Monthly Archives: October 2012

How Apple Passbook affects your Loyalty Program

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When Apple announced its new Passbook feature with the new iPhone5 and iOS6, it was obvious that it was going to have an unprecedented impact on the way loyalty programs and mobile phones play together, especially considering the sheer scale of the Apple iPhone/iOS universe.

 

The One Passbook To Rule Them All: Apple has created a central repository where all of a customer’s loyalty cards, tickets, and boarding passes can reside, and make it very easy to find them, and use them at the cash registers. The Passbook is not a stored value card – and Apple has not followed Google and others on the NFC Bandwagon. This could be due to security flaws found in most NFC implementations, but also for the additional complexity of hardware that can read NFC. Basic information is available on the front of the passbook, but more information can be seen on the back by tapping the information button. Terms and Conditions can also be maintained and accessed easily.

 

Loyalty Cards: Your Customers can now download your own loyalty cards from a link they receive from any mode of communication (Email, Text, Social) right onto their iPhone. The layout of the card can be customized based on Apple’s specifications, including the pictures, colors, and the fields that are shown on the front and the back.

 

Coupons and Offers: Individual Passbook cards can also be created for Coupons and Special Offers/Gift Cards apart from Loyalty Points. The same can be downloaded from a link, and redeemed through a barcode or QR Code.

 

Push Notifications: Once downloaded, points and other details can be updated through push notifications enabling far greater engagement – the moment a customer gets more points, they will get a notification, and they even view updated information about their program, or get a notification when there’s an offer for them etc.

 

Geo-Fencing: Passbook automatically maintains a set of locations most relevant to a particular card, and it surfaces up when you cross one of those locations. This virtual location awareness is called “geo-fencing” – and is become quite popular as a way to excite customers to come into the stores with special offers when they are around. Due to the prevalence of iPhone, it is expected that Passbook could easily be the most common geo-fencing application.

 

Unprecedented Engagement: Most retail mobile applications see far less engagement than we would like – and Passbook will change that. It is automatically available for all iOS 6 (iPhone 3GS and above). The fact that there are an estimated 7 Million iPhone devices active in the U.S. alone will have a tremendous impact on its adoption and engagement.

 

The obvious implications for retailers is that, the now quintessential iPhone will evolve into a key component of their loyalty/customer engagement strategy. This strategy will be driven by ‘Social’, ‘Local’ and with the last mile delivery, over ‘Mobile’ – and the prevalence of the iPhone will mean that this will happen at a scale not seen before.

 

Apple Passbook integration is already available with Capillary at no additional cost.

Capillary Congratulates Raymond on Winning ‘Asia’s Best Customer Loyalty Program’

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Raymond’s Premium Loyalty and Rewards Program – Raymond Rewards – powered by Capillary now benefits over 1.3 Million Shoppers

 

Capillary Technologies, a leading provider of cloud-based software solutions that help retailers to intelligently engage with customers through mobile, social and in-store channels, congratulates Raymond Retail for being named as the winner of  Asia’s Best Customer Loyalty Program at the Asian Retail Leadership Awards held recently in Dubai. The Awards recognize the achievements of Asia’s leading business visionaries across the retail industry and honor their contributions toward the region’s economic development.

 

The Raymond Shop is a premium retail store offering complete wardrobe solutions for men which includes top-of-the-line brands – Raymond, Raymond Premium Apparel, Park Avenue, ColorPlus, and Parx. The Raymond Shop has been a pioneer in organized retailing in the country starting around five decades ago. Their wide reach and range of products makes it the largest one stop retail network in the country.

 

Through the Raymond Shop network, Raymond Retail drives and manages a powerful customer engagement program to delight its customers at every interaction—from registration to rewards. Raymond’s “Premium Circle” customer loyalty and rewards program runs across its 650 stores—90% of which are franchise owned – engaging 1.3 million consumers in total. Premium Circle members benefit from preferential customer service, great rewards, cross-industry partnerships and real-time relevant & personalized offers. With simple signup, low entry level thresholds and a superior brand experience, more than 60% of customers every month get signed up for the Raymond Rewards program. Raymond’s Premium Circle program leverages cloud, mobile and real-time analytics of Capillary’s InTouch solution to deliver accelerated value to its customers and to close the loop on customer loyalty and business growth.

 

“Our rewards program has been purpose-built completely from the consumer perspective,” said Mrinmoy Mukherjee, Director, India Marketing & Global Business Head for The Raymond Shops network. “In the highly competitive apparel industry, we have significantly increased bonding with our customers by establishing one-to-one relationships.  Our Premium Circle loyalty program is at the core of this strategy and our customers are delighted with the focused attention on their purchase needs, likes and tastes.” Raymond continues to operate one of the largest specialty retail networks in the textile and apparel space with over 700 retail stores covering over 1.5 million square feet of retail space including over 40 stores in the Middle East and SAARC region. “We will continue to increase our retail foray to cater to the buoyant consumer sentiment.” concludes Mrinmoy.

 

“Raymond has been successful in transforming and taking customer loyalty and engagement to a level where a majority of their customers have embraced their Premium Circle program,” said Aneesh Reddy, CEO at Capillary Technologies.  “Raymond has proved itself to be a visionary and customer focused leader in the retail industry and we extend our sincere congratulations to them on being selected for the Best Customer Loyalty program at the Asian Retail Leadership Awards.”