily upgraded to Pre-paid Purchase Cards, where the customer can pay an amount in advance to recharge the purchase card. The card may be later used to pay for the purchases made by him in any of the branches/outlets of the company worldwide.

Altersoft Technologies
Email: altersoftindia@gmail.com